Camille Claudel: a revulsion of nature. The art of madness or the madness of art?

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(Suassuna, 1996). However, art produced by mental patients has also been termed psychopathological art, an expression which greatly displeases me for there is no such thing as sick, psychotic or mad art and neither can a work of art be said to be mentally ill. For this reason, I would rather refer to it by the scholarly term previously referred.In the context of art produced by the mentally ill, it is extremely important to tell the artist – amateur or professional – who has exercised his technical skills from the insane that eventually became an artist, i.e., a psychiatric patient who either spontaneously or through occupational therapy started producing plastic arts or literary works. It is evident that both the works produced before the presentation of any pathological symptoms and the ones produced after them provide clear clues as to the morbid processes which have been developing in the patient’s mind (conscious and unconscious psychic life).