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Hello and welcome to Noon Conference, hosted by Modality

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Noon Conference connects the global radiology community

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through free live educational webinars that are accessible

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for all and is an opportunity

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to learn alongside top radiologists from around the world.

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Today we are so honored to welcome Dr. David Uum

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for a lecture entitled The Intersection of Impressionist Art

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and Neuroradiology.

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Dr. Ssim is a neuroradiologist

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and professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins

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University School of Medicine.

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He's the author of more than 350 scientific papers

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and several books in radiology, including Neuroradiology,

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the Requisites, and is the series editor

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of the Case Review series.

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He has served as president of the A-A-S-N-R

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and was awarded the Outstanding Educator

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Award from the RSNA.

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We are especially grateful to Dr.

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Usin for his guidance and for serving

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as our neuro-radiology advisor at Modality.

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At the end of the lecture, please join in a q

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and a session where he will address questions you may

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have on today's topic.

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Please remember to use that q

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and a feature to submit your questions so we can get to

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as many as we can before our time is up.

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With that, we are ready

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to begin Today's exciting lecture, Dr.

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Sso, please take it from here.

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Thank you very much, Ashley.

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I am so excited to give this talk.

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This is the maiden voyage of this, uh, lecture

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and it's entitled What Impressionism Wasn't an art Movement

1:28

or a manifestation of Neuropathology,

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and it combines two of my great loves neurosciences

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and impressionist art.

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Um, I will have, do, have some disclosures.

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I am obviously a part of the modality team as far

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as a speaker, as well as a board member.

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And I do want to, for those PhD

1:51

art history people out there who are prone

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to critic criticism.

1:56

Uh, I will be talking about Van Gogh,

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who is really considered post-impressionist.

2:00

So, uh, you know, there's a little bit of, uh,

2:04

artistic license that I will use in including him.

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So this talk is, uh, going

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to answer some very fundamental questions in neurosciences,

2:15

which French impressionist artists had a skeletal osis.

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Why did one impressionist artist ignore the call

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to plate OnPlan outside for medical reasons,

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which painter exploited the use of dabs of color,

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a known impressionist technique

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because of his debilitating rheumatoid arthritis,

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cos malady was debated to be do to absent drink, um,

2:41

poisoning lead toxicity, manic depressive disorder, and

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or porphyria.

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And finally, which artist died of the complications

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of tertiary syphilis?

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So, just relax, sit back, and let's enjoy the ride.

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First, let's kind of define impressionism.

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Impressionism came out of the

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critique of Claude Monet's 1872

3:09

painting entitled Impression Sunrise.

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You gotta remember that prior to this time, most

3:16

of the artists painted in a realistic fashion.

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And, um, this painting,

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which is clearly not realistic,

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but sort of what the mind's eye or the eyes mind is seeing

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and was, um, performed by, um, Claude Monet was thought

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to be totally outrageous.

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It's, it's not a real painting.

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It's, you know, very criticized.

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And the whole impressionist movement at the time

3:43

that was coming out was heavily criticized.

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So we're going to find impressionism

3:48

as an art movement in which the immediate sensory impression

3:51

of a scene is depicted, focusing on the play

3:55

of natural white, usually outdoors on objects

3:59

and landscapes, everyday life, fleeting moments in time,

4:03

characterized on the con canvas by visible

4:07

brush, brush strokes.

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You can see the brushstrokes here and vivid colors.

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So if you look at me right now on the screen,

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and then close your eyes and think of me that,

4:19

that impression that is left, which is a little bored, uh,

4:23

bored, Dave Yousome, um, could be your impressionism.

4:27

So I've decided to accept, uh, to,

4:30

to organize this talk in three different portions, art,

4:34

rendering, colors, and subject matter.

4:39

So art rendering, how it looks, it's a kind of a joke

4:43

that many people said,

4:44

if it looks like you need your glasses prescription updated,

4:48

then it's impressionism.

4:49

This is not sharp, clear, realistic photographic.

4:54

This is impressionist art.

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And as you can see, you can see the nice dabs of color

5:01

and stroke marks by the artist.

