Revue Révolution

Lessons from Nash, Van Gogh, Ramanujan and Vedanta

Editor’s Note

This article was first published in September 2024, as part of an ongoing inquiry into the nature and expression of genius in the fine arts. It challenges current views on mental health, historic preconceptions on genius and madness, and in a synthesis, harmonizes creativity, intuition, and supernatural perception in light of Advaita Vedanta.

We re-present it here in the Foundations Archive with a new institutional lens and a central question to art formation educators, museums curators, and cultural leaders: how do institutions recognize and nurture exceptional capacity? Drawing on Kantian philosophy, Nash, Van Gogh and Ramanujan’s experiences, this piece questions the origins and purpose of exceptional creative accomplishments.

«Processing this [fine arts] material and giving it form requires a talent that is academically trained, so that it may be used in a way that can stand the test of the power of judgment.
—Immanuel Kant, Analytic of the Beautiful in Critique of Judgement (1790)

Analytic of the Sublime

Kant, who liked order–and is sorely missed at this time– devoted a significant part of his Critique of the Power of Judgment to the nature of beauty, the sublime, and artistic discernment, a text every serious artist and poet should encounter early in their formation.

For him, genius is not a vague romantic notion but a precise faculty. It is tied to the individual’s capacity for knowledge and to the exemplary originality through which the fine arts take shape. Poetry, painting, music, and sculpture are therefore not sciences discovering laws of nature, but an activity of the mind generating representations of nature through the free play of cognitive powers.

This is where you suspect originality would be a determining factor in this endless mimicry of what Gaia seems to have produced effortlessly for the pleasure of our five senses.

Well, no.

«[…] Genius is the exemplary originality of a subject’s natural endowment in the free use of his cognitive powers.

On imitation vs. following: 

« Accordingly, the product of a genius (as regards what is attributable to genius in it rather than to possible learning or academic instruction) is an example that is meant not to be imitated, but to be followed by another genius. (For in mere imitation the element of genius in the work—what constitutes its spirit—would be lost.) »

On the danger of rejecting academic constraint: 

« Now since originality of talent is one essential component (though not the only one) of the character of genius, shallow minds believe that the best way to show that they are geniuses in first bloom is by renouncing all rules of academic constraint, believing that they will cut a better figure on the back of an ill-tempered than of a training-horse. »

The core claim: 

« Genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art; processing this material and giving it form requires a talent that is academically trained, so that it may be used in a way that can stand the test of the power of judgment.»

Kant’s argument, in essence:

• Nature and a subject’s natural inclination provide the spark. Genius is expressed in an original perception of nature.
• Another genius confirms genius by following, recognizing the source of originality they themselves carry within, fluent in genius language, so to speak.
• Academic training provides the discipline that allows genius to be recognized and transmitted to all.
• Without both—the spark and discipline—even the most original talent cannot stand the test of judgment.

Therefore, art educators—and by extension, curators—are responsible for providing a sustainable framework for both the expression and the transmission of creative genius. They are the ones who create the conditions in which genius can be recognized, formed, and passed on through the sentiment of the sublime.

What happens when art educators and curators are unable to perform this civic, moral, and spiritual duty towards artists, and us all?

Genius may appear elitist, or simply elusive. Divorced from everyday life, genius becomes something strange, other—mistaken, perhaps, for a product of mental instability, rather than what it is: a conduit of the Sublime, a universal experience for which Beauty is criterion.

Genius, the elusive eruption

A 2011 study has sought a correlation between creativity and psychopathology—ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder—with limited success.

More recent research confirms [see below] that while a genetic vulnerability to bipolar traits may be associated with creative potential, this link is modest and highly dependent on other factors such as ambition, training, and the presence of supportive peers. Severe illness, in contrast, tends to inhibit creative output.

Despite inconclusive results, the media continues to spark excitement around the “mad genius” myth. Creativity appears mysterious primarily to those who do not experience and practice it; from the outside it can seem like an inexplicable eruption rather than the result of unique, refined, and disciplined perception.

