Mad Artist: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

The right-brain equivalent to the [[Mad Scientist]] and [[Mad Doctor]]. May work in any medium, but the subject is almost always evil. He may make statues by dipping live people in concrete (or [[Wax Museum Morgue|wax]]), he may redecorate other people's houses with explosives, he may try to get the perfect ending to his [[Locked Room Mystery|murder mystery novel]] by starting a real murder mystery. The unifying thread is that he always sees a few incidental deaths as meaningless compared to the eternal majesty of his masterpieces.

This character's motivation and descent into madness may be similar to [[They Called Me Mad|his scientist counterpart]], caused by a shunning from the community or a dismissal of his work as too crazy or [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|unorthodox]].

 

 

{{examples}}

* The ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' series is full of these: the musician whose music drives people crazy, the dollmaker who uses human skin in his creations, and a whole cult that revolves around using the body parts of women in artistic arrangements... among others.

* Deidara from ''[[Naruto]]'' makes frequent references to his "[[Mad Bomber|explosive]]" art, even affirming once in the manga that he doesn't do pop-art, he does [[wikipedia:Superflat|superflat]].

* ''[[Vampire Princess Miyu]]'' fought one of these in the second episode - the shinma Roh-Sha, who sought to eternally capture the beauty of women, by [[Fate Worse Than Death|freezing them in time and dressing them up]]. The fact that the women apparently [[And I Must Scream|remained completely conscious of their paralyzed plight]], just added to the sheer madness of his 'gallery', as their muted whimpering resounded through the dark halls...

* ''[[MPD Psycho]]'' features a serial killer ''architect'' who employs "human planters" to perfect the landscaping around the buildings he designs. He literally grows plants inside the brains of girls he kidnaps, then plants the whole body, with the plant growing out of the top of the head.

* Mr. 3, high-ranking member of Baroque Works from [[One Piece]], had the ability to emit wax from his body and used it to [[Wax Museum Morgue|entrap victims in interesting poses]] in the name of art. Similarly, his partner, Miss Goldenweek, would then paint the resulting statues. She also used her paints to create "color traps" in order to emotionally control and manipulate victims.

* Ena of ''[[Shikabane Hime]]'' was a mentally unstable portrait painter in life; in death, [[Viewer Gender Confusion|he]] exists only to create incredible beauty. Pity he's utterly deranged about it.

* Any time Hideshi Hino [[Author Avatar|"hosts"]] one of his semi-autobiographical manga stories. The titular ''Panorama of Hell'' (as well as the rest of his paintings) is painted with the artist's own blood while his inspiration comes from the refuse and bloated animal (and occasionally human) corpses in the nextdoor River of Hell. While Hino's real life childhood probably wasn't as bad as described (for instance, it's doubtful his grandmother actually became a chicken), it obviously wasn't very nice either.

** In the [[Tim Burton]] [[Batman (film)|movie]] he describes himself as a homicidal artist. He shows a perverse delight in Vicki Vale's graphic war photos, telling her that she gives it all such a glow. She is definitely not appreciative of the "living work of art" that he shows off to her (Alicia, Jack Napier's girlfriend, who has been physically and emotionally scarred such that she has to wear a mask as a result of what the Joker did to her).

*** His minions join in, splattering paint on works of art in a museum gallery and otherwise being creatively destructive. [[The Dragon]] even takes this a step further, slashing open canvases with a sword - until the Joker stops him, [[Even Evil Has Standards|admitting that he "kind of likes" one of the paintings]]. The premise is [[Refuge in Audacity|so absurd]] that it's hard to tell if the Joker truly believes that he and his men are "improving" the artistic pieces or if he [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|just wants to destroy everything in sight out of bitterness at his own disfigurement]].

* In [[The DCU]], Thanagarian artists often complete their "life's work" by killing themselves and a lot of innocent people with them.

