In grad school we studied quite a bit of outsider art/art brut (whatever you want to call it) and while the HUGE no no of art therapy is interpreting art or diagnosing through artwork, it still strikes me how often the work of people suffering from schizophrenia shares so many similar characteristics. I was on the link trail yesterday and found the work of Carlo Zinelli. I had never heard of him before, but had to google him to see if he did indeed suffer from schizophrenia because his drawings and paintings had all the characteristics. It seems like art had quite an impact on his life:
He was committed to the psychiatric hospital in Verona in 1947 and spent ten years in almost total isolation. Carlo's life took a turn ten years later, when he and twenty other patients were admitted to the painting atelier created by sculptors Michael Noble and Pino Castagna and psychiatrist Mario Marini. In this atelier, patients were encouraged to paint or sculpt freely.
Completely engrossed by his work, Carlo drew for eight hours a day with tempera paints and colored pencils. This routine seems to have calmed him considerably; clinical evaluations from this time comment on his good behavior. By 1964, his work had been exhibited, and he had attracted the attention of art historians associated with Jean Dubuffet and the Compagnie de l'Art Brut. ~from wikipedia
*images from here, here and here
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