How disease may have influenced great works of art Paul Wolf’s career as a pathologist has been marked by a love of both art and science, and he has found a unique way to combine the two.
Since his days as a medical student at the University of Michigan, the clinical professor of pathology at the University of California and VA Medical Centers in San Diego has been curious about the connection between disease and art.
For example, in Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, “The Starry Night,” the stars are surrounded by a yellow corona; did the artist simply like the color yellow, or was he influenced by an underlying medical condition? Wolf offers some well-reasoned speculation.
Some say that van Gogh’s fondness for absinthe, a liquor containing the brain receptor blocking toxin alpha-Thujone, may have caused his yellow vision. However, a more likely reason is that the artist was ingesting large doses of digitalis to treat his epilepsy. Other epilepsy patients, who at that time took large amounts of digitalis, often complained of seeing yellow spots surrounded by coronas similar to those in “The Starry Night.” Dr. Wolf, who offered his presentation at this year’s AACC meeting, noted that modern chemistry testing could have easily confirmed or refuted this theory.
French Impressionist painter Claude Monet was another artist who may have been deeply influenced by a medical disorder. Monet was plagued by cataracts that made it difficult for him to distinguish shapes and colors. After going blind, the artist had surgery on his right eye and continued to paint although he had severe difficulty with color balance and adjusting to cataract glasses. He complained that he saw nothing but blue and destroyed many of his paintings. Several blue paintings, including one view of the house from Giverney, France, contrasts with the yellow-red view of the same scene which is signed and dated 1922, before his surgery.
It is not Wolf’s point that today’s improved diagnostics and treatments are depriving society of great art, but to emphasize the significance of clinical laboratory testing on the healthcare and well being of individuals. That’s certainly an idea we can all get behind.
Coleen Curran
Editor
