and the point of the exercise is .....

Charles Altamont Doyle - 'Self portrait - a Meditation' c 1885

I'm still skimming recent art history for accounts of its casualties from bankrupts and suicides to those who descended into depression and insanity.
Harsh as it may sound, they make bright reading in these crunched-up times; u cannot help but see it as an obstacle course for which you have a chart that warns of the pitfalls.
Eg the floating horizontal figure in the drawing above is almost identical to something I have a recurring, disturbing image of. So its probably best I try writing about the image (not here!) and its surrounding history. Expound + expunge sort of thing.
Incidentally re Victorian Fairy paintings - phew- how deeply, blatantly, gorgeously erotic those things are! (also mentally intoxicating) -- i wouldn't be at all surprised if suggestible people exited the gallery to a) score hallucinogens b) find a room.

'Titania and Oberon' (and a lot of mucky goblins) by Joseph Paton, 1861-7
cf. same subject by (insane) R. Dadd 1849