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]].

 

 

Somewhat [[Truth in Television]], as seen by the many artists of various kinds with mental problems, such as [[Vincent van Gogh]] (who produced much of his art from an insane asylum, although his best work was done when he was most sane) and Virginia Woolf (who committed suicide). However, most [[Real Life]] Mad Artists aren't violent—they're much more likely to be Angsty. This is sometimes misrepresented as a sort of [[Strawman Political]] by people who view all modern fine artists as amoral and talentless charlatans and degraders of culture: there are more than a few stories of this kind in which art critics and other artists are represented as genuinely supporting "art" involving actual murder or similar depravity, despite the lack of any real-world precedent or plausibility for it.

{{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]].

** Since his paintings can literally be used to cast spells, an 'old method' which Merriman notes he had forgotten existed, that makes this one of the few literal examples of [[The Dark Arts|Dark Arts]]. Some of this originality, though, may be undermined by the painter in question living [[Roma|in a Gypsy caravan]] which apparently is a mark of his actual racial heritage. (He even attempts to use the grail—no, not ''[[Public Domain Artifact|that]]'' [[Public Domain Artifact|grail]], though it is [[Expy|'made after the fashion of' it]]—as a scrying device.)

* 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.

*** Or possibly both. He was a Mad Artist after all. If you can't handle the idea of being afraid of a giant chicken and actually being the giant chicken you have no business appearing in this trope.

** {{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.

 

 

* ''[[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.

{{quote|'''Trin-E''': I think he'd look good with a dog's head.

* 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.}}

* Fatman from [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]] is a [[Mad Bomber]] who thinks of himself as an artist.

 

* 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.

* Robot art in ''[[Freefall]]'' consists mostly of things humans would be unlikely to do. As in, ''[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01190.htm Orbital bombardment in D minor]''. And [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fc01568.htm something much more disturbing]. But they don't want to shirk the work—see their ''[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01966.htm Making Swan Lake]'' ballet. Of course, there's also [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01924.htm this]:

{{quote|'''Blunt''': Some months back. A robot named Qwerty. Wrote the first. Of his [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|epic. Rap yodeling. Operas.]] It is then. I knew. [[Robot War|Conflict between the two]]. Was inevitable.}}

* ''[[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.

** 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.

* [[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]]