Migraine and Visual Arts
| Author: Klaus Podoll | 23. March 2005 |
| Edited by: Klaus Podoll |
Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978)
Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico
The Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico is more and more appreciated as one of the emblematic figures of 20th century art. He has developed the style of "metaphysical art" and is seen as one of the forerunners of surrealism. Whereas current interpretations of his work by art historians and art critics focus on the literary and philosophical sources of de Chirico's poetics, e.g. the writings from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the British neurologist G.N. Fuller and the art historian M.V. Gale suggested, in a paper published as early as 1988 in the British Medical Journal, that migraine with aura may have acted as a basis for several unusual and recurrent features of his "Pittura metafisica". According to Dr Fuller's recollection, "the collaboration arose because I shared a house with my sister and one of our lodgers (and now my brother in law) Matthew Gale was doing a PhD on de Chirico (he is now a curator at the Tate). I inevitably saw some of his pictures - and thought they looked like migraine aura and Matthew was able to confirm that de Chirico was indeed often ill - and reviewing his writings led us to the conclusion that he had migraine..." (Email to Klaus Podoll, May 28, 2005).
Reconsidering the notion of de Chirico's migraine aura as source of his artistic inspiration, Ubaldo Nicola and Klaus Podoll have systematically examined his published works as painter and writer, including his "Memoirs", the semi-autobiographical novels "Hebdomeros" and "Mister Dudron" and his collected essays. References to migraine aura symptoms were identified according to phenomenal similarities not only with clinical descriptions of such phenomena as established in neurological semeiology, but also with the paintings and drawings from the Migraine Art collection which currently consists of 562 pieces.
The available documents provided unexpectedly rich evidence for a diagnosis of migraine with aura, as summarized in the monograph "The aura of Giorgio de Chirico - Migraine Art and Metaphysical Painting".
Nicola & Podoll, L'aura di Giorgio de Chirico, 2003. © 2003 Mimesis Edizioni
As an expansion of Fuller' and Gale's previously reported findings, it was possible to document familiarity, childhood onset and a wide range of symptoms of de Chirico's migraine with aura as described in his writings. Blanke and Landis (2003) objected that the available evidence suggests a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) rather than migraine, but major criticisms can be raised against their selection and interpretation of data (Podoll and Nicola, 2004) and according to the present author's opinion they failed to demonstrate convincing links between the assumed diagnosis of TLE and de Chirico's metaphysical painting (Blanke and Landis, 2004).
headaches
nausea
photophobia
abdominal complaints (abdominal migraine)
gustatory hallucinations
scotoma
visual hallucinations ("spiritual fevers")
asthenopic scotoma
autokinesis (apparent movement of stationary objects)
autoscopy
recurrent dreams
somatosensory symptoms
macrosomatognosia
depersonalization-derealization syndrome
déjà vu
jamais vu
Analysis of de Chirico's essays on his notion of "revelation" and his autobiographical report on the creation of his first metaphysical painting (The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon, 1909) demonstrate that migraine aura phenomena − especially paramnesias (jamais and déjà vu) and visual phenomena - can be identified at the heart of the painter's creative process during the formative years of development of his unique style of metaphysical art.
Giorgio de Chirico, The enigma of an autumn afternoon, 1909. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007
"... let me recount how I had the revelation of a picture that I will show this year at the Salon d'Automne, entitled Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon. One clear autumnal afternoon I was sitting on a bench in the middle of the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. It was of course not the first time I had seen this square. I had just come out of a long and painful intestinal illness [abdominal migraine], and I was in a nearly morbid state of sensitivity [hypersensitivity to light and noise; migraine aura phenomena]. The whole world, down to the marble of the buildings and the fountains, seemed to me to be convalescent. In the middle of the square rises a statue of Dante draped in a long cloak, holding his works clasped against his body, his laurel-crowned head bent thoughtfully earthward. The statue is in white marble, but time has given it a grey cast, very agreeable to the eye [photophobia]. The autumn sun, warm and unloving [photophobia; exposure to sun as trigger factor of migraine attack], lit the statue and the church façade. Then I had the strange impression that I was looking at all these things for the first time [jamais vu], and the composition of my picture came to my mind's eye. Now each time I look at this painting I again see that moment. Nevertheless the moment is an enigma to me, for it is inexplicable. And I like also to call the work which sprang from it an enigma."
(Giorgio de Chirico, Parisian manuscripts; cited from Soby, 1955, p. 251; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)
"I have started just since Christmas, getting a strange new symptom prior to migraines -- a surrealistic rainbow halo around my vision. Granted it is usually faint, but it seems like this has become a new precursor to the onset of a migraine. Is it just me? Or is this something the rest of you experience and if so, how do you handle it?"
(Al and Sharon Amabile, Newsgroups: alt.support.headache.migraine, Subject: New symptom, March 27, 2001)
"Suddenly, a sense of surrealism flashed before me and for a minute I thought this daze was some kind of divine inspiration. But then I realized it was noon and 24 hours had passed since my last meal, if breadsticks deserve to be called a meal... As I walked into GC, my head felt swollen and my brain numb, but this numbness was a strange one. I analyzed this feeling a little more in-depth, and although thinking appeared awfully hard to do, I was able to realize the fact that I had a huge migraine."
(Andrea Martini, Finals week, college enslaves students to stress, The Beacon - The Student Newspaper of Florida International University, April 29, 2002)
"Had visual disturbances about two and a half hours ago. The blind spot quite quickly turned into a bright jagged lightning bolt and a feeling of pressure built up around left temple. Mentally, everything felt very surreal as if logic suddenly took a holiday.This used to scare me witless, but now I know what to expect."
(Anonymous, Zhurnal Wiki a.k.a. ^zhurnal , the journal of ^z = Mark Zimmermann, Topic Personal History - Migraine Visions, August 8, 2004)
A comparison of de Chirico's pictorial work with images drawn and painted by other migraine sufferers shows striking similarities which suggest headaches, photophobia, scotoma, visual hallucinations and illusions as well as body image disturbances like macrosomatognosia and out-of-body experiences as sources of his artistic inspiration.
(top) Giorgio de Chirico, Ritratto di Apollinaire, 1914. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007 (bottom) Migraine Art: Photophobia. © 2007
Migraine Action Association and Boehringer Ingelheim
(top) Giorgio de Chirico, Il bagnante solitario, 1934. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007 (bottom) Migraine Art: Visual aura with parallel zigzags. © 2007 Migraine Action Association and Boehringer Ingelheim
(top) Giorgio de Chirico, Sole sul
cavaletto, 1972. © VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007 (right) Migraine Art: Visual aura with radial symmetrical patterns. © 2007 Migraine Action Association and Boehringer Ingelheim