STUDY GUIDE FOR EXAM #1. 2022

Module 1:

• Who is Frida Kahlo? Know representative works and be able to talk about the effect of illness on her works.

  • Frida Kahlo was an artist that produced pieces such as “The Broken Column”, “The Two Fridas”, and “The Wounded Deer”. She was in a bus accident very early in her life, which caused her to have chronic pain for the rest of her life.

Module 2:

• Matisse and Florence Nightingale were artists whose physical illness kept them bedridden and they painted works on the walls near their beds.

• Stendhal Syndrome is when a piece of art is so moving, it causes a very emotional reaction.

• Cyclothymia: Pronounced, but not totally debilitating changes in mood, behavior, thinking, sleep, and energy levels.

  • Characteristics of Cyclothymia can be predominantly depressive, manic, hypomanic, irritable, or cyclothymic. May develop into manic depressive psychosis. Often experienced before bipolar is diagnosed.

• Bipolar: Wide range of mood disorders and temperaments that vary from cyclothymia to psychotic forms of the disease.

  • Bipolar 1 (most severe): Must meet full criteria for both mania and depressive illness.

  • Bipolar 2: Presence or history of at least one major depressive episode as well as the existence or history of less severe manic episodes (hypomanias)

• Mania

  • Elevated mood or irritability/paranoia, more energetic, less need for sleep, rapid speech, excitable, intrusive, fast thinking, moving quickly from topic to topic.

• Depression

  • Apathy, lethargy, hopelessness, sleep disturbed, slowed thinking, impaired memory and concentration, loss of pleasure in normally pleasurable things, suicidal thinking, self-blame, guilt, and thoughts of death.

  • Minimum length of 2-4 weeks.

  • Significant interference with the normal functioning of life.

• Why do artistic people often thrive during periods of mania? What happens to their productivity? What happens during periods of depression?

  • During mania, they become extremely creative and release a lot of music during their hyperactive period. During depression episodes, they stop or slow their output due to their lack of creativity. In the graphs of Schumann’s works, he went into a state of mania and created a majority of his symphonies.

• It is hard to diagnose illnesses looking back in history due to the fact that the characteristics were present, but no diagnosis, which means the diseases were not certain.

• The tuberculous study was a study where individuals with tuberculosis were able to be tracked on the basis of their paintings.

• Stendhal Syndrome is being completely taken aback by the power of an artist’s output.

• Poetry is most likely to cause an emotional response through its natural rhythms.

• Antiquity: Pain reassures you that you are alive.

• German Romantic School: Romanicized, more pain leads to more pleasure.

• English Romantic School (Exception): Pain relief and overcoming pain make one more creative.

Module 3:

• Drugs and alcohol had positives and negatives on the creative output of artists.

  • In the book, Robert Schumann drank alcohol, took caffeine, and smoked cigars because he said it heightened his senses, which was the basis of his compositions.

  • In the case of Robin Williams, he was under the impression that drinking made him funnier and he used his humor to talk about his alcoholism.

• What unusual illness did Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale suffer from?

  • Hypochondria

• What mental illness did Glenn Gould have and how did this affect his life as a performing pianist?

  • Hypochondria. He would obsessively avoid anyone who he thought was sick and made people clean his piano very frequently.

Module 4:

• What illness did Robert Schuman have? Be able to define the progression of his mental illness.

  • Schumann was predicted to have bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He was born into a family of mental illness and suicide with his sister and cousin committing suicide and his son likely having schizophrenia. He had his first severe depressive episode at age 23 and recurred several times. He then tried to commit suicide and self-admitted into a mental asylum and died there.

• How did Schuman’s illness affect his compositions near the end of his life?

  • During years of mania, he composed over 40 works and then only 4 works during the depression.

• What journal did Schumann write?

  • Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

• How does Robert Schuman use Florestan and Eusebius to represent his passionate and introspective sides in his writing? How are they used in his composition Carnaval?

  • He used these characters to describe the distinct changes in his own mood as an individual, almost the difference between the manic and depressive him. He used these characters and many more in Carnaval to create different movements.

• Ernst Josephson suffered from Schizophrenia. He began to lose control of his creative expression as his illness developed, but the restraints were also relaxed, which resulted in an output of completely unruled expression. He apparently painted with his hands and feet, which was uncalled for at the time.

Module 5:

• Eugene Delacroix depicts his feelings in a creative output known as “Jacob wrestling the Angel”. This was his own interpretation of struggling against his own fate, which would be the angel due to the fact that angels are normally thought of when you die and they take you to your final destination.

• Renoir was struggling with arthritis as well as losing his sight. His efforts to adapt and to combat these were by holding a piece of cotton with his brush and making works with brighter colors that he can see.

• Claude Monet had cataracts developing throughout his life, which affected his artwork by creating more monotoned paintings with more coarse brush strokes.

• Beethoven became deaf and continued composing, specifically the Pastoral Symphony, which was so beautiful to listen to, but the composer was never able to hear his own work, he could only picture it in his own mind.

Module 6:

• Be able to give the progression of Beethoven's mental and physical challenges (ex. Family history of mental illnesses, bullying at school, relationship with father...)

• Know examples of ways that Beethoven's mental and physical illnesses affected his compositions.

• What were the innovations in the Eroica Symphony? Symphony X?

  • Introduction of new instruments such as piccolo.

• Know the significance of the Heiligenstadt Testament.

  • A letter to his brother Carl telling him about his experience of becoming deaf. He talks about committing suicide, but later never sends the letter. He knew that his creative destiny was not completed, so he continued.