Robert Burton’s ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ was first published in 1621. The extensive handbook to misery was an unlikely seventeenth-century bestseller and has continued to provide inspiration to gloriously gloomy souls ever since, including Nick Cave, the crown prince of melancholia.
Burton’s masterpiece rejected existing wisdom connecting a case of the blues to an overload of black bile in the spleen. Instead, his book named six causes of depression. Chronic low spirits could, Burton suggested, come from hypocondriacus, solitudo, zelotypia, inamorato, maniacus, and superstitiosus. Modern translation: sickness, solitude, jealousy, disappointment in love, insanity and religious melancholy.
This small exhibition at the Museum of the Mind is made up of paintings relating to Burton’s six categories. All of the artworks are taken from the museum’s own collection, a treasure trove of art created by patients of Bethlem Royal Hospital (where the museum and accompanying gallery are located) collected over a 200-year period.
The museum’s archive contains works by several famous artists such as Richard Dadd, Charles Sims and Madge Gill. One of the best works on show is Sims’s juddering religious painting ‘My Pain Beneath Thy Sheltering Hand’, which loosely shows a tiny crouching man next to a larger godlike presence.
But the best thing about this exhibition is how it normalises melancholy, old and new. The saddest thing about feeling sad is often the suggestion that a low mood is wrong or unhealthy. These artworks tackle despondency, whatever its cause, as just another part of being human, no judgement. Which is more than can be said for you, random guy at Charing Cross tube station and your always unwelcome and loathed advice: ‘Cheer up, love.’