Twelve paintings about madness, from Bruegel's Dulle Griet in 1563 to Munch's The Scream in 1893. Each one is tied to a troubled mind, in its subject or in the life behind it.
Behind them lie documented stories: Hogarth's Bedlam, Van Gogh's year in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Géricault's portraits of the insane and a madhouse painted by Goya in wartime Spain.
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How These Were Chosen
Madness did not mean the same thing in every century. For Bruegel it was a figure from a proverb, for Géricault a medical diagnosis, and this list takes the word in the sense each period gave it.
A picture made the list when an asylum or hospital is part of its story, on the canvas or in the life of the painter or sitter. It also qualified when it illustrates a text or proverb about a troubled mind, or when the painter's notes or an inscription tie it to madness.
A picture that only looks disturbed stayed out.
12. Rembrandt, Saul and David (about 1651 to 1658)
A king holds a spear and dries his eyes on a curtain. Across from him, a young man plays the harp.
In the Bible story, the weeping man is Saul, the first king of Israel, tormented by an evil spirit. The harpist is David, brought to court because his music could calm him. Today we would speak of bouts of depression.
Rembrandt painted the moment when the music stops working. Later in the story, Saul hurls his spear at the musician, and the picture holds still just before that fit of rage.
He worked on the canvas in two stages, about 1651 to 1654 and about 1655 to 1658. It is now in The Hague, at the Mauritshuis, the royal picture gallery of the Netherlands.
Until 1969, Saul and David passed for a Rembrandt. That year the Dutch art historian Horst Gerson revised the standard catalogue of Rembrandt's paintings and left this one out, as he did with many others in the sixties and seventies.
In 2015, after eight years of research by a large team, the Mauritshuis confirmed that the picture is his after all.
The same research explains why the surface looks patched. In the nineteenth century, probably between 1830 and 1869, the canvas was cut in two, and for a time the troubled king and the harpist meant to calm him hung apart.
When the halves were joined again, other bits of canvas were set in around them, and the picture now counts fifteen separate pieces. The largest patch sits in the dark background above David's head, cut from an old copy of a portrait by Anthony van Dyck.
At a Glance
Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669)
Painted: In two stages, about 1651 to 1654 and about 1655 to 1658
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Mauritshuis, The Hague
About This Painting
How big is Rembrandt's Saul and David? The canvas measures 130 by 164.5 centimeters, about 51 1/4 by 64 3/4 inches. The museum says the original canvas was larger.
Who owned Saul and David before the Mauritshuis? Its earlier owners include the Duke of Caraman, in Paris before 1830, the dealer Durand-Ruel and Baron Albert von Oppenheim of Cologne. The collector Abraham Bredius bought it in 1898.
How did Saul and David reach the Mauritshuis? Bredius lent it to the museum in 1898, as soon as he had bought it. He left it to the Mauritshuis, which received it as a bequest in 1946.
Has Saul and David had an exhibition of its own? Yes. In 2015 the Mauritshuis held "Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David," devoted to the research and the restoration.
11. Frans Hals, Malle Babbe (1640 to 1646)
A woman laughs with her mouth wide open. She grips a pewter tankard, and on her left shoulder perches an owl.
Frans Hals, the great portrait painter of Haarlem, a Dutch city near Amsterdam, painted her between 1640 and 1646. An older dating put the picture earlier, in 1633 to 1635. She sits at a table and is shown at life-size.
The canvas is now in Berlin, at the Gemäldegalerie, the city's gallery of old master paintings. Its title is a nickname, Malle Babbe, "Mad Barbara," and in Haarlem everyone knew who that was.