Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists - Part 4. Группа авторов
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neurological disorders affecting the brain. Here, we review several key abstract expressionists, including James Brooks, Agnes Martin and Willem de Kooning, and their artistic production in the context of brain disease.
Abstract expressionism arose in New York after the Second World War. The war was over, but what lingered was emotional trauma caused by genocide and the first usage of nuclear weapons, the Great Depression, and a seeming fall of humanity. Abstract expressionism grew in the climate of the Cold War and the USA becoming a leading political and military global powerhouse. The latter developments were fuelled by very strong economic growth and initial societal optimism in the early 1950s. However, further down the line, the American public mood evolved into paranoia of communist infiltration, hunting for communist sympathisers with the use of severe repression. In this societal and political climate abstract expressionism became an embodiment and expression of freedom through action painting [Moma.org, 2018]. From the artistic perspective, abstract expressionism was a form of liberation from European, especially French, modernism avant-garde. In this context it also had the symbolic significance of a local, American or New York artistic style as opposed to Picasso and others [Gaugh and de Kooning, 1982]. The advent of abstract expressionism allowed for New York to become an influential, global artistic centre [Moma.org, 2018].
The first artist linked to abstract expressionism was Clyfford Still. He was considered the initiator of this movement. Others to join were Jackson Pollock followed by Willem de Kooning [The Art Story, 2018a]. The group grew larger and included Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, among others. There was no uniform definition of abstract expressionism. The artists rejected widely accepted stylistic patterns of regionalism, surrealism and cubism. Instead they used abstraction to express emotional content. This expression quite often involved unusual techniques with the use of wall paints, or abandoning easels, painting directly on a canvas rotated according the artistic needs and using emotive and abstract gestures. In addition to this, abstract expressionism was influenced by jazz music that was contemporary to that time, which by itself was an artistic expression of freedom and improvisation. Some artists, such as James Pollock, would often listen to jazz while making his gestural paintings [Moma.org, 2018]. The connection between jazz and abstract expressionism was very diligently acknowledged by Willem de Kooning:
Miles Davis bends the notes. He doesn’t play them, he bends them. I bend the paint.[Moma.org, 2018]
The Irascible Eighteen
Abstract expressionism can also be seen as a form of protest against the established art world. This was reflected in the open protest initiated by abstract expressionists which was fuelled by the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Larson, 2002]. This institution decided to support young and emerging modern painters by organising a national juried exhibition entitled “American Painting Today, 1950.” In response, abstract expressionists gathered together at Adolf Gottlieb apartment in Brooklyn and drafted a letter of protest, which was printed on the front page of the New York Times (May 22nd, 1950) with the following headline: “18 Painters Boycott Metropolitan: Charge ‘Hostility to Advanced Art’” [Larson, 2002].
The artists stated they would not submit their work to “the monster national exhibition” and they expressed their concern that based on the choice of jurors the likelihood of advanced art inclusion into this exhibition would be minimal. This letter attracted wide attention and, in the editorial published in the Herald Tribune on May 23rd, 1950, which accused the authors of the distortion of facts, the group was branded “The Irascible Eighteen.” Following the public interest in this conflict, Life magazine published a photo taken by Nina Leen of “The Irascibles” in its edition of January 15th, 1951 (Fig. 1). Of note is the fact that three original signatories of the protest letter were not present in it, namely Weldon Kees, Hans Hoffmann, and Fritz Bultman [Alloway and MacNaughton, 1995; Larson, 2002].
Following this protest, the artists continued their individual production and they took over lower Manhattan within the area bounded by 8th and 12th Street between First and Sixth Avenues as their artistic cradle, spending hours in local cafeterias discussing art and life. They continued their artistic activities in local studios, including Jackson Pollock’s studio on East 8th Street, Willem de Kooning’s and Philip Guston’s on East 10th, and Franz Kline’s at the Cedar Street Tavern on University Place [Moma.org, 2018]. They soon started selling their paintings on a larger scale at rising prices, and some became the most expensive living painters.
Behind the spectacular success of abstract expressionism there lies individual cost and dysfunction. The “irascible” tag synonymises touchy, grumpy, and irritable, pointing towards possible mood and/or personality disorders. Schildkraut et al. [1994] analysed the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in 15 New York abstract expressionists, most of whom can be seen in Figure 1. The authors suggested that artistic creation in abstract expressionists was based on psychic automatism, which involves involuntary actions that are not controlled by the conscious mind. The artist would translate subconscious content through these automatic functions using free associations into abstract art heavily loaded with spiritual and psychological elements. This subconscious drive would originate from the archetypal themes of life, death and creation. Schildkraut et al. [1994] found that more than half of New York expressionists suffered either mood disorders, preoccupation with death, or alcohol abuse. This is a very interesting finding in the light of the origin of abstract expressionism in the post-war era, characterised by global humanitarian crises, the deprivation of values, and pressures from Cold War politics. The other interesting findings from the abovementioned analysis are that almost half of abstract expressionists sought psychiatric treatment and 20% of them required hospitalisation due to psychiatric problems. Their life spans were shorter on average, as two artists committed suicide, two died in a car accident when at the wheel, and overall seven died before the age of 60 years. Schildkraut et al. [1994] postulated that depression led abstract expressionists to inward thinking and questioning of the purpose of living and dying, which subsequently confronted them with the existential dilemma of the sense of life and death. Confrontation with this existential mystery would give the basis for tragic and timeless art denuded of any form and references [Schildkraut et al., 1994].
Fig. 1. Portrait of “The Irascible Eighteen.” Nina Leen (photographer), November 24th, 1950, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. Front row: Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko; middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin; back row: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne. Reprinted with permission.
Exploring further the presence of disease in this group of artists, it is important to mention that two painters from “The Irascible Eighteen” group – James Brooks and Willem de Kooning – were diagnosed with dementia. Another abstract expressionist artist of Canadian descent, Agnes Martin, who came to New York in late 1950s, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and dementia in her very late years. In the next part of this chapter we will focus on the lives and artistic creations of these three artists.
James Brooks
James Brooks was born in St. Louis in Missouri on October 18th, 1906. He studied art at the Southern Methodist University at the Dallas Art Institute and moved to New York in 1927. He initially attended the Art Students League and worked as a commercial artist. Like many other future abstract expressionists, Brooks joined the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project in 1936 as a muralist and worked there until 1942. During this time he created his famous Flight project in the social realist style, telling history of flying from Greek mythology to contemporary