This painting, Starry Night, is very well-known in the art world. However, the painter, Van Gogh, is more well-known as a madman who cut his own ear off. What is missing in the picture of his life are his intense struggles with depression, and the way that his art helped him to achieve catharsis. Painting was therapy for him, and it helped to soothe his melancholy demeanor and his mad fits. While we have already explored the link between melancholy and genius in this digital archive, now we will look at the use of intellectual pursuits as a way to achieve catharsis for depression and madness.

What is not as well-known about Van Gogh's Starry Night is that he painted this beautiful work of art while in an insane asylum, Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, in 1889. Only one year later, he shot himself in the head. Unfortunately, although he did use his artwork as a kind of therapy to help his depression, it did not fully help him to escape from the troubles of his life. Although Van Gogh is one of the most iconic 'mad geniuses', there are many others who attempted to achieve catharsis through creative and intellectual pursuits.

Anne Finch also attempted to use her writing as a type of therapy for her melancholy in "The Spleen", a poem about her afflictions of melancholy. Her true passion was writing, which is why she was able to use it as a way to express her feelings and therefore soothe them. However, a large part of her depression was attributed to her inability to become a famous writer, due to her gender and social constraints of her time. Despite these societal pressures, she was always able to harness her creative ability and passion for writing to express her melancholy feelings, as she did in "The Spleen". With this ability, she was able to achieve catharsis through her self-representation in this poem and other writings of hers.

Additionally, there are some modern writers who view catharsis through the expression of melancholy as a stronger therapy than contemporary psychology solutions. Although it may not be a popular opinion, they view melancholy as a beautiful sensation, one full of qualities that should not be degraded into a diagnosis and a prescription. In Tracking the White Rabbit: A Subversive View of Modern Culture, the author states "And since I associate the melancholic temperament with intellectual passion, sensual eroticism, and creative genius, I am not interested in being cured" (120). One way to find beauty and catharsis in melancholy in the modern era is surely to adopt this attitude: to reject the demeaning title of major depressive disorder and its implications as a debilitating disorder, although it can be, but to also celebrate the other aspects of it. The creativity, the heightened senses, and the piercing judgments should all be regarded as a part of the beauty of melancholy, in order to reclaim the title and reach catharsis.

Clearly, there are many ways to use the creative genius often associated with melancholy to the melancholics' benefit. First, there is the ability to use artistic and intellectual outlets to express the feelings that are otherwise impossible to verbalize. This brings a further opportunity for distraction, but it can also help to build community within those who deal with the effects of melancholy. Finally, there is a way to reframe the conversation around melancholy and depression, to revert to the historic and romanticized version of melancholy and its inspiration from the Muses. With this new perspective, those suffering from melancholy will not have to feel doomed to their label and its implications, but they will be able to find a positive side even in a life full of sadness.