Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Georges Seurat, The Eiffel Tower, 1889. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

"You Are In Good Company! Celebrities and historical figures with Migraine disease include, among many... the great painters... George Seurat (after which is named the Seurat effect, a current medical term often used to describe the visual phenomena of scintillating aura aka scotoma)..."

(M.A.G.N.U.M., May 30, 2004)

"Sometimes artists affect how doctors articulate visual phenomena, such as specific sensory hallucinations, a.k.a., 'Migraine aura.' Some medical researchers refer to scotomata, or scintillating aura, in Migraine as the Seurat Effect! George Seurat, a French impressionist and believed Migraine sufferer, developed the pointalistic technique, seen in his many oil paintings, including 'Courbevoie Bridge,' circa 1886."

(M.A.G.N.U.M., May 30, 2004)

"Well, 'believed sufferer' is of course just a wild guess, since the [Seurat] name was associated with 'migraine aura' due the superficial similarity with his technique only. And he developed his technique after careful study of the color mixture effects (say placing two colors from the opposte sides of the 'color wheel' next to each other)."

(Jan, Voynich Manuscript Mailing List HQ, Subject: VMs: Pleiades Occultation Further Date Refinement, January 22, 2005)

"The 'Seurat effect,' a term used to describe the visual phenomenon of a scintillating aura, takes its name from another Impressionist artist, Georges Seurat. Seurat pioneered the pointillist technique of building up images from small dots of color."

(World Headache Alliance, 'Celebrities Suffer Migraines Too', May 30, 2004)

"Painters are not immune to migraines: Impressionist Claude Monet and postimpressionist Vincent van Gogh suffered, as did Georges Seurat, whose name doctors appropriated when dubbing visual disturbances of the migraine aura the 'Seurat effect.'"

(Alexander Mauskop and Barry Fox, What your doctor may not tell you about your migraines, 2001)

"It is startling to observe how such speculations, even if they are clearly declared as such by their originators, may achieve, by being uncritically quoted and re-quoted in non-peer reviewed media such as internet websites, the appeal of being well-documented facts. For example, in a passing remark during the previously cited interview of 'Reuters Health', Ferrari (Kenyon, 2000) has reported wondering 'if the French painter Georges Seurat did not suffer from auras as well', his pointillist paintings being 'very similar to scintillating scotoma dot patterns described by many migraineurs'. Obviously referring to Ferrari's said speculation, on the web site of the American self-help organisation M.A.G.N.U.M. (Migraine Awareness Group: A National Understanding for Migraineurs), a page with the heading 'You're in good company' includes a statement to the effect that 'Celebrities and historical figures with Migraine disease include, among many ... the great painters Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat (after which is named the Seurat effect, a current medical term often used to describe the visual phenomena of scintillating aura aka scotoma), and Claude Monet ...' (see here, up-date from 11th April 2002). Sadly, just contrary to its expressed intentions, this page from the otherwise in many respects excellent authoritative website creates new 'myths' rather than providing critical information on the various aspects of reality of migraine, the claimed currency in medical nomenclature of the actually freshly introduced eponymous term Seurat effect (a MEDLINE search producing no references to this term) for Listing's (1867) scintillating scotoma (Zehender, 1897) being just one of these myths."

(Podoll et al., 2003, p. 21)

References

Kenyon G. Picasso's cubist faces simply a matter of migraine? Reuters Health, 8th September 2000.
Listing JB. Mittheilung über das sogenannte "sichelförmige Flimmerskotom". In: Zehender W, Referat über Testelin, Notiz über Hemiopie. Klin Mbl Augenheilk 1867; 5: 334-335.
Mauskop A, Fox B. What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Migraines. Warner Books, New York 2001.
Podoll K, Robinson D, Nicola U. L'ipotesi di un'origine emicranica della pittura di Picasso: una rassegna critica. [The migraine hypothesis on Picasso's paintings: a critical reappraisal. In Italian.] Confinia Cephalalgica 2003; 12: 11-23.
Zehender W. Das sichelförmige Flimmerskotom Listing's. Klin Mbl Augenheilk 1897; 35: 25-27.

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