Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists
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《新英格兰医药杂志》
This collection of essays explores the borderland between neurology and art. In their preface, the editors point out that neurology and art may appear to be two widely different topics. They maintain, however, that "it is obvious that art originates in the brain." It therefore follows that disorders of the nervous system will influence artistic creativity because they affect — often in quite drastic ways — motor, sensory, and cognitive capacities. One might balk at the stark premise of this argument. Art has a variety of sources, not all of them physiological, even if each source must ultimately be subject to some form of neural processing before it can find expression. Nonetheless, the investigation of a nervous disorder's effect on artistic output seems to be a legitimate exercise for those who are interested in the nature of creativity or in the biographies of particular artists.
To this end, this book's 18 essays, written mostly by specialists in neurology and psychiatry, examine the effects of such neurologic insults as stroke, epilepsy, trauma, and tertiary syphilis on many (mostly European) artists. The term "artist" is interpreted generously to include authors, composers, and even philosophers, as well as those engaged in the visual arts. Most of them are well-known: Guy de Maupassant, Franz Josef Haydn, and inevitably, Friedrich Nietzsche. However, some lesser-known figures are also included.
One has to admire the ingenuity and application of some of the contributors. For instance, in order to shed light on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire's cerebral trauma after he was shot in the head in 1916, Julien Bogousslavsky examined the helmet Apollinaire was wearing at the time and then extrapolated the likely path of the projectile using standard measurements of the skull and brain. This inquiry leads to the conclusion that Apollinaire's emotional disturbances after his injury were the result of an organic temporal lobe lesion rather than of the psychological shock that previous students of his condition have described.
In general, the authors approach their task with great earnestness. In collating the available biographical information about their subjects, they pay particular attention to whatever details of their pathologic processes may have been preserved. They then apply the latest findings of 21st-century medical science in an attempt to specify the nature of the condition. Most of these contributions thus fall into the much-derided category of "retrospective diagnosis." This exercise has obvious limitations — almost all of the authors recognize that there is insufficient evidence in most cases to reach more than the most tentative of conclusions.
The chapters that consider the effects of neurologic illness on the work of painters and musicians tend to yield the most impressive results. For example, Konrad Maurer and David Prvulovic provide a convincing account of how Alzheimer's disease caused a kind of developmental regression in the German artist Carolus Horn; this regression is evinced in the paintings he produced after the disease took hold. However, elsewhere in the book, the assertion that Vincent van Gogh's exploration of natural symbolism was enhanced by his alleged manic-depressive condition does not add much to our understanding or appreciation of his work.
(Figure)
Dr. Paul Gachet by Vincent van Gogh, Oil on Canvas, 1890.
Gachet was van Gogh's psychiatrist.
From the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France, Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.
In the chapters that address the effect of neurologic disease on literary figures, perhaps the most interesting insights are found in Deborah Hayden's quotations of Sigmund Freud's comments on the influence of advanced syphilis on the later work of Nietzsche. Freud avoided any simplistic correlation between Nietzsche's medical condition and his philosophical output, but he recognized that the former was not wholly irrelevant to the latter. In Freud's view, Nietzsche "placed his paretic disposition at the service of science." The chapter by Sebastian Dieguez and Julien Bogousslavsky on Alphonse Daudet's experience of the agonies of tabes dorsalis is harrowing to read. However, those interested in the travails of Daudet and of other 19th-century novelists such as Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert should refer to Roger L. Williams's study, The Horror of Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
L.S. Jacyna, Ph.D.
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine
London NW1 2BE, United Kingdom
s.jacyna@ucl.ac.uk((Frontiers of Neurology a)
To this end, this book's 18 essays, written mostly by specialists in neurology and psychiatry, examine the effects of such neurologic insults as stroke, epilepsy, trauma, and tertiary syphilis on many (mostly European) artists. The term "artist" is interpreted generously to include authors, composers, and even philosophers, as well as those engaged in the visual arts. Most of them are well-known: Guy de Maupassant, Franz Josef Haydn, and inevitably, Friedrich Nietzsche. However, some lesser-known figures are also included.
One has to admire the ingenuity and application of some of the contributors. For instance, in order to shed light on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire's cerebral trauma after he was shot in the head in 1916, Julien Bogousslavsky examined the helmet Apollinaire was wearing at the time and then extrapolated the likely path of the projectile using standard measurements of the skull and brain. This inquiry leads to the conclusion that Apollinaire's emotional disturbances after his injury were the result of an organic temporal lobe lesion rather than of the psychological shock that previous students of his condition have described.
In general, the authors approach their task with great earnestness. In collating the available biographical information about their subjects, they pay particular attention to whatever details of their pathologic processes may have been preserved. They then apply the latest findings of 21st-century medical science in an attempt to specify the nature of the condition. Most of these contributions thus fall into the much-derided category of "retrospective diagnosis." This exercise has obvious limitations — almost all of the authors recognize that there is insufficient evidence in most cases to reach more than the most tentative of conclusions.
The chapters that consider the effects of neurologic illness on the work of painters and musicians tend to yield the most impressive results. For example, Konrad Maurer and David Prvulovic provide a convincing account of how Alzheimer's disease caused a kind of developmental regression in the German artist Carolus Horn; this regression is evinced in the paintings he produced after the disease took hold. However, elsewhere in the book, the assertion that Vincent van Gogh's exploration of natural symbolism was enhanced by his alleged manic-depressive condition does not add much to our understanding or appreciation of his work.
(Figure)
Dr. Paul Gachet by Vincent van Gogh, Oil on Canvas, 1890.
Gachet was van Gogh's psychiatrist.
From the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France, Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.
In the chapters that address the effect of neurologic disease on literary figures, perhaps the most interesting insights are found in Deborah Hayden's quotations of Sigmund Freud's comments on the influence of advanced syphilis on the later work of Nietzsche. Freud avoided any simplistic correlation between Nietzsche's medical condition and his philosophical output, but he recognized that the former was not wholly irrelevant to the latter. In Freud's view, Nietzsche "placed his paretic disposition at the service of science." The chapter by Sebastian Dieguez and Julien Bogousslavsky on Alphonse Daudet's experience of the agonies of tabes dorsalis is harrowing to read. However, those interested in the travails of Daudet and of other 19th-century novelists such as Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert should refer to Roger L. Williams's study, The Horror of Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
L.S. Jacyna, Ph.D.
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine
London NW1 2BE, United Kingdom
s.jacyna@ucl.ac.uk((Frontiers of Neurology a)