* The titular character from ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' is implied to have once been a rather talented artist who lost his creativity, and subsequently went completely insane.

** There's also Jhonen Vasquez, the creator of Johnny. While not nearly as psychotic as his creation, he does have hypnophobia, and throws around terms such as "Moose", "Meat", and "Chihuahua" in his creations. Of course, there's also the matter of [[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac|what he has]] [[Invader Zim|created]]

* Arthur "Art Dekko" Dekker from ''[[Zot]]'' goes crazy as his body is [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|replaced with robotic components]], with his artistic vision crossing the line into outright hallucination.

* In Grant Morrison's ''[[Animal Man]]'' run, one story had an alien artist from Hawkman's world, who created an orb that displayed psychic images from his life. The psychic output is strong enough to threaten the world.

* Then there's King Mob's gang in ''[[The Invisibles]]'' (also by Grant Morrison)

* The protagonist of ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' obsessively builds more and more elaborate sculptures of a mysterious mountain as the rest of his life falls apart.

* The villain in ''Freaked'' manages to combine this and [[For Science!]]. He uses his "TastyFreekz Machine" to create concoctions that horribly (and ridiculously) mutate people, because he sees it as an art form.

* In ''House of 1,000 Corpses,'' Otis B. Driftwood uses his abductees' bodies to make tableau-sculptures. And rants impressively at them about being an Artist in Torment.

* In ''[[Kick-Ass]]'', the [[Anti-Hero]] Big Daddy could be considered one. In the apartment where he and [[Cute Bruiser|Hit Girl]] live, one of the walls is [[Room Full of Crazy|covered in]] comic-book villain style pictures of the [[Big Bad]]. His obsession with vengeance is not unwarranted, as the man had [[Complete Monster|framed Big Daddy as a drug dealer, putting him in jail for 5 years, which]] [[Dead Little Sister|drove his pregnant wife to suicide.]]

* The film ''[[Stranger Than Fiction]]'' plays with this, and splits it into two parts. Karen Eiffel, the author, isn't ''aware'' that the protagonist of her tragedy is going to die in real life, but she certainly acts a bit Mad, loitering in the emergency room of a hospital and complaining that nobody's dying; another character who's a fan of hers fits the "sees life as incidental next to Art" bit, advising the hero not to try to avert his doom because it makes ''such a good story''. {{spoiler|He actually manages to persuade him, but the author changes her mind and lets him live.}}

* Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in ''[[Perfume]]'' has a superhuman sense of smell, but no scent of his own. Believing that "the soul of beings is their scent," he decides to create the perfect perfume by capturing and combining the scents of beautiful young women. It turns out that he must kill the women in order to capture their scent, turning his artistic quest into a murder spree.

** Another example of the fashion designer variety: Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmatians thought that designing and wearing a coat made of a hundred dead puppies would be absolutely fabulous.

* Inverted by [[Self-Made Orphan]] Benjamin Pierce in ''[[Scanners]]'':

* ''[[The Truman Show]]'''s Christof is far more concerned about his reputation as an artistic boundary-pushing genius director than about the ethics of never letting someone know that his entire life is televised for the world's entertainment.

* The main character in Roger Corman's ''[[Bucket Of Blood]]'' gains recognition in the Beatnik art community with a dead cat covered in clay. He works his way up from there...

* Antonio, the brilliant flamenco dancer and choreographer in Carlos Saura's ''Carmen,'' becomes obsessed with the young woman dancing the lead in his new production, ''Carmen.'' Her name? Carmen. Let's just say that [[Life Imitates Art]].

* Evelyn from ''The Shape of Things'':

* ''[[Cecil B. Demented]]'' and the Sprocket Holes.

