Читать книгу Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists - Part 4 - Группа авторов - Страница 13

There is substantial evidence, from his own descriptions as well as those of his friends and biographers, that Joan Miró experienced periodic episodes of depression [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996]. Deep feelings of sorrow, isolation and of loneliness were rooted in Miró’s childhood. Schildkraut [1996] reported Miró’s comments: “I was very much alone. Nobody paid any attention to me. Very much alone because I always looked beyond all those narrow things. I felt that loneliness in a very painful, violent way when I was very young, a mere child.” It seems that the heightened awareness that Miró possessed contributed both to his artistic talent and to his isolation from other people, even his father. As Dupin comments, Miró’s love of solitude and his taciturnity without doubt have no other origin [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].

Miró’s first known episode of depression occurred in 1911, when he was about 18 years old. Describing this experience, Miró stated, “I was demoralized and suffered a serious depression.” Roland Penrose, Miró’s friend and biographer, noted: “This was the first major crisis in his life… punctuated with periodic upheavals”. Miró recalled that he began drawing to escape from his unhappiness [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].

Between 1925 and 1927, there was a dramatic increase in Miró’s productivity. The surrealist group noted that during this period Miró was in the midst of an almost delirious intellectual effervescence. During these years, Miró painted a series of highly poetic canvases that Dupin termed “dream painting” works that may have been stimulated by hunger-induced hallucinations, as Miró asserted. He could not afford to eat a proper meal every day, and he suffered from hallucinations provoked by hunger and overwork. His continuous discoveries were driving him to work on and on without rest or interruption [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].

During the 1930s Miró’s art moved in several directions. He made strange and haunting constructions. In some works, his colors began to look irradiated and malevolent; and he depicted angry, ugly figures that seem to have freed him of his nightmares [Kimmelman, 1993]. From the beginning of 1934 and due to the situation in Spain and Europe, Miró found himself unable to draw anything but monsters; the human figure became a grotesque image of teeth and genitals [Adams, 2011]. Miró had sublimated his anger and frustration over the brutality erupting around the world into what he called his “savage paintings” (1934–1938), inspired by his thoughts about death [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995]. In an interview at this time, Miró was asked about his state of mind. “I am pessimistic, I am tragically pessimistic” he said. “No illusions are permitted. More violently than ever before there will be a struggle against everything that represents the pure value of the spirit” [Adams, 2011]. Miró frequently referred to his depressions, describing in his letters, interviews, and articles how they affected his art. “My nature is tragic and taciturn. … When I was young, I went through periods of profound sadness…. I’m a pessimist. I always think that everything is going to turn out badly. If there is something humorous in my painting, it’s not that I have consciously looked for it. Perhaps this humor comes from a need to escape from the tragic side of my temperament” [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].

Miró revealed his depression and his desire to transcend suffering in many of his paintings, including the self-portraits that he painted through his midlife period (1937–1938). His comments on his state of mind when painting the Constellations, which Miró created from 1940 to 1941 in the shadow of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, shed light on how Miró was able to transform his depressed feelings into energy for painting. Through introspection and meditation, Miró’s spiritual beliefs sustained him in his suffering, allowing his depressions to fuel his artistic creativity [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].

Referring to the depressive side of his temperament in a 1947 interview, he noted: “If I don’t paint, I worry, I become very depressed, I fret and become gloomy and get ‘black ideas’ and I don’t know what to do with myself” [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996]. Thus, it seems that art making, in part, served a healing function for Miró.

Schildkraut et al. [1994] showed how depression played a crucial role in the artistic development of Joan Miró and documented the relationship of the artist’s spiritual beliefs and yearnings for transcendence both to his depression and to his art work. The identification of genius with depression and suffering which we have noted is not necessarily pejorative; however, the romantic genius is destined to play out the drama of life in public [Rose, 1996].

Schildkraut et al. [1994] explored similar issues in the mid-twentieth century abstract expressionist artists of New York, many of whom were strongly influenced by Miró, who may be seen as a precursor of abstract expressionism. A strikingly high prevalence of psychopathology was found in this group. Depression or depressive spectrum disorders (depressive, hyperthymic, and cyclothymic personalities or temperaments) were predominant.

Although there is no clear-cut evidence that Miró experienced manic episodes, the possibility has been raised that he was cyclothymic. Miró’s own descriptions of cycles governing his life and work are compatible with this assessment, coupled with the marked variations in his productivity. On several occasions, Miró spoke of experiencing regular cycles in his work, affecting both the rate and process of his painting as well as his subject matter. “Both my life and my work are governed by alternating phases. Yes, indeed, one can speak of cycles in my painting” [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995]. During those few particularly fruitful decades of invention he gave free rein to an imagination that has no parallel in the history of art [Kimmelman, 1993].

Roland Penrose, his friend and biographer, commented: “Behind the cheerful, innocent, even tranquil look in his face, Miró has never been immune to attacks of violent anguish and depression. He has, however, always been able to balance the threats of imminent disaster by equally potent forces. It is the ability to live with these tensions with comparative equanimity that gives his presence among others a unique quality and a sense of controlled power” [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995].

A further limitation of the diagnosis is the inability to pinpoint the particular nature of Joan Miró’s affective disorder. As Schildkraut [1996] stated, retrospective diagnoses made on the basis of historical sources, in the absence of direct clinical examinations, are often problematic. So, although there is evidence that Miró experienced cyclicity in his moods, we do not know if Miró had a true bipolar disorder. Moreover, we do not understand the exact nature of the relation between his depressions and his creativity, and we cannot match the depressed state to specific works [Schildkraut and Hirshfeld, 1995, 1996].