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So what, how can we say that in point of fact,

5:09

impressionism was not an art movement,

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but was actually a manifestation of the artist's pathology.

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And I do this a little tongue in cheek, of course.

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So part of the issue is that many of these artists, uh,

5:22

re reportedly had severe cataracts.

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And at the time, cataract surgery was not as simple

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as it is in these days,

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and that cataract obviously leads to blurring of the image,

5:35

and that's more of an impressionist look when you have a

5:38

cataract than it is a realistic verse.

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So were they painting what they saw?

5:42

But it was all just blurred.

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And Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt well-known difficulties

5:49

with cataracts, in fact, this is a, a quote.

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Um, Monet had cataracts, which affected his ability

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to discriminate between colors

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and also called, caused the muddied look in his paintings.

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When he had the cataracts, when his vision improved,

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he actually had cataract surgery.

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It's reported that he then destroyed many

6:09

of the paintings he made when his vision was poorer

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of horror and how bad they looked once he could actually

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see the paintings.

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So this blurring is similar to what we see with the patients

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who have, uh, cataracts.

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Here's effectively a, a photograph of, um,

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the gardens at Venet,

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and you see the effect of cataracts

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with the progressive blurring

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with the severity of the cataract.

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And eventually this comes out

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and starts looking like many of the

6:43

impressionist artists renderings of the lily pads.

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So this is the actual, um, painting of the, the,

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um, the, the picture you see

6:56

of the lily pads at the gardens of Venet.

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And then here it is with

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decreased vision secondary to the cataract.

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And then when Monet got his cataract removed,

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he subsequently painted, and it's much sharper,

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and it's still, you know, impressionist in its style,

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but not as blurred as

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what you would see if you were looking at these

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gardens with a cataract.

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Strangely, another of the artists, Edgar Dega,

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had severe macular degeneration that ran in his family.

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It was, it was multiple, um,

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multiple members of his family had macular degeneration.

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And in fact, people have now, uh, made the diagnosis

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of this particular type

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of autosome recessive cone dystrophy that he had.

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He reported it first when he was a soldier

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and actually got out of service

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as a soldier in the Franco Prussian war, um,

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because of his decreased central vision.

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Can you imagine someone with decreased central vision

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becoming an a well-known artist?

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He did have very marked light sensitivity.

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And hence, the guy is the artist that tended

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to paint only indoors.

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He could not tolerate painting OnPlan air outdoors

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because the light sensitivity of his macular degeneration.

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He also had difficulty discerning colors.

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So he had what we call stargardt disease

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and autosomal recessive cone dystrophy,

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and it's secondary to a mutation of one of these genes.

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And he had decreased central vision

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and this light sensitivity.

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Now he is the one that was known for painting ballerinas,

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and it was all indoors.

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And generally in the evening, in the dark light,

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here's normal vision, here's a simulation of the same

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with macular degeneration.

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He can't see the center of the image,

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and some of his paintings were, it's so kind

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of indistinct centrally may be a manifestation

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of his macular de degeneration.

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He actually took a trip to, uh, new Orleans

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and he said, you know,

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suffering in the New Orleans sunlight, the light is

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so strong, they have not been able

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to do anything on the river.

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My eyes are so greatly in need of care

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that I scarcely take any risk with them at all.

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A few family portraits will be the sum of my work.

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Degas early work featured precisely drawn subjects when he

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was still able to see very well,

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but that attention to detail decreased

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as he went on in his career.

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And this is an example of the evolution

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of his work over the course of time with the

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less refinement in the detail

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because of his macular degeneration.

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Another impact on the art that was being produced was the

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effect of the various toxicities of the, um,

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the material that the artists were ingesting.

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They were ingesting lead inadvertently through the paint.

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They were ingesting alcohol as part of the hedonistic life,

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as long as well as the absent.

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So how did they get the lead toxicity?

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It was a pretty common way to sharpen the tip

10:19

of your paintbrush by dabbing it in your mouth in order

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to get that sharp point to the, to the paintbrush.

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And so that dabbing

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of the paint when it's heavily leaded paint at that time,

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um, led to a number of them having symptoms related

10:36

to lead toxicity, which includes something

10:38

that people called painter's colic.

10:41

It was abdominal pain

10:42

and constipation, uh, derived from lead poisoning from

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the dabbing into the mouth of the, of the paints.

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Uh, it felt like you were shot in the stomach.

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So you take a paintbrush like this,

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you stick it in your mouth, you get that sharper point

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so that way you can draw things like this.

11:03

Van Gogh. In addition, lead

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toxicity affects the vision.

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It causes an increased rate at which you have cataracts

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as well as potentially lead retinopathy,

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which will also affect the vision

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and also lead you to have that blurred vision

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of an impressionist art piece.

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I mentioned the absent, this was a very popular drink in the

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1870s, 1880s in, uh, Paris.

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And, um, it too has problems

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with causing neurotoxicity as well as, uh, impact

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as you would expect with alcoholism.

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And it may cause, um, porphyria

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and it its effects our additive with other alcohol.

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Here is, um, a painting called the absent drinker.

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It's actually a self portrait

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we'll talk about in a little bit.

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But here's a bottle of the green liquor known as absent.

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It was linked to visual hallucinations.

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And in fact, one,

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I will be talking a little later about Van Gogh,

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but one of the hypotheses about

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some of the things that he was drawing were

12:11

that they were visual hallucinations associated

12:13

with the absent toxicity.

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So Terek was the artist that was most well known

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for drinking absent.

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He had this earthquake cocktail he called

12:25

that was half absent and half cognac, the green

12:29

and the orange here.

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And he would, um, fill his cane that he walked with,

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with the alcohol

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and intermittently would be drinking, um, at the Falis Boer,

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and again, causing potential cataracts and optic neuropathy.

12:45

Uh, the other Im

12:47

nor pathology that affected the art

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in pat in the, um, painters with, uh, impressionist

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art was, um, arthritis.

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And I'm going to show you a remarkable video

13:05

of Augusti.

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I believe it's in 1913 painting,

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and you'll be surprised he suffered from severe

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rheumatoid arthritis.

13:16

And this is a video of Renoir.

13:22

Look at his hands, look how deformed his hand as he is,

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he's holding that paintbrush

13:29

and people had to put things into his hands,

13:32

including the paintbrush.

13:33

He, he is getting a little smoke,

13:35

nothing like a little ciggy, but on top of everything.

13:38

Um, but watch him watch the way he is painting.

13:42

So they gave him his palate and his nurse

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or helper put, puts the paintbrush into his hand

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and look at the way he's painting.

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He can't draw with long strokes with any detail.

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He does the dabbing of the paint, which is

14:00

of a typical impressionist art technique.

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But he's gonna have that paintbrush effectively, uh,

14:11

molded to his hand or tied

14:12

to his hand, look at his other hand.

14:14

So I'll stop the video here.

14:17

Okay, so, um, so, uh, another manifestation of pathology,

14:21

which affected the way impressionist artists were painting

14:26

that dab of color, the dabs of color were ultimately,

14:31

um, were ultimately, um,

14:36

made into pointalism with the tiny little dots of dabs, uh,

14:40

with, um, PIRO and Syrah.

14:43

Okay. So, um, you know, that technique of building up layers

14:47

with, with little dabs of color was typical of Renoir,

14:51

at least in particularly in his later stages.

14:54

And, um, this leads to the appearance that you have

14:57

of the indistinct nature of impressionist art.

15:03

Um, now Renoir, as I said, is my favorite,

15:06

favorite French impressive art, purely

15:09

because of the way he portrays people's cheeks.

15:12

And I just wanted to, um, show you, here's a self-portrait.

15:17

Look at the cheeks of these women in all

15:20

of these Renoir, uh, pictures.

15:22

He's got the blush just perfect. And, and I just love that.

15:26

I just love his work. I did the video.

15:31

Okay, well, let's go back one

15:32

and just take a look at that hand one more time.

15:35

Uh, previous slide, yeah, sort

15:38

of tied in there in his rheumatoid hand.

