Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, or Kandinsky: Did talent emerge from their suffering?

BarcelonaArtists like Dostoevsky, Kandinsky, Borges, and Frida Kahlo had two things in common: they were creative and suffered from mental illness. And the list of famous names could be even longer: Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Edvard Munch—names that are now part of the universal canon, but who also coexisted with the shadow of disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. How is this possible? Can neuroscience explain this correlation that exists with so many artistic geniuses who have gone down in history?

These are the questions that neurologist Mario de la Piedra Walter asks in his book Great minds (Debate, 2025), a work that seeks to understand, from a medical and scientific perspective, the complexities of this seemingly paradoxical relationship between mental illness and creativity. Throughout the book, the author delves into specific cases of artists who have used their suffering as a source of inspiration, or even an expressive tool, to channel their unique perspective on the world.

A well-known case is that of Frida Kahlo, who, after a serious accident, was bedridden for months, filled with pain. And yet, she created paintings that have gone down in history. "If it had happened to me, I would have stayed in bed complaining of pain, but she was different," Walter explains. "There's a biological predisposition and a certain sensitivity that isn't always present."

There are also cases such as that of the painter Kandinsky, considered one of the precursors of abstraction in painting, who suffered from synesthesia, a phenomenon that caused saw Music. "All the paintings were called symphonies and compositions because I painted the music I saw," explains Walter, who claims that one in every hundred people may have this spectrum. "Even people normal We can experience synesthesia, like in language, when we say that a person is very sour or bitter," the neurologist continues. "The brain has the ability to always create new connections, which ultimately are the basis of creativity," he explains.

Sensory experiences

Dostoevsky, on the other hand, suffered from epileptic episodes that he described as "mystical phenomena." "It affected a part of his brain that made him feel an out-of-body, almost spiritual experience just before the seizure," explains the neurologist. It was this sense of "divinity" that he conveyed in his work, where many of his characters were epileptics. "His philosophy was: 'A lifetime of misery and suffering is worth a second of divinity,'" he continues.

Nor are there a few geniuses who have suffered from problems with depression. The writers Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Anne Sexton had in common that they were the three most important English-speaking writers of the 20th century, and all three committed suicide. "It's true that they suffered from depression, but it's also known that they suffered abuse from family members and a complicated social context," Walter clarifies. On the other hand, Andy Warhol had autism and used his traits as material to propel his art through repetition, until he created what we know today as pop art.

However, in the book, the neurologist attempts to refute the popular perception that to be a genius and create memorable works, you must suffer from some kind of mental illness. "It's dangerous to think otherwise, because it idealizes mental disorders, which are still a tragedy for the people who suffer from them," explains Walter.

The problem, according to the neurologist, is that people tend to like tragic biographies like those of Van Gogh or Hemingway, and then we end up making these connections between art and mental health.

Thus, for Walter, the genius of these creators did not arise from their pathology, but rather, "despite suffering from it, they were able to transform it and use it in their art." "We are all capable of creating; everything that happens to us can be material that we can transform into something positive," the neurologist concludes. In other words, creativity is not a force reserved for a few tormented geniuses, but a faculty that we can all cultivate.