* Jimmy in ''[[Art School Confidential]]''. {{spoiler|He paints pictures of his murder victims and incorporates mementoes he took from the actual body.}}

* David Wingrove's [[Chung Kuo]] series of novels has Ben Sheppard, a schizophrenic genius who straddles the line between [[For Science!]] and [[For Art]]. He throws himself into improving his new virtual reality artistic medium [[While Rome Burns|while civilization is tearing itself apart]], sees a bandit raid as a chance to improve his artistic skills by observing their slaughter, and openly scoffs at the idealistic goals of his more outward-looking counterpart Kim Ward.

* In [[Susan Cooper]]'s young-adult fantasy novel ''[[The Dark Is Rising|Greenwitch]]'', the unnamed villain is a painter who produces brilliant but evil art. It is even described at one point as being 'twisted but good', implying a clear talent even as it disturbs the viewer.

* The [[MacGuffin]] in Robert Asprin's novel ''[[Myth Adventures|Myth Directions]]'' is a hideous metal toad sculpture, the last piece done by a sculptor named Watgit "before" he went mad.

** Or that he ''was'' a giant chicken. He appears to have tried talking in Chicken, and even wrote some of his diary-like notes partly in Chicken.

** {{spoiler|He died with chicken feathers stuffed down his throat. After writing "AWK! AWK! IT COMES!"}}

*** He was really impressed by the way the forged stamps actually had more detail than the printing process on the real stamps was capable of.

* Optus Warhole, in [[Enki Bilal]]'s ''trente-deux décembre''. His ?compression de mort éructée? happening uses the bodies of soldiers killed at war, and ends in slaughter.

* [[The Phantom of the Opera]] is a mad musician, composing music and teaching Christine how to sing.

** In the original book from Gaston Leraux, the Phantom, between [[Career Killers|his]] [[Blackmail|many]] [[Sticky Fingers|talents]] also is a great [[Bizarrchitecture|architect]], the world’s best [[Ventriloquism|ventriloquist]] and [[Torture Technician]].

"Yes, [[Ironic Echo|a great artist]], [[Torture Technician|in my own line]]." }}

* Subverted in the second ''[[Skulduggery Pleasant]]'' book. There is a wizard who considers himself to be redefining murder as an art form. The only problem is that his descriptions are rather childish, and he hasn't actually killed anyone (and is overall quite inept).

* Richard Pickman from [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s ''Pickman's Model''. He's an artist who is obsessed with painting grotesque pictures, and can produce extremely lifelike and frightening portraits of inhuman monsters {{spoiler|because he uses real ghouls as his models}}.

** Not to mention [[Cthulhu Mythos|Cthulhu]] himself induces mad artistry around the world when the stars are right for his rising.

* The Weaver, from [[Perdido Street Station]], whose eternal goal is to increase the aesthetics of the universe. It lives off the appreciation of beauty and has [[Physical God|god-level]] powers so that it can make the "world-weave" ever closer to its ideal of beauty. However, [[Oh Crap|said beauty is incomprehensible by humans.]]

* Carol O'Connell's novel ''Killing Critics''.

* Possibly the original namer for this trope, Horace gives this description of the "Mad Poet" in the Ars Poetica, making this trope [[Older Than Feudalism]].

* From [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Silmarillion]]'': Fëanor probably falls somewhere between this and [[Mad Scientist]], being an incredibly talented craftsman who becomes more or less insane after his greatest works are stolen (though he was already slightly unhinged due to a particularly bad case of [[Missing Mom]].) His son Maglor definitely falls into this: he's a [[Warrior Poet]] who commits atrocities and ends up wandering along the seasore singing laments.

** Maglor was probably the least mad of Feanor's sons - he was mostly convinced to commit the atrocities by his brothers and deeply regrets all he's done (hence the laments). Some versions of Daeron might fit better.

 

 

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': "Bad Wolf", already a parody of reality TV, had a futuristic version of ''What Not To Wear'' hosted by two robots with, er... unconventional fashion ideas.

