Migraine and Visual Arts
| Author: Klaus Podoll | 31. May 2004 |
| Edited by: Klaus Podoll |
William Blake (1757-1827)
The William Blake Archive
William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794.
"Artists like William Blake, and Saint Hildegard seem tohave included migraine figures in their artwork." (Cited from Gary Lockhart: Migraine Headaches; in: Natural Earth: The English Standard Reference on Herbal Healing - Volume 1: The Herbal Center of Healing, November 6, 2003)
"The visions of William Blake, Lewis Carroll and St. Theresa could well have had their origins in migraine attacks these people endured." (Cited from Migraine Headaches... BASIC FACTS, November 6, 2003)
A major concern of the 'migraine hypothesis' of William Blake's visions is the fact that it is based alone on the phenomenal similarity between some of Blake's paintings (e.g. The Ancient of Days, 1794) and the typical moon-sickle shape of a migrainous scintillating scotoma or fortification spectrum, respectively. However, in contrast to the evidence available in the aforementioned cases of Hildegard of Bingen and Lewis Carroll, the existing biographical research on William Blake has not yet demonstrated, to the best of our knowledge, that a diagnosis of migraine can be supported by additional evidence from autobiographical writings and/or contemporaries' observations. Thus, the notion that William Blake was a migraineur inspired by his visual aura experiences has to be considered, for the time being, as insufficiently supported.
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