The Work of Oskar Herzberg-Did Psychosis or the Residence in a Psychiatric Institution Serve as a Catalyst for Creativity?: A Thought-Provoking Impulse to Reconsider the Interrelationship Between Mental Illness and Art.

In the 1920s, the Heidelberg psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn collected pictorial works by "mentally ill people"-today's Prinzhorn Collection.His colleague Paul Schilder sent him works by Oskar Herzberg thereto, which Prinzhorn included as "Case 355" in his famous work Bildnerei der Geisteskranken.Using Herzberg as an example, we approached the general issue of the relationship between mental illness, creativity, and art from a historical psychiatric perspective.It was not before his admission to the Leipzig clinic due to his schizophrenic illness that Herzberg began to paint. Prinzhorn and his doctor Ernst Jolowicz considered this late start of artistic activities to be the expression of an immanent creative urge caused by exceptional psychotic experiences. Our study intends to view such artworks outside a rather pathological context. Therefore, we discuss being secluded in psychiatry, supplied painting utensils, and released from his daily constrains as other possible triggering factors for Herzberg's artistic development.