“Melancholy is my joy and these discomforts are my tranquillity”: On the Development of the Artist’s Image

Abstract

This article examines the historical development of melancholy
as one of the key elements of the artist’s image in Western culture
from antiquity to the twentieth century. Originating in the ancient
theory of the four humours, melancholy gradually evolved from a
medical concept associated with black bile into a complex intellectual,
philosophical and aesthetic category. The study explores how
melancholy became linked to artistic creativity and exceptional
intellectual ability, while simultaneously retaining its pathological
connotations. Particular attention is paid to the role of Pseudo-
Aristotle, Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance art theory, artists’ biographies,
and later philosophical and psychological interpretations in shaping
the enduring association between the artist and melancholy.
The article argues that the persistence of melancholy in arttheoretical
and art-historical discourse cannot be explained solely
by the survival of ancient medical ideas. Rather, melancholy became
an integral component of the artist persona, functioning as a cultural
construct that justified artistic individuality, eccentricity, solitude, and claims to creative genius. Through an analysis of writings
by authors ranging from Vasari and Bellori to Diderot, Schelling,
Schopenhauer, and Freud, the study traces the expansion of the
semantic field of melancholy and its transformation into a defining
feature of the artist persona.
The final part of the article investigates the visual manifestations
of melancholy in artists’ self-image. Drawing on iconographical
traditions associated with Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the symbolism
of Saturn, and selected self-portraits from the Renaissance to the
nineteenth century, it examines the ways in which artists represented
or alluded to melancholy in their own likenesses. The article concludes
that, despite the remarkable longevity and adaptability of the concept,
explicitly melancholic self-representations remained relatively rare in
comparison with the dominant image of the artist as a self-confident
and socially elevated creative individual.