#49: Not Cool, Dude
According to the Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh suffered from an unnamed mental illness and cut off his ear after arguing with his longtime friend and artistic rival, Paul Gauguin. He would go into depressive episodes and hallucinate and at one point cut his ear off, though he didn’t remember doing it.

The truth is that historians think he suffered from manic depression (bipolar disorder), and the medications we have today to manage such an illness are known to dampen creativity. In other words, if Van Gogh had been treated for his condition, we probably wouldn’t have any of the fantastic art he created. This is true for many artists that went down in history as one of the greats.