The Artist’s Brain
Neurology and powers of attorney combine to define the limits of artistic capacity.
Bill’s family and friends had been noticing that he was becoming forgetful. In the studio, he spent increasing periods looking rather than painting. It was not the usual kind of meditation; it seemed more vacant than engaged. This was true in his general life. So, in order to help him paint, assistants mixed his favourite colours, placing the tubs near his easel and putting up a blank canvas. To start him off, assistants would project slides of his older paintings on to the blank canvas and trace it, establishing a network of flowing intersecting lines over which he could paint. Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) was slowly slipping from forgetfulness into dementia. Museums and millionaire collectors would have taken an interest in his condition, had they known. de Kooning’s mental state was guarded with more than simple concern for his privacy; it was a delicate commercial matter.
In one respect, this assistance was entirely laudable and considerate. It allowed a man for whom art-making was central to continue making art, thereby sustaining the routine that he found reassuring at a time when his faculties were deteriorating. It was the right thing to do. The question is, should that art have been made public through exhibition and sale? Where can one draw the lines of competence and consent. Just because an artist makes art, it is not necessarily in the best interest of his reputation (artistic and commercial) to treat that art as equivalent to the rest of his oeuvre. In fact, to defend his reputation, sub-standard pieces need to be culled or suppressed.
Editors frequently deal with this issue in relation to publishing. For example, should immature poems be included in a complete-poems volume? They might be of value to scholars constructing a critical timeline of a writer’s development – and they may provide plenty of amusement and appeal to devoted lay readers – but should these weak derivative poems (freighted with footnotes and given equal status) be published in proximity to masterpieces? Many authors have demanded posthumous volumes exclude or include juvenilia; instructions that executors have followed to differing levels of fidelity. The only sure way to suppress unpublished work is burning it. Material published but later disowned is a more complicated question. If the author’s standing (and reader interest) is great enough then everything extant gets republished or at least circulated.
In the case of an artist, once objects worth something are out in the world, they will be bought and sold; unless they are stolen, no one other than the owner (not even the artist’s estate) has a say in what happens to the object. There is an incentive for the estate and its dealers to enhance the value of the art remaining in the estate, which is generally the earliest and last works of a professional artist, most major works having been sold during the artist’s lifetime. In contrast to legal stipulations regarding financial decisions, there are no legal restrictions on an artist’s trustees (as we can call inheritors, will executors and those with power of attorney) acting in a manner aesthetically or intellectually disadvantageous to an artist’s reputation by exhibiting and selling works by an artist impaired by dementia. As long as trustees do not commit fraud or act recklessly, they can decide to maximise the value of the art however they wish.
Trustees have acted in self-interest and to protect others’ reputations. Jane Austen’s family censored and burned much of her correspondence; Byron’s relatives burned the manuscript of his memoirs. Philip Larkin’s secretary faithfully followed his instructions and destroyed his diary after his death, despite protests from his biographer and friends. Max Brod took the opposite action and published his friend Kafka’s unpublished and private writings rather than destroy them. It has been argued, fairly I think, that Kafka knew Brod would disobey these instructions but due to ambivalence allowed the matter to rest in Brod’s hands rather than entrust destruction to an obedient executor.
The output of artists is documented in catalogues raisonnés, where a quasi-scientific method is applied to all the work by a particular artist. The value of these is in their comprehensiveness and consistency, albeit with different criteria are applied. Some catalogues raisonnés include destroyed works, juvenilia, unfinished paintings, previously attributed pieces and even denounce known fakes. What about the works made by an artist declining mentally and physically? Should a line be drawn? If so, where? The heirs of William Scott decided to class paintings made during his years of dementia as belonging to a separate category. In effect, this allowed people to see and appreciate the art but treat it as compromised by impairment.
This gets to the heart of the question. Who decides competence and is that merely a matter of quality? After all, if it is just quality, whole swathes of great artist’s output would be “stricken from the record”. During his lifetime, the elderly Turner was denounced by even his supporters as suffering mental decline; yet nowadays we do not draw a distinction, even if we agree the late works are inferior to those of the high period of 1820-39. Likewise, Picasso’s final pictures were called by critics the scribbles of a demented man being indulged by sycophants. Today, we class them all works by Turner and Picasso as worthy of consideration, therefore legitimate works.