'''Zu-Zana''': ''Nothing'' is too extreme. }}

* The remake of ''[[Randall and Hopkirk Deceased]]'' had [[David Tennant|Gordon Stylus.]] Making sculptures out of frozen urine is actually among the saner things he does; by the end of the episode, he's murdered both his wife and Marty Hopkirk, tries to kill Jeff by dunking him in resin, and is seen wearing his wife's wedding dress and wielding a chainsaw.

** Actually they did explain, it is because he saw his dog ran over as a child. "Such vibrant colors..."

* Several characters played by Julian Barrett, including Julian from Asylum and Howard from ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]''. The above mentioned Brian Topp of Spaced was originally written for Barrett.

** Not knowing what's real certainly sounds like madness. It may not be the standard version, but it works.

** I meant that he was a subversion because he was basing his art on his murders ''subconsciously'', whereas most of the other examples do it deliberately.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'', Angelus believed that killing and torturing (and evil, in general) should be an artform. He is known to be [[Complete Monster|the most vicious vampire ever recorded]] in the history of the Buffyverse.

* One ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'' episode had an artist who killed women and sketched them as a way to deal with his feelings about the women who'd abused him his whole life. Goren eventually catches him by {{spoiler|pointing out that the other artist whom he got to photograph the corpses had touched them up to make the women look angelic, ruining the "integrity" of the work. This causes the killer to flip out and incriminate himself}}.

* On Season 1 of ''[[Dexter]]'', the [[Big Bad]] Ice Truck Killer would display the neat, bloodless body parts of his victims in an artistic manner that wins Dexter's admiration. Vince would later compare the Ice Truck Killer to an artist.

** In Season 2, Lila is an eccentric artist who works with items that she steals. {{spoiler|She's also a pyromaniac and a [[Stalker with a Crush]] for Dexter.}}

* There are at least a couple of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'' episodes centered around Mad Artists. One of them was about an artist who killed people and used their blood in his paintings and another featured a young female artist (whose work bordered on the grotesque) killing her sugar daddy husband and turning him into soap.

 

== Music ==

** Not a colleague, but the adopted child of said colleague. However, she could only have adopted that child because she killed her biological mother several years before - [[Mind Screw|apparently]].

* In Alesana's album ''[[The Emptiness]]'', [[Anti-Hero|the Artist]] is messed up in so many ways, and it bleeds through into his art.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'', the Nosferatu clanbook mentioned some of them making an art out of killing, intentionally employing tropes from slasher movies when stalking their victims.

** The Toreador ''antitribu'' of the Sabbat follow a similar path. Like their cousins in the Camarilla, they're absolutely fascinated by beauty and defined by art... it's just, their definition of "beauty" and "art" has been altered to include "a masterfully executed flaying."

** ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' has the Architects of the Monolith, a [[Prestige Class|bloodline]] of the Ventrue who believe in [[Geometric Magic]] and think cities have power. Combine the general tendency of the Ventrue to go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs under mounting odds with blood sorcery that allows them to draw strength from the city, and...

** ''[[Spelljammer]]'' has Reigar who combine this with elements of [[Parody Sue]] and [[Mad Scientist]]. They are more nice people than not, but...

{{spoiler|Estriss}}: [[Earthshattering Kaboom|They blew up their homeworld.]] And that is another issue. If the reigar were to gain control of the ''[[Living Ship|Spelljammer]]'', they would regard the ship as little more than a base for artistic experiments. Given the reigar's penchant for excess, it is an appalling prospect. }}

** There's also an alien species mentioned in the background that has this as their [[Planet of Hats|hat]]. They consider everything, including war, as an artform. As a result, they tend to go to battle wearing brightly coloured armour with weapons shooting technicolour deathrays and have battle plans designed to create the most artistic result, even if it would mean that they would lose.

** And John Blanche, the chief artist for Games Workshop, is honestly, truly, fucked in the head.

== Video Games ==

* Brauner from ''[[Castlevania]]: Portrait of Ruin''. In a sense, the point of the whole game.