15:41

And Oma, oh my God, just that he could paint as well

15:45

as he did is just amazing.

15:47

Okay, I wanna move on to Eduard Manet.

15:51

And Eduard Manet was one of the early impressionist artists.

15:55

He's, um, often associated with, um, Bert Marty.

15:59

So, which, uh, was his sister-in-law, actually, he got,

16:02

he, she married his brother.

16:05

So Manet ends up, as you as I

16:10

researched this topic, um, suffering from Tabia dorsal.

16:15

He actually had tertiary syphilis.

16:16

And remember, we're talking in the 1870s.

16:19

We don't have, uh, the antibiotics that we have currently.

16:22

And, um, this was manifested, manifested by a lot of pain

16:26

ataxia, uh, hip swinging gait.

16:30

His legs had shooting pains,

16:32

as you would expect from the posterior column involvement

16:35

and their meat syndrome, uh, their meat sign of, um, Monet.

16:40

He eventually, um,

16:42

because his legs were so incapacitated,

16:45

he developed a ulcer on his legs,

16:47

and that developed into gangrene

16:50

later in his last few years.

16:53

He had amputation of his foot

16:55

and then his, uh, whole, you know, below knee amputation

16:59

and ultimately died of gangrene from a complication

17:04

of tabes dorsalis.

17:09

And I want to talk about the impact, the potential impact

17:13

of Tabes dorsal on position sense.

17:15

Now, uh, you know, the,

17:16

the way you would be handling a paintbrush requires, uh,

17:20

understanding of the position, sense of your hand,

17:22

your arm, et cetera.

17:25

And so some of the manifestations of his late works

17:30

could be a manifestation of the absence of

17:32

that position sense secondary

17:34

to the posterior column involvement with Tabby's dorsal.

17:38

So this is an early image of Bert Mariso who,

17:43

um, as I mentioned was his colleague and his sister-in-law,

17:47

and a very, very close relationship they painted together.

17:50

In some cases, uh, you can see

17:52

that there's relatively good detail.

17:54

There's sharp outline, et cetera.

17:56

This is a painting by Bert Mariso,

17:59

and you can see that she's embraced totally the, uh,

18:02

French impressionist technique as opposed

18:04

to this early work by Monet.

18:08

This is Monet's rendition of a similar subject matter,

18:13

looking in, a woman looking into the mirror,

18:15

and what a striking difference from early Manet versus late

18:20

Manet when he is suffering from, you know,

18:22

Tabis al in position since problems,

18:25

he may not have been able to paint with the same precision

18:29

as he did in his early work.

18:30

So there's a, a big evolution of it.

18:33

Was it impressionism

18:35

and embracing the impressionist movement,

18:37

or was it neuropathology?

18:43

Um, I just last month, um, went

18:46

to the Manet and Mauri.

18:48

So exhibit at the region of Honor in, uh, San Francisco,

18:51

highly recommend this if you are passing

18:53

through San Francisco that you see this exhibit.

18:55

It was outstanding

18:57

and it really laid the foundation that Bert Mauri

19:00

so had a very huge influence on Manet as far

19:04

as both his painting technique

19:06

as well as his subject matter.

19:08

So, um, important to, to note.

19:11

So syphilis, uh, also can affect the vision.

19:15

We know that it causes a uveitis,

19:17

and this may in fact, have impacted

19:19

how he looked at the canvas

19:21

and how he looked at the, um, subject of this matter.

19:25

And you can see the, the various manifestations

19:28

of opting neuropathy, keratitis, et cetera,

19:30

that can be secondary to a patient's syphilis.

19:34

So that's the rendering of the art.

19:36

I wanna move now to the colors

19:39

that were used in French impressionist art

19:43

and post-impressionist art,

19:44

and how neuropathology may affect that.

19:48

Well, I'll start with a little brief, um,

19:53

mention about the color purple.

19:56

And, and if I don't know, because see,

19:57

I'm wearing purple today on my shirt

19:59

and my tie in honor of French impressions art,

20:02

because the color purple was very difficult

20:06

to create in painting.

20:08

And, uh, it was not utilized

20:11

until the French impressionist movement,

20:13

because the dye for the color purple had not been,

20:17

uh, invented yet.

20:19

So, um, the realists, which was the movement prior

20:23

to impressionism with koro, for example,

20:27

and Corbett, uh, those artists, um, did not use purple.

20:31

And, and purple is not frequently seen actually in nature.

20:35

Um, but if you look at the, the color wheel,

20:40

the opposite color spectrum from the yellow is

20:45

this purple range.

20:46

And that's gonna be very important

20:47

because sunlight was so important

20:50

to the French impressionist art.

20:52

And when they're trying to render sunlight,

20:55

they often will highlight it in purple

20:59

to maximize the impact.

21:01

So this is, uh, the use of violet in art.

21:06

This was a paper by Al Taga in 2018 out of

21:10

this many artworks prior to 1863, only 87

21:15

had the color purple or violet utilized in the art.

21:19

But in French impression art, nearly one third to one half

21:24

of the paintings utilize the color purple.

21:28

And here you can see the, these numbers here going,

21:31

you know, very low, very low, very low, very low.

21:34

And then boom, impressionism.

21:36

And then 20th century art purple was seen in almost 50%.

21:42

Interesting. The, the key here was the creation of malva,

21:47

which was the first synthetic purple dye

21:50

that was created in 1856.

21:53

And then subsequently,

21:55

the cobalt violet was created in 1859,

21:59

which was the pigment used in purple paint,

22:03

and now it was accessible,

22:05

and the French impressionist artists just embraced it.

22:08

So manganese Violet, 1866, this is right at the start.

22:13

And you know, the beginning of the French impressionist

22:16

movement, initially it had lead in it,

22:18

and so the artists were going to avoid it.

22:20

They knew about lead poisoning,

22:22

and then subsequently it was made without the lead in the

22:26

paint, and then it just exploded in use.

22:28

So when you look at, um, this manganese violet, you know,

22:33

paint, uh, material, you could see

22:36

that it's being used in this, you know, light purple picture

22:40

of the, uh, cathedrals by Monet in the, the purple

22:44

that you see in his work, in the, um, water lilies

22:48

of the garden of, um, Vernet.

22:51

And so Claude Monet was a big user of purple.

22:53

In fact, what he said was, I have finally

22:57

discovered the true color of the atmosphere.

23:00

It is violet. The open air is violet.

23:04

I found it in three years from now,

23:06

everyone will be wearing purple senet.

23:07

And hence, Dave Usman in his talk is wearing purple.

23:11

He was right, so he found it in the water.

23:15

He found it in the, in the light,

23:18

and you can see the use of

23:20

that purple in the, in the lily pads.

23:22

And here is, you know, this impression of the, um,

23:27

this is a bridge and buildings in the background

23:30

and the use of the purple color in the water

23:35

below, as well as in the sky.

23:39

Yeah, Monet, he, he thought purple was everywhere.

23:45

Um, now most people

23:48

who have advanced cataracts will tell you that

23:51

when they get their cataracts out, all of a sudden

23:54

all the colors are more vibrant again.

23:57

Um, cataracts tend to diffuse the color,

24:00

and, uh, everything is more muted.

24:03

And hence the impact of those artists, particularly, uh,

24:07

as I mentioned previously, um, Monet and, and Maurice, so,

24:11

and others, uh, the presence

24:13

of cataracts muted their color sense.

24:15

The other thing that will affect your colors, the,

24:18

your impression of colors is toxins.

24:21

So let's take Mary Cassatt.

24:23

Mary Cassatt was that American painter

24:25

who embraced French impressionist art, went to France

24:28

and worked with several

24:30

of the other French impressionist artists,

24:31

and, uh, exhibited at their expositions.

24:35

Uh, she was a diabetic,

24:36

and as you know, diabetics, um, have, um,

24:40

higher rate of cataracts.

24:42

She suffered from cataracts,

24:43

underwent multiple operations in her eyes,

24:45

and eventually was, became unable to paint

24:47

because of her vision loss.

24:50

Um, so what we notice is that in order to

24:56

depict things in a more vibrant sense,

24:59

later in her paintings,

25:02

cassat used more distinct colors.

25:05

So this is, uh, early cassat.

25:07

This is late Cassat where the, you know, for example, this,

25:11

this dark red color, the bright white is a little different.

25:14

And, and that change in her palette was

25:17

because she wasn't seeing the colors nearly as well.

25:20

And therefore, she wanted to use more vibrant,

25:23

bright colors, uh, in order to depict the

25:29

material that she was looking at.

25:31

Again, this is an example of, uh, um, you know,

25:34

from the science of what the differences

25:37

between someone looking at the,

25:40

with healthy eyes versus the color that you may see

25:43

with a cataract, it's, it's changed.

25:49

Now, let me talk about digitalis.

25:51

Most of you in the medical field have heard about the impact

25:55

of digitalis on vision,

25:57

and in particular with our great artists, van Gogh.

26:01

So Digis is found in the fox glove plant,

26:04

and fox glove, um, was used both for the creation

26:08

of digis, for congestive heart failure, as well as strangely

26:12

as a treatment for epilepsy.

26:14

Currently, we do not use it for epilepsy,

26:17

but a lot of artists, uh, a lot

26:21

of art historians have written about what was it that led to

26:25

that yellow sheen that appears in several of

26:30

Van Gogh's artwork.

26:33

Um, the side effects of fox glove are

26:38

xanopia, which means that objects appear yellow

26:40

or golden in color,

26:42

and Coronas, which are colorful rings

26:46

or halos around lights.

26:48

And this is the fox gov plan.

26:51

Well, let's look at these three different pictures

26:54

by Van Gogh.

26:56

You notice the heavy use of the yellows.

26:58

You see the background kind of shimmer

27:00

and the yellowish hue to the skin

27:03

of the self portrait of Van Gogh.

27:06

And then when we think about the Coronas, which is

27:09

that shimmering light around a source of light,

27:11

in this case, the moon

27:13

or the stars, oh my God, it fits it perfectly for dig,

27:17

is toxicity impacting how

27:21

Van Gogh was seeing the world.

27:24

So the other thing is that you get some blurs,

27:27

as in this slide, altered color perception, um, opia,

27:32

yellowish color, opia, a little bit of greenish, kind

27:35

of look at the green cue of the jacket,

27:38

halos and flashes.

27:41

Well, story, story night, man, that's, it's a poster child

27:46

for digitalist toxicity.

27:48

If you look at it with the yellows, the greens, the halos,

27:51

the flashing lights, et cetera.

27:53

And the blurry.

27:58

Uh, so where did,

28:02

and how did Van Gogh get digitalis toxicity?

28:06

Well, in point of fact, it's been

28:08

well documented in his doctor's notes, Dr.

28:12

Gae, who prescribed the fox blood.

28:15

And this is a, this is, uh, two different paintings

28:17

that Van Gogh made of Dr.

28:20

Gachet. And strangely, the plant fox glove

28:26

is in his hand here

28:28

and in the, uh, vase here.

28:32

So the documentation

28:34

that Van Gogh was exposed to digitalis

28:38

and Vlo is in his paintings.

28:40

It, it's pretty obviously clear and, and note the yellow hue

28:44

and the greenish hue, et cetera.

28:48

Again, uh, again, some other examples of these coronas

28:52

and the yellowish bias in multiple ones of,

28:55

of Van Gogh's work.

28:57

I mean, how did he come up with this background

28:59

of this, uh, portraiture?

29:01

The, these are the, the greenish coronas and,

29:05

and tints that he may have been seeing as a manifestation of

29:10

that digitalist toxicity,

29:14

even the self portraits you see, I mean, this, you know,

29:17

I mean, exquisite and,

29:18

and such a,

29:19

a beautiful psychological self-portrait, can't you?

29:22

So you can tell how he was suffering from his manic

29:25

depressive disorder, in addition to the impact

29:27

of the, uh, digitalis.

29:30

Okay. And then my final, um, portion of this talk is going

29:33

to be about the subject matter,

29:39

and I'm gonna separate this into, um,

29:42

dwarfism toxic hallucinations and psychiatric disorders.

29:46

Wonderful. Well, let's talk about dwarfism.

29:49

So this is Henry de Rek,

29:52

and he was one of the most famous painters

29:56

of the Fali Boer and the Moulin Rouge.

30:00

A lot of his most famous works are actually posters, um,

30:04

that were used to advertise for those bars.

30:09

Then the shows that were at the Moulin Rouge.

30:13

And this is on Mo Mar in, in in Paris.

30:17

And as you can see from this picture of him, he had Dom,

30:23

he had pic, nost, osteos osteopetrosis, acro osteolytic.

30:29

Uh, this is a, um, portrayal of him that,

30:33

that I think he did in a, in a paint in a, um, a sketchbook,

30:38

uh, with very short legs.

30:40

In fact, he had multiple, uh, lower extremity fractures

30:43

as a child, such that it stunted his growth

30:46

because of this predisposition to fractures.

30:50

And he had very brittle bones.

30:51

It also leads to some, um, dysmorphism of the face.

30:56

This is a lysosomal storage disease of a mut

31:00

with a mutation in the gene for Cathepsin K, which is part

31:04

of the bone development, uh, pathway.

31:11

So when you think about the subject matter

31:16

for Tous Trek, he always painted,

31:21

um, the prostitutes of the Muon Rouge in and Paris

31:26

and favored, uh, lesbianism.

31:29

And you see a lot of paintings of women in together kissing

31:33

and hugging, et cetera.

31:35

And, uh, it's been suggested that his pathology,

31:39

his dwarfism, led him to not be very attractive to

31:44

women and not be able to have relationships

31:48

of his own with women.

31:50

And hence, he became a little bit of a voyeur of

31:53

women on women, um, interactions.

31:56

And that is a lot of the subject matter of his, um,

32:01

personal work, not the subject matter of his posters

32:04

for the Moulin Rouge, for example,

32:06

but, uh, the other paintings that he did.

32:09

So, by virtue of his not being accepted in society

32:13

as a potential sexual partner, he gravitated to prostitutes

32:17

who would satisfy him and or, uh, lesbian relationships.

32:23

Here's a self portrait of him.

32:24

I mentioned this with an absent, um, bottle,

32:27

but not a particularly attractive guy that you'd, uh,

32:31

sachet up to at the bar and say, Hey, uh, what's your name?

32:34

Um, small.

32:36

And, uh, you can see the woman is over towering him,

32:39

overpowering him.

32:41

So this is the self portrait of him at the Moulin Rouge.

32:44

Um, let's move to Edgar Dega.

32:48

So, Edgar Dega, as I mentioned, was restricted

32:52

to painting indoors, which is a very different from most

32:55

of the other French impressions art,

32:57

who believed in painting OnPlan outdoors, the,

33:01

the landscape scenes, as well as pictures

33:06

of everyday life, like at the, um, at the train station

33:10

or overlooking, um, the bridge.

33:13

So he, um, had this problem we talked about

33:16

of the light sensitivity outdoors,

33:18

and hence, he selectively painted, um, ballet dancers.

33:23

Um, this is, uh, um, just step back one more time.

33:27

I just wanted to show this painting

33:29

because it was, it was representative.

33:30

These are, this is, uh, painting

33:33

by Trek called at the Moulin Rouge,

33:36

and these are people in the foreground.

33:39

And you see two men walking together.

33:41

These people are actually side by side,

33:44

and this is to a trek in the painting compared to a,

33:49

I believe this was his, uh, cousin.

33:52

And you can see how short he was

33:55

and, you know, potentially an outcast.

33:57

Look at the size of the women versus to whistle trek.

34:03

There he is. Okay, uh,

34:06

let's talk about, um, van Gogh.

34:09

So Van Gogh, um, people have written

34:12

so much about his, uh, pathology,

34:16

including his neuropathology

34:17

and his psychological disturbance.

34:20

Most people believe that he had some sort

34:22

of manic depressive disorder.

34:24

However, there you can, if you look up Van Gogh,

34:28

you can see that some people believe that he had porphyria.

34:32

Some people believe that it was all alcohol

34:34

or absent toxicity.

34:36

Some people said it was, uh, neurotoxic effects

34:39

of the digis poisoning a lot of different

34:43

theories about him.

34:45

And as you know, um,

34:46

after a fight with Gogan, he cut off his ear

34:49

and desperation, et cetera,

34:51

and, you know, definitely a disturbed individual.

34:54

Um, so let's talk a little bit more about Van Gogh.

34:57

These are, he wrote so many letters to his brother, Theo,

35:01

that we have a great sort of chronology of his pathology

35:06

and his mindset and his mag depressive disorder.

35:09

So he says, for example, these are, this is from 1889.

35:13

I won't hide from you that I would have preferred

35:15

to die than to cause and bear so much trouble.

35:18

What can you say? Uh,

35:19

to suffer without complaining is the only lesson

35:22

that has to be learned in this life.

35:23

If, let's say, I were to become definitely insane,

35:26

because I'm only partially insane,

35:28

certainly I don't say that it's impossible.

35:30

In any case, they should treat me differently.

35:32

Gimme back fresh air, my work.

35:34

And, you know, he was in, um, asylums for a good portion

35:39

of his adult life.

35:41

He had episodes of depression,

35:43

and at the same time, he had episodes

35:45

where he just churned out artwork like crazy.

35:49

In the last 70 days of his life, he produced 70 paintings.

35:53

So that's probably, uh, in a manic phase.

35:57

Um, but people say that he,

36:01

he committed suicide with a gun.

36:03

Even that suicide has been debated

36:05

because he was having some fights with some local

36:08

individuals that, um, were mocking him.

36:12

And there is a theory that he was actually shot

36:16

by someone else rather than himself in the abdomen.

36:20

And, um, because he was so depressed, he took credit for

36:23

that, that wound

36:25

and claimed it was self-inflicted when in point

36:27

of fact he was shot by these two brothers.

36:31

So lots of, with regard to subject matter, he, he

36:36

and a lot of self-portraits documenting some

36:39

of his neuropathology

36:40

and his psychiatric, uh, abnormalities.

36:42

And you can see here, did a lot of self-portraits,

36:45

almost advertising the fact that he had cut off his ear,

36:49

uh, which is a little strange.

36:51

Um, I wanna move, uh, also with psychiatric on that theme

36:55

of psychiatric disorder to Camille Cordell.

36:57

Now, Camille Cordell is an artist that many

37:00

of you probably have not heard of,

37:01

but she was one

37:03

of the great French impressionist sculptures.

37:05

And in point of fact, she was, um, in the same studio

37:11

working with August Rodda, who is my favorite sculpture,

37:16

s sculptor of all time.

37:18

And, um, he was a model for Rodda,

37:23

but she, uh, she was model for Rodda,

37:25

but she also was quite exclusively talented herself.

37:30

And in point of fact, during their association,

37:34

she claimed that he was stealing all of her artistic ideas

37:40

and her works and simulating her work.

37:44

Now, at the time, he was the most famous sculptor in France,

37:49

and he didn't like the fact that she was accusing him

37:53

of plagiarism effectively.

37:55

And suffice it to say he helped organize

37:59

getting her committed to a,

38:03

um, a mental hospital.

38:05

And she was never seen

38:07

and never heard of from, from again after that.

38:11

And it's said that she either,

38:14

she did indeed have paranoia

38:16

because she kept claiming that she was fine,

38:19

and that Rodan was doing this to suppress her career.

38:22

And yet, you know, she kept, she was confined.

38:27

So, um, interesting. Here's a, a picture of Camille Cordell.

38:30

Here she is. I mean, look at this beautiful work

38:33

very much in the technique of Rodan with the, the,

38:37

the people coming out of the pe pedestal

38:41

of the, of the sculpture.

38:43

And look at the way, you know, this is like the kiss, right?