Book Description:
Artistic work itself has been thought of as a life-saving behavior for some suicidal artists. Artistic depictions of suicide can also have a contagion effect, causing suicides among members of the real-world audience. Guidelines are still needed for institutions such as the motion picture industry for minimizing possible copycat effects of suicides in feature films and other artistic displays of suicide. Perhaps one of the most important reasons for studying suicide art is for insights into the motives for suicide.Artists portrayed many motives for suicide long before the rise of the science of suicidology in the 20th Century. Motives including social factors such as death of a loved one, honor, economic strain, and betrayal in love have roots in many historical artistic products. Sophocles’s plays, dating from 2,500 years ago, contain several motives that are still found today. The history of suicide in art, especially if film is included, may be subject to continuities as well as changes in the motives for suicide. While the visual arts may have drifted away from certain causes of suicide, such as heroicism, these causes may actually live on in other art forms including film and opera. The present volume stresses a holistic approach to the study of suicide in art. Patterns in one art venue may be both similar and different to those in other venues. Hence, caution needs to be exercised in making generalizations on the basis of one or a few modalities of artistic creations.

Table of Contents:
The Contributors

Chapter 1. Introduction: Issues and Summaries of Chapters A Summary of the Chapters, pp. 1-12

PART I: PAINTING AND TRADITIONAL VISUAL ARTS

Chapter 2: Suicide and the arts: From the Death of Ajax to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe, pp. 15-47
(Karolina Krysinska)

Chapter 3: The Suicide of Ajax: A note on occupational strain as a neglected factor in suicidology, pp. 50-53
(Steven Stack)

PART II: SUICIDE IN THE MOVIES

Chapter 4: Suicide in movies: Gender and choice of suicide method, pp. 57-61
(Steven Stack & Barbara Bowman)

Chapter 5: The legacy of Lucretia: Rape-suicide in art, 509 BC- 2008, pp. 63-78
(Steven Stack & Barbara Bowman)

Chapter 6: Suicide films about adolescents, pp. 79-91
(Burcu Sevim)

Chapter 7: Pain and altruism: The suicides in John Wayne’s films, pp. 93-109
(Steven Stack & Barbara Bowman)

PART III: SUICIDE IN LITERATURE

Chapter 8: Suicide motives in 61 works of popular world literature and comparison to film, pp. 113-124
(Steven Stack & Barbara Bowman)

Chapter 9: Suicide in the detective story, pp. 125-136
(Fred Mench & Lisa Honaker)

Chapter 10: Suicide in the opera, pp. 137-145
(Beverly Vaughn & David Lester)

PART IV: UNDERSTANDING SUICIDE THROUGH THE ARTS

Chapter 11: Suicide in literature, pp. 149-157
(David Lester)

Chapter 12: The psychodynamics of suicide in Sophocles’s plays, pp. 159-165
(David Lester)

PART V: SUICIDE IN ARTISTS

Chapter 13: Suicide in artists: National epidemiology, pp. 169-188
(Steven Stack)

Chapter 14: Suicide in creative women: David Lester, pp. 189-199

Chapter 15: Vincent van Gogh, pp. 201-214
(Maurizio Pompili)

Chapter 16: Artist suicide in the cinema, pp. 215-228
(Steven Stack & Barbara Bowman)

PART VI: CONTAGION

Chapter 17: Copycat effects of fictional suicide: A meta-analysis, pp. 231-243
(Steven Stack)

Chapter 18: Gloomy Sunday: Did the “Hungarian suicide song” really create a suicide epidemic? , pp. 245-252
(Steven Stack, Karolina Krysinska & David Lester)

Chapter 19: The Kabuki effect, pp. 253-255
(Karolina Krysinska & David Lester)

PART VII: THE CREATIVE ARTS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Chapter 20: Poetry as therapy: The life of Anne Sexton, pp. 259-269
(David Lester & Rina Terry)

Chapter 21: Masked depression and suicidal ideation in the drawings of schizophrenic patients, pp. 271-298
(Dalia Merari)

PART VIII: CONCLUSION

Chapter 22: Future work: Points of departure and data sources, pp. 301-309
(Steven Stack & David Lester)

Index