** The game also features Dr. Steinman, a plastic surgeon who went crazy from ADAM abuse and started to fancy himself "Surgery's Picasso". Keep in mind that he's referring to ''technique'', as well as level of genius.

* Don Octavio of the third ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' is a mad opera singer turned mob boss.

* When you first meet Kent in ''[[Dead Rising]]'', he's merely an egotist photographer who challenges Frank to take specific pictures of him. The second time you meet him, he demands an "erotic" photo, showing a bad side. By the third time you meet him, he's clearly lost his mind, and is preparing to hand over an innocent human to a zombie so that he can photograph the moment of zombie transformation. At this point, Frank interrupts and attacks him (appropriately enough, he's a boss fight - bosses in ''Dead Rising'' are called "Psychopaths"). Kent's last request is that you photograph his ''corpse''.

* Vincent Van Gore from ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Luigi's Mansion]]'' would likely count under this (as well as [[Art Initiates Life]]). An obvious parody of Van Gogh, he's apparently never sold a painting in his lifetime, kept painting long after death and brought numerous ghosts to life from the artwork in his studio. And set about 30 of them on Luigi, mook rush style. Funny enough, he's painting the key you get from defeating him when you actually fight him.

* Mr. Mechanical from ''[[Freedom Force]]''. Though at first glance he may look like your average [[Mad Scientist]] villain, he is actually a disgraced ''architect'' (real name Clyde DeWitt) who was laughed out of the profession after one of his avant-garde buildings collapsed a week after it was unveiled. Insisting the building was sabotaged by petty and inferior minds, jealous and incapable of appreciating his works, he unleashes an army of [[Humongous Mecha|giant robots]] (apparently designed by him with the help of [[Big Bad]] Timemaster) to destroy the city and its "hideous designs". And when the heroes defeat those, he jumps in an even BIGGER robot and goes on a rampage trying to destroy schools and hospitals while blathering on how [[Plato Is a Moron|he's superior to Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright]]. He's quite entertaining.

* ''[[Illbleed]]'' has Michael Reynolds, a horror movie director who apparently though the only fitting tribute to his work was a booby-trapped, monster-infested [[Amusement Park of Doom]].

* The Maestro from ''[[City of Heroes]]'' - a famed singer who lost his voice, went crazy, and was offered a new voice by The Council. His new voice will [[Words Can Break My Bones|Break Your Bones]]. By the time you meet him, he's a boss-class supervillain who uses sonic attacks and complains about you interrupting his 'symphony'.

* Reijek Hidesman, the serial-killing tanner in ''[[Baldur's Gate]] 2'', talks about how his work has only one place to go, ending in a coat of human skin that can be converted into really, really creepy leather armour with silver dragon blood.

* The second killer in ''[[Kara no Shoujo]]'' cuts girls up because he feels he needs their bodies in order to make some 'art.' {{spoiler|Though it's subverted when it turns out he's insane and trying to revive his mother. But that's how it's initially presented. However, his father did go insane some years before, kills his lover and use her body as a model for his masterpiece. When he was sane again, he though of his piece as the work of a depraved lunatic.}}

 

* Xxxyyy, an artist in the far future setting of ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'', tries to put forth her post-post-postmodern views on art, by a performance piece. That involves blowing up the battleship/art museum on which the comic strip is set.

** Other highlights include a collage made from wings of an endangered (now extinct) species of bat, a design where she walked into a restaurant and punched people, a painting that was actually an earlier painting of hers (thus making it even more profound) and, as a display of her genius, spontaneously crafted an extensive tableau out of Vanderbeam's pure and unadulterated fear.

* <s>Jhonen Vasquez</s> Rikk Estoban in ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]''. [http://samandfuzzy.com/archive.php?comicID=438 Played mostly for comedy].

* ''[[Last Res0rt]]'' features Geisha, an inept medusa-esque sculptor who figured out that the critics loved his work MUCH more when he kidnapped and petrified people vs. actually bothering to sculpt.

