mistergrundy:

renagonparagade:

psychedeli-sandwitch:

The Stages of Schizophrenia

A 20th-century artist, Louis Wain, who was fascinated by cats, painted these pictures over a period of time in which he developed schizophrenia. The pictures mark progressive stages in the illness and exemplify what it does to the victim’s perception

JESUS CHRIST

In my highschool health textbook these paintings were given as examples of the negative mental effects of LSD.

Either way, I thought they were pretty rad.

TIME TO BE PENDATIC:

Louis Wain’s asylum art is always shown as how the mind “deteriorates” during schizophrenia, but this is absolutely not the case. The thing is, these pictures were all drawn AROUND THE SAME TIME. While he was doing more geometric cats, he also drew his normal cats. In fact, when asked about his geometric drawings, he said that he mostly just liked drawing wallpaper patterns he saw around him. As someone who has been around a billion schizophrenic artists, I always find the mischaracterization of “schizophrenic” art abelist as hell and obnoxiously outdated. 

Louis Wain was an amazing man who singlehandedly popularized cat ownership in the UK who was constantly taken advantage of and exploited, even in death. He was one of the founders of the Anti-Vivisection League and a pioneer in the fields of art and animal welfare. Roberta Gregory’s Real Cat Toons has a good essay on Louis Wain’s life, too.