Man

Today is Mental Health Day. 

Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin was an Austrian printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism. He suffered from depression and had a nervous breakdown before the age of 20; in 1896 he tried to suicide at the grave of his mother, from whose untimely death he could not recover. 

Without the ability to change direction or escape the end of the track looming in the distance, a helpless man on a rollercoaster rushes to meet his merciless fate. His hands tied behind his back, his expression is rigid and apathetic. Kubin’s reflection on the general fate of humanity is brought to illustration on this paper. In 1904, he wrote in a letter to his sister: “Death, nothingness, is the fate of the world, [and all] those individual forces which together constitute the world. Each [of us] expire unconditionally [along] a predestined route – like a machine.”

We present today's masterpiece thanks to Leopold Museum in Vienna.

P.S. Here you can read about four artists who suffered mental illness (and how it affected their art).