* {{spoiler|Gamzee Makara}} from ''[[Homestuck]]'', as of the latest update.

{{spoiler|TC:}} your crushed bones will make my special stardust. }}

** Actually a subversion. He's {{spoiler|only a psychopath when he's sane}}, and spent the majority of the story {{spoiler|in a Sopor-slime-induced haze}}. Or maybe he was just always insane and that just kept him functionally insane.

* ''[[SCP Foundation]]'':

** The creators of [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-804 SCP-804].

* ''[[The Princess 99]]'': Eulalie, a character whose present twice in the paperback version (and only once in the online version) is an Inkwitch who can make her painted creations come to life. She's also batshit, though its justified since she's spent most of her life in an insane asylum.

* Dark General Argon in ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'', foreshadowed throughout and horrifically revealed in his [[Moral Event Horizon]] moment.

* Sarah Atwell of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]''. Originally just a typical pretentious film student, once she winds up [[Deadly Game|on the island]], [[It Got Worse|she loses her grip on reality]]. Then things get creepy. There's also Madeline Harris of the Program, who, now that she has started to [[Deadly Game|play the game]], has been filling the [[The Collector of the Strange|gallery in her mind]] with sculptures of the people she's killed.

* {{spoiler|The puppets towards the end of}} [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ this Youtube video].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Despite his stage appearance, Leonard Rockstein A.K.A. "Dr. Rockzo the Rock n' Roll Clown" is fairly normal when he's not on cocaine.

*** Of course, he's '''always''' on cocaine.

** To rave reviews.

** To be fair, he was mad, at the barbecue.

* In one round of ''[[Ozzy and Drix]]'', a beatnik guy was up to tricks. A mean cholesterol sublime, he dressed in black and spoke in rhyme. He zeroed in on Hector's heart so he could get an early start to make his great "disasterpiece," of which he'd name it "Heart Disease."

 

** During an interview for his film ''[[Grizzly Man]],'' a crazed fan opened fire on Herzog with an air rifle. After being hit, Herzog commented, "Oh, someone's shooting. We must go." Once inside, he continued the interview while bleeding from the wound, saying, "It is not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."

** It’s questionable whether they really are insane. Certainly Kinski was a prima donna, and they’re both outrageous egotists, but Herzog has a known reputation as a bullshitter, and it’s possible- in fact, quite likely, he’s spent the last forty years playing up the Mad Artist schtick to get people talking. I know he strictly believes that no press is the only bad press.

* Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Their lead singer, [[Meaningful Name|"Dead"]] was known to carry a rotting crow with him on tours so he could huff it before shows. He had T-shirts with funeral announcements printed on them, once mutilated himself to the point of hospitalization, and used to bury his clothes for months so they'd be sufficiently decomposed for tours. He committed suicide in 1991, and upon discovering his corpse, the guitarist took pictures of it (which were later used for an album cover), removed part of his skull, and made necklaces out of it, which he sent to bands that he deemed "worthy."

* And while we're on the topic of black metal, there's everyone's favorite mountain man Varg Vikernes, of [[Burzum]]. According to Varg, the high point of his childhood involved using a .22 to take potshots at the local [[McDonald's]] (to fight the "growing Americanization of Norway") and visiting Iraq when his father worked for Saddam. It was Varg who gave Dead the shotgun shells he used to off himself, something he laughed about years later. Varg was best friends with Mayhem guitarist Euronymous, and the two became super special church-arson pals. After Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher quit, Varg was brought into the band. However, his attitude clashed with Euronymous, and the two started to feud. This ended when Varg finally fatally stabbed Euronymous 23 times in his Oslo apartment. Varg was arrested, made a mockery out of his trial, and was given the maximum 21 year sentence. While in jail, he attempted to escape twice, along with releasing two Burzum albums and declaring himself a Nazi/Skinhead/White Nationalist/Odinist/Whatever term he felt like. After his 2009 release for good behavior, Varg purchased a farm in the Norwegian mountains, where he lives as a hermit, periodically releasing new albums and giving bizarre, oftentimes unsettling interviews by correspondence. And no, he hasn't gone soft: his last major written publication was him theorizing that Anders Breivik was part of a zionist "false flag" operation to discredit true Norwegian nationalism.

