Art and Sex and Mental Illness

Mental illness link to art and sex

• Ian Sample, science correspondent -The Guardian

To create or to procreate ... Pablo Picasso studies the figure of a woman assembled on the floor of his Vallauris studio in 1953.

Photograph: AP

From Lord Byron to Dylan Thomas and beyond, the famous philanderers of the art world may have had a touch of mental illness to thank for their behaviour, psychologists report today.

A survey comparing mental health and the number of sexual partners among the general population, artists and schizophrenics found that artists are more likely to share key behavioural traits with schizophrenics, and that they have on average twice as many sexual partners as the rest of the population.