“From the time of Hölderlin and Nerval, the number of writers, painters, and musicians who have ‘succumbed’ to madness has increased; but let us make no mistake here; between madness and the work of art, there has been no accommodation, no more constant exchange, no communication of languages; their opposition is much more dangerous than formerly; and their competition now allows no quarter; theirs is a game of life and death. Artaud’s madness does not slip through the fissures of the work of art; his madness is precisely the absence of the work of art, the reiterated presence of that absence, its central void experienced and measured in all its endless dimensions… it is the very annihilation of the work of art, the point where it becomes impossible and where it must fall silent; the hammer has just fallen from the philosopher’s hands.”
— Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (trans. Richard Howard)