He was diagnosed a paranoid-schizophrenic in 1938 and carried out his divine mission in isolation, confined for life to a psychiatric clinic in Rio de Janeiro. Bispo claimed to have been entrusted by seven blue angels and Christ himself with the momentous task of inventorying everything worth redeeming on the impending Day of Judgment. Not out of modesty, but because he had loftier ambitions. Arthur Bispo do Rosario (1909?–89) refused to call himself an artist.
