Georgian artist was so talented, Soviets put him in an asylum

From an interview with brother of Fridon Nizharadze.

-Fridon was once placed in an asylum in Tbilisi.

Yes. He spent several months there and, as he himself claims, was drained of great amounts of blood and given lots of pills. The way he behaved, lived and painted was not acceptable to the general standards established by the communist government. Subsequently, everyone perceived him as a madman. Those were, as he calls it, dark ages in our country. Dissenting opinions were prosecuted and regarded as a mental disorder. Sometimes even Fridon’s own family members, including myself and relatives with whom he stayed in Tbilisi, could not understand what he wanted to convey through his paintings. For instance, when he drew a man with a single eye, similar to a cyclops, people would react negatively and say that it wasn’t normal. We wanted him to draw standard things; personally, I told him to paint ordinary towers of Svaneti - something that we could understand - instead of the strange things. Now I regret saying that, honestly. He would always answer that he couldn’t stop the unusual ideas coming to his mind day and night; he said he had to release them by transferring them onto paper. And then he went and painted collapsed and ruined towers and there were some who took it as a very bad omen. People didn’t really appreciate it. This hostility left a mark on both his life and personality. Today, he is a well-respected person and everyone in the village knows him. He never exhibited his works, though; he thinks it’s expensive and a hassle.

https://www.georgianjournal.ge/culture/32276-the-surreal-world-from-the-eyes-of-an-ushguli-artist.html