Migraine and Visual Arts
| Author: Klaus Podoll | 13. March 2005 |
| Edited by: Klaus Podoll |
Art Brut and Migraine Art
Jean Dubuffet, L'ART BRUT PRÉFÉRE AUX ARTS CULTURELS, 1949 (see here)
The term Art Brut (meaning Raw Art) was coined in 1949 by French painter Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) for the art of the insane. Dubuffet became fascinated by the paintings of people institutionalized with schizophrenia such as Adolf Wölfli (1864-1939) and the Prinzhorn Collection. As a matter of fact, sufferers from migraine are not insane (although a fear of becoming mad may be elicited in many migraineurs by their often weird migraine aura experiences), and there seems to be no greater than chance comorbidity of migraine and chronic schizophrenia (Kuritzky et al., 1999), so that it can be well understood that the informal art genres of Art Brut and Migraine Art show almost no overlap.
Walther Morgenthaler, Illustration of recurring visual migraine aura drawn by a 40-year-old patient with catatonic schizophrenia, 1915. (Reproduced from Morgenthaler, 1919, Figure 5.)
In fact, we are aware of only a single record of an artist who produced a work at the crossroads of Art Brut and Migraine Art, long before both terms existed. In 1919, Walther Morgenthaler (1882-1965), psychiatrist at the Waldau Clinic in Bern, Switzerland, released an article with a catatonic schizophrenic patient's (case no. 3) drawing of his recurring visual migraine aura, featuring expanding spiralled zigzags, flame-like shapes and curved forms likened by the patient to astrakhan, all of these visual forms being perceived in continuous movement and invariably heralding intense bilateral headaches. Two years later, Morgenthaler published A Mentally Ill Patient as an Artist which first brought the work of another one of his patients, Adolf Wölfli, to the attention of the art world. This book was revolutionary in many ways as it was not simply a clinical study but argued that a person with a severe mental illness could be a serious artist and had the ability to make important contributions to art, influencing the development and acceptance of Art Brut and its champion Jean Dubuffet. The "Collection Walther Morgenthaler" now comprises circa 5000 works from psychiatric patients, thus equaling in size the more famous Prinzhorn Collection.
References
Dubuffet J. Art brut: Vorzüge gegenüber der kulturellen Kunst. In: Dubuffet J, Die Malerei in der Falle. Antikulturelle Positionen. Schriften, Vol 1. Gachnang & Springer, Bern-Berlin 1991.
Kuritzky A, Mazeh D, Levi A. Headache in schizophrenic patients: a controlled study. Cephalalgia 1999; 19: 725-727.
Morgenthaler W. Über Zeichnungen von Gesichtshalluzinationen. Z ges Neurol Psychiat 1919; 45: 19-29.
Morgenthaler W. Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler. Ernst Bircher Verlag, Bern-Leipzig 1921.
Prinzhorn H. Das bildnerische Schaffen der Geisteskranken. Z ges Neurol Psychiat 1919; 52: 307-326.
Prinzhorn H. Bildnerei der Geisteskranken. Springer, Berlin 1922.
Last modification of this page: Sunday March 13, 2005
Derek Robinsons Migraine Art Concept
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