History Main / MadArtist

-->""George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it,"[Lucas is] going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, 'My nerdy friend won't shut up, I'm sorry." I first thought he was joking ... and then I totally realized he was serious and then I started thinking, 'If you're George Lucas and you actually think the world is gonna end in a year, there's no way you haven't built a spaceship for yourself, so I asked him, 'Can I have a seat on it?'"

* Gilded Lily, in AlphaFlight, married men and turned them into gold statues.

* Creator/AndyWarhol had multiple Siamese cats, all named Sam, had numerous nearly incomprehensible interviews, was said to [[FootFocus lick]] [[FetishFuel shoes]] while they were still on peoples' feet, hated painting because it was messy (and then popularized silkscreen printing), and was a major contributor to {{postmodernism}}. However, [[MadHatter he usually knew that his behavior was eccentric]], and often [[{{Troll}} tried to confuse other people with his behavior to see how they would react]].

* The TropeMaker is E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Madamoiselle de Scudéry" about [[spoiler:a jeweler who is psychologically driven to kill people who buy his work, even though he doesn't always want to]] -- ItWasHisSled.

* Infamous cult leader and murderer CharlesManson was an aspiring musician.

* This is all too common among BlackMetal musicians. The most infamous of these include Dead and Euronymous of Music/{{Mayhem}}, and Varg Vikernes of Music/{{Burzum}}.

* One of the major signs that society has completely screwed itself over in ''{{Otherland}}'' is that serial killers are revered as "forced involvement artists." (A subplot involves a less murderous artist calling a serial killer a hack for making art of others' deaths rather than his own, and challenging him to a dual suicide, to be judged by posterity. [[spoiler:The killer doesn't respond to the challenge, but shortly afterwards, he's hit by a car. Nobody's sure whether it was a murder, a suicide, or an accident--and ironically, he does create "art" by raising such a question.]]

** And, to be fair, who doesn't enjoy a good [[FetishFuel boot-licking]]?

** Or not, as it was just a party trick the two enjoyed doing.

* Jimmy in ''ArtSchoolConfidential''. [[spoiler: He paints pictures of his murder victims and incorporates mementoes he took from the actual body.]]

** "Paradise Towers" had as it's main villain, Kroagnon, an insane, intellectually-snobbish architect who designed buildings that killed anyone who tried to actually use them and "spoil" their aesthetic beauty.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': "Bad Wolf", already a parody of reality TV, had a futuristic version of ''What Not To Wear'' hosted by two robots with, er... unconventional fashion ideas.

[[caption-width-right:200:[[http://www.rayalma.com/Mad_magazine-portfolio.htm Truly, an infinite loop of insanity.]]]]

* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'''s Anghel Higure is a kind and sweethearted amateur (and GiftedlyBad) manga-ka who sees the world through chemical-induced hallucinations of a fantasy JRPG universe and believes himself to be the fallen guardian angel of an imprisoned warrior goddess ([[PlayerCharacter guess]]). He may ramble, but he's a benevolent example of this trope.

-->-- '''SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker''', ''[[Film/{{Batman}} Batman (1989 Film)]]''.

* SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker, to varying degrees in one ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' adaptation or another. The comic version definitely is, if stand-up comedy is considered "art", as his constant goal is to make people laugh as he kills them.
** In the TimBurton [[Film/{{Batman}} movie]] he describes himself as a homicidal artist. He shows a perverse delight in Vicki Vale's graphic war photos, telling her that she gives it all such a glow. She is definitely not appreciative of the "living work of art" that he shows off to her (Alicia, Jack Napier's girlfriend, who has been physically and emotionally scarred such that she has to wear a mask as a result of what the Joker did to her).

** Many dwarves themselves go temporarily insane in "strange moods" and create a masterwork sword (or statue, or bed, or earring, or ballista component, or...) that is covered in decorative images and menaces with spikes of several different materials, including rubies and ''silk''. The darkest kind of mood involves them butchering another dwarf and making a suit out of his skin. To be fair, it's a ''really nice'' suit.

* Camille Claudel, french sculptor. Thought Rodin was conspiring to kill her and/or steal her work, displayed symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia (including hallucinations), spent the last thirty years of her life in an asylum.

* [[strike:Jhonen Vasquez]] Rikk Estoban in ''SamAndFuzzy''. [[http://samandfuzzy.com/archive.php?comicID=438 Played mostly for comedy]].

* The Great Gonzo from the ''Muppet Show''. Not evil like many other examples, but definitely crazy.
** What goes on between Gonzo and all those chickens, when the camera isn't on?

* The second season opener of the anthology series ''The Hunger'' ("Sanctuary") has Julian Priest (DavidBowie), whose fascination with/resentment of death manifested itself in increasingly grisly and shocking performance art -- one piece had him surgically strip away a large piece of skin from his lower arm -- that led to outrage and shunning. Encountering a young man on the run for the murder of Julian's agent, he decides he'd make the perfect subject for his next work...the madness runs ''so'' deep that [[spoiler: the stranger is all in his head. Julian was the murderer, and he's actually killing himself -- having realized that turning his demise into a work of art will bring him the immortality he craves. The ghost of]] Julian goes on to host the rest of the series. (This is not Bowie's first encounter with this trope -- see Music below.)

* The plot of DavidBowie's ''1. Outside'' album is [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible apparently]] about a MadArtist kidnapping and murdering a colleague as a work of art.

*** [[YourMileageMayVary ...Lots]] [[FetishRetardant of people.]]

** Maglor was probably the least mad of Feanor's sons - he was mostly convinced to commit the atrocities by his brothers and deeply regrets all he's done (hence the laments). Some versions of Daeron might fit better.

* The cast of ''PrincessTutu'' is subject to the whims of a writer named Drosselmeyer, who has the power to make what he writes become reality and is ''obsessed'' with tragedy -- even if the characters he's putting through trial after trial are real people.