What about those artists who were themselves made by disability or injury? I do not mean the work of outsider artists, whose art is seen as aberrant and derived from illness. Instead, consider the cases of two artists whose acceptance is widespread and conventional. Firstly, there is the English painter Augustus John (1878-1961). While a youth he suffered from a grave head injury when diving. One acquaintance recalled John was initially “quiet, methodical and by no means remarkable” but while swimming later he “struck his head on a rock, and came out of the water – a genius!”.[i] John was later noted to be impulsive and selfish; he took little notice of criticism and was called wilful; he was profligate with money and was promiscuous. These are characteristics of some who suffer brain damage. A lack of impulse control and heightened emotions are particular symptoms of head trauma. This free spirit animated the style and selection of topics in his art and contributed to its popularity. John experienced his injury at such an early point in his life that there is insufficient before-and-after evidence in both his personal life and his artistic output to determine whether (and to what degree) his injury formed his subsequent artistic character.
A second example is the American portraitist Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). An academic has examined evidence about the life and art of Stuart and he has been posthumously diagnosed as suffering from bi-polar disorder (manic depression). His impulsiveness in picking up projects then abandoning them, with consequent predictable costs, was well known. His reckless spending on props was seen as profligate. He refused to complete portraits which he had been contracted for, falling into lethargy. This was a matter of temperament rather than circumstance. This behaviour correlates to that of BPD sufferers. Additionally, research into his palette reveals a preference for cool colours – something identified in artists with depression. These traits are noticeable throughout his career and contributed (or at least did not detract from) his success. I forego to mention an obvious extra example of Van Gogh.
In the cases of John and Stuart, apparent impairment may have made these men, with these conditions emerging in detectable ways in their art. Academics and other professionals offer contributions to artistic discussions that – however insightful – can lead to the pathologisation of creativity. This treatment can reduce the conscious decision of an individual to the foregone result of a condition. Paradoxically (as discussed in regard to John and Stuart) abnormal health conditions may make a conventional fine artist (i.e. not an outsider artist) as well as unmake them; our treatment of the resultant art depends on whether we consider the results of the health conditions in question to be beneficial or detrimental.
So, if poets do not get to class their juvenilia as either valuable or valueless, and critics do not get to arbitrate the legitimacy of what an artist produces, why should trustees of an artist get to decide which art is produced by an artist and which is produced by his illness? Because they can. I also believe they should be able to decide. It is right for trustees to decide that works created under impairment are not suitable for exhibition, publication and sale, just as an artist might decide so. Additionally, I think this material should (when practical) be preserved and made available to researchers. Ultimately, nothing lasts forever. All artist estates are dispersed; copyrights expire; wills are disregarded. The art becomes the work of culture generally, then of history, by subsequent generations and civilisations absorbed or rejected, preserved or disregarded, which reassign values and meanings appropriate to later eras regardless of conformity to the artist’s intentions.
This is, I concede, an argument to pragmatism and an acceptance of temporal force majeure. It is simple acceptance that what binds others to the will of the creator is (over centuries) ever less relevant, feasible, applicable and even comprehensible. Yet I do suggest we should hold to the creators’ wishes (as far as we understand them) as much as we can, for as long as possible. It is helpful to preserve context and part of our commitment to uphold artists’ intentions as this is part of our covenant with the dead, just as we likewise wish for such reverence towards our own will. I admit my own self-satisfying inconsistent nature. I read the read the private writings of Kafka with pleasure and view the late paintings of de Kooning with disquiet, denying myself neither. In the end, these are matters of individual conscience.
You can read my reviews of new catalogues of Augustus John (here) and Willem de Kooning (here).
[i] William Rothenstein quoted in David Boyd Haycock, Augustus John & the First Crisis of Brilliance, Piano Nobile Publications, 2024, p. 11
Our brains control every aspect of who we are, what we think and how we feel. I’ve a history of brain tumours and I was recently diagnosed with a Grade 4 brain tumour. It’s typical, with this type of tumour, to experience personality changes. To no longer regulate and control one’s self; to have no impulse control. To behave outside of cultural norms - characteristics we always associate with artists. This can be a form of liberation of course. Had Augustus John not suffered that terrible head trauma at age 19, would he have gone on to live the extreme bohemian existence he did, travelling with gypsies and living a life of promiscuity? I was really lucky to see an exhibition of Augustus and Gwen John’s work at the Tate Britain way back in December 2004. The styles of the siblings were quite different - Gwen’s more restrained, Augustus’s far more extrovert. I still have a brochure for the exhibition in which Augustus is quoted as saying that he and his sister’s art was “the same thing really”. A revealing comment - often the person living with the brain trauma just does not see how it is manifested.
This was so interesting to read, and I did not know John, Stuart, and de Kooning suffered in the ways they did. It’s a fascinating question that I have never considered and you’ve given me much to think about. Thank you.