** He often slept in a chair holding a spoon over a metal pan, and as soon as he was relaxed enough to drop the spoon, it woke him up, thereby keeping him from ever entering REM sleep and dreaming; he liked to say that this forced him to dream while awake.

** Dali famously stated "[[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|I don't do drugs. I ''am'' the drug.]]"

* [[Philip K. Dick]]. Not only did he feel the presence of his deadborn sister during most of his life, but: he did make a very bad trip the first (and only) time he tried LSD, which he described as being sent back in a Roman arena as an early Christian for what seemed an eternity; he had some serious hallucinations which he attributed to an accidental vitamin overdose (because, obviously, his life-long habit of gobbling amphetamines like Pez candies couldn't have something to do with it); theorized that these visions where beamed into his brain by, your choice: the Russians, evil aliens, good aliens, Richard Nixon's staff, his dead sister, a living satellite, a gnostic deity, or the Universe trying to free itself; and wrote [[Memetic Mutation|over 9000 pages]] about that.

* [[Adolf Hitler]] was an aspiring artist. His paintings of buildings were okay, but he sucked at drawing people. He later turned to extremist demagogue ideology...

* This seems to be the modus operandi of Jason Nelson of secrettechnology.com

* [http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com/?url=album10b_bestof/interviews10b_bestof〈=eng&link=albums#interview2 Apparently], Derek Riggs, creator of [[Iron Maiden]]'s Eddie.

* [[Alfred Hitchcock]] was legendarily eccentric.

* [[The KLF]] took this trope as far as it can be taken without murdering someone. They pelted audiences with money, "advertised" by releasing surreal manifestos, and announced their retirement from the music industry by firing a machinegun (loaded with blanks) into the crowd at a music award show and dumping a sheep carcass on stage. After that they deleted their entire back catalogue, awarded a Turner Prize winner with forty thousand pounds for "worst artist of the year" after threatening to burn the money if she didn't accept it, and eventually filmed themselves burning one million pounds.

* The artists of the Italian futurist movement claimed to be furiously insane and were proud of it. That is not so surprising to hear from people who stated they wanted to burn and destroy books, libraries, cemetaries, symbols of the past in general and institute a course for Italian children in which they would be exposed to increasingly dangerous threats. Not too surprisingly, they helped to inspire the Fascist movement, and many of them joined.

* Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" and other abilities made him one of the greatest record producers ever. He also liked to hold women at gunpoint, leading to the murder of Lana Clarkson.

* Francisco Goya started by painting commissioned portraits and ended with dark, nightmarish imagery. Throughout his life, he underwent a [[Creator Breakdown|mental breakdown]], likely brought on by the lead he used to mix his paints.

* The speaker in the satirical essay ''[[wikipedia:On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts|On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts]]'' by Thomas de Quincy. However, it's less Mad Artist and more Mad Art Critic.

* [http://www.cracked.com/article_15963_5-works-art-that-can-probably-kill-you.html Pretty much all of the artists in this Cracked article.]

* [[Winston Churchill]] who drank three scotches between breakfast and lunch alone, quaffed an entire bottle of Port before bed, only slept four hours, had a tendency to walk around naked and once turned up to a meeting wearing nothing but a pair of pink silk boxer shorts. Tended to alleviate his hellish bouts of depression by painting.

* Christian Weston Chandler, creator of ''Sonichu'', has some serious mental issues.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Madness Tropes]]

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Occupation Tropes]]

[[Category:Villains]]