Let’s bring back Vincent, John and Srinivisa to illuminate our inquiry.

the genius of Van Gogh, Nash & Ramanujan

John Nash, whose life inspired the film A Beautiful Mind, made profound contributions to mathematics and economics. Yet the work that transformed his field emerged not from his manic episodes, but from periods of intellectual clarity.

Vincent van Gogh, now revered as an artistic genius while he died in poverty and obscurity, captivates us through his paintings not because they are chaotic expressions of his mental suffering, but because they transform reality into intensely lucid, and original visual language.

Srinivasa Ramanujan presents yet another telling example. Some of his mathematical insights–he attributed to a Goddess–have been confirmed and transformed entire branches of mathematics, while others remain unproven.

Despite extraordinary natural talent, he eventually sought collaboration with the British mathematician G. H. Hardy at Cambridge. This encounter underscores an important point: besides mentoring and discipline, genius requires accomplishment.

In these three figures, genius has less to do with pathology than with remarkable manifestations of lucidity. If mental illness were a necessary condition for genius, we would not have Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the many polymaths in their Renaissance cohort whose brilliance transcended any direct correlation with mental health struggles.

the role of intuition in genius expressions

What Hardy recognized in Ramanujan was not merely talent, but a form of subtle knowledge. Mathematical insight, like artistic perception, can be genuine without yet being fully formed. It requires a peer to see it, name it, and bring it into dialogue with a living tradition.

The same is true for art. Art is not a luxury—it is also a field of knowledge, just like maths. Yet, the knowledge it communicates is more difficult to name, but unmistakable to those who have cultivated the capacity to perceive it.

Ramanujan himself attributed many of his mathematical insights to mystical visions of the family deity Namagiri. Such accounts are often dismissed in modern discourse, yet they echo a long intellectual tradition. In ancient Greek culture, and precisely Socratic philosophy, inspiration was associated with the daimon, an intermediary intelligence guiding creative perception. In Middle Eastern folklore, similar inspiration was attributed to the jinni.

These metaphors point toward a phenomenon that many artists and poets recognize: moments of knowledge that appear suddenly, as if revealed rather than constructed, as if for a brief and intense moment, intelligence is made whole, and secrets of the inner and the outer harmonize.

HARMONY, THE WORLD, THE SELF & THE creative WORK

In the philosophical traditions of India, such experiences are interpreted within a broader, more universal framework: yogic psychology.
In Samkhya—a branch of Vedanta that analyzes consciousness—manifest reality is a compound of three forces, or gunas:

• Tamas: inertia, obscurity, ignorance, chaos, destructive, perceived as life-negating, non-empowering.
• Rajas: activity, desire, striving, more or less neutral depending on its tamasic or sattvic intent.
• Sattva: harmony, lucidity, beauty, perceived as life-affirming, connecting, favoring timelessness, empowering. Harmony is the first aspect of nature, according to Samkhya, implying that both activity and inertia are subservient to it.

The gunas are not abstractions. They are universal qualities, observable in human experience and recognizable through their distinct characteristics and outcomes.

So when an artist works from a sattvic state—or even aims for it—the work carries that quality. When a viewer encounters it, they recognize it—not because they have been told to, but because harmony is recognizable to minds that themselves contain traces of sattva, rajas, and tamas in varying degrees. (Nearly twenty-four centuries later, Kant arrived at a similar conclusion through his analysis of judgment.)

Cinema, even at its most disturbing, frames its content with compositional care; music, even at its most commercial, still seeks melody. These are not accidents. They are evidence that beauty, while variable in expression, is universal and consistent in its effect.

What Kant calls the Sublime is simply a very high degree of Harmony—the point at which the separate self momentarily dissolves into pure experience (the aim and outcome of Spirituality, from a Yogic perspective).

If beauty is measurable—if harmony is a real quality that trained perception can recognize—then art is not merely a luxury or a matter of taste. It is a field of knowledge. And those who steward it (curators, educators, patrons) have a responsibility to cultivate the discernment that can recognize it.

Peer culture in the arts is not about gatekeeping. It is about creating communities of trained perception, where the presence of sattva can be recognized, validated, and transmitted.

DEGREES OF HARMONY: FROM BEAUTY TO THE SUBLIME

Here, then, is the subtle knowledge art conveys: a reckoning of the Harmony inherent in a self, transpiring through a work, and ultimately transmissible to the world.

To recognize Harmony means it can be measured.
This suggests Harmony, and its artistic counterpart, aesthetics, is actually scalable.

A valuable question L’Atelier Révolution can help art educators, curators, and cultural institutions devoted to art explore is this:

What degree of Harmony are we advocating for in our programming, and with what effect on our ecosystem?

For art institutions, Harmony poses a question of subtle intent—one that nevertheless directs tangible outcomes.

Is your societal and educational mission focused on fostering genius—on allowing the conditions for it to emerge in artists’ work and to ripple into the world, thereby serving non-divisiveness, non-duality, harmony on a global scale?

For a museum: Is your exhibition program designed to surface works of high sattvic intensity, or does it primarily reflect market trends? What would change if you applied a “harmony filter” to your acquisitions?

For an art school: Does your curriculum cultivate the conditions for sattva to emerge—silence, contemplation, peer dialogue, technical discipline—or does it prioritize novelty and conceptual agility above all?

For a foundation: When you evaluate grant proposals, do you have a framework for recognizing the degree of harmony in an artist’s work? Could you fund the conditions for genius rather than waiting for the market to crown it?

PEACE, THE VIRTUE OF HARMONY BEYOND AESTHETICS

Why does this matter beyond the aesthetic?

Because harmony pacifies.

A mind touched by sattva is less reactive, less divided, more capable of cooperation. Societies that cultivate harmony in their cultural institutions create conditions for genuine prosperity—not mere accumulation, but the flourishing that comes when human beings can work together without enmity. The art world today, fragmented and individualistic, is a symptom of a deeper stagnation.

Restoring peer culture and the recognition of harmony as the purpose and outcome of the fine arts is a practical contribution to peace.

Murielle Mobengo is the founder and editor-in-chief of Revue Révolution, and curator of L’Atelier Révolution, a research and resource division for cultural institutions. Her work focuses on the intersections of art, myth, poetry, and non-dual philosophy (Advaita Vedanta and its Western parallels), and heritage transmission.

She is the creator of The Polymath, a pedagogical program that equips artists with the ethical and structural understanding to navigate the ecosystem of recognition. Her approach, rooted in the Non-Dual Gaze, helps institutions and artists alike locate themselves within a living tradition.

Mini-Bibliography

📍Immanuel Kant  ☞ Analytic of the Beautiful & Sublime, Book 1 & 2, in Critique of Judgement, (public domain, pdf format).

📚 Further Reading & Research Updates

📍What Research Tells Us About Creativity and Mental Health
A 2026 study following over 1,100 at-risk young adults found that those with both high bipolar risk and high creativity were seven times more likely to develop bipolar disorder than those with low risk and low creativity. Importantly, the researchers emphasize that creativity should not be pathologized: it is a resource that may also signal vulnerability under certain conditions [1].

A complementary theoretical framework, the “shared vulnerability” model, explains this paradox: the same traits that can contribute to mental health challenges may, in milder doses and with the right support, contribute to exceptional creative achievement [2,3]. Studies using the OCEAN personality model (also known as the Big 5) find that openness, hypomanic traits, divergent thinking, and reasoning ability together explain over a third of the variance in creative achievement [3].

References:
1. Early-BipoLife Study (2026) — Link
2. Greenwood, T.A. (2020). Shared Genetic Vulnerability — PubMed
3. Greenwood, T.A. et al. (2022). The Muse is in the Dose — Journal of Psychiatric Research