Content Under Pressure: Gratitude 8

I am grateful for art. Ever hear of Stendhal Syndrome? Okay, ever hear of Stendhal? French guy who two hundred years ago, give or take, wrote a novel about a young man escaping his hateful father and getting into all kinds of interesting adventures in Parisian society, titled "The Scarlet and the Black." Stendhal was his nom de plume. I don't know his birth name. Not a bad writer, but my chief interest in him was due to this rather obscure mental health disorder named after him.

From Wikipedia:

The illness is named after the 19th-century French author Stendhal, who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio.
When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are buried, he saw Giotto's frescoes for the first time and was overcome with emotion. He wrote:

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.^[2]

Although psychiatrists have long debated whether it really exists, its effects on some sufferers are serious enough for them to require treatment in hospital and even antidepressants.^[3] The staff at Florence's Santa Maria Nuova hospital are accustomed to dealing with tourists suffering from dizzy spells and disorientation after admiring the statue of David, the masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery and other treasures of the Tuscan city.^[4]
Even though there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the aforementioned Uffizi in Florence, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence. There is no scientific evidence to define the Stendhal syndrome as a specific psychiatric disorder; on the other hand there is evidence that the same cerebral areas involved in emotional reactions are activated during the exposure to artworks.

That should, perhaps, be the measure of the authenticity of a work of art, which is to say, does it move us? Does it truly, really and deeply move us, causing us, in the words of British pop singer Alison Moyet, to go weak in the presence of beauty?

Here's the video for your little eighties' fix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wBQTWdL7Ks

Art is a window to the divine, to the world of the spirit. Through the human imagination, skill, practice, technical expertise, hard work, and that little indefinable whisper also called inspiration, the artist creates that connection, if we will but accept it.

To all my atheists out there, I have this to say:

Do get over it.

I do art therapy in some of my work with psychiatric clients. The simple, playful and thoughtful use of colour, of drawing and working with the imagination never fails to have a soothing, calming and healing effect on my clients. Art is God's way of making himself visible to those who aren't religious.

When we are so overwhelmed by the beauty and sublime blessing of art and creative and spiritual overflow we often simply cannot function for a while, but can only lie still and bask in the glory of it all.

I have always been what is called artistic, or gifted. I have been a working artist for the last twenty-four years. I don't sell a lot, and these days, commercial success doesn't matter to me. I just love what I do. To refresh your memory, here are some images of my work:

I do not expect you to go all Stendhal over my work.

Maybe you will get a bit weak when you see some images of the works of my mentors:

Georgia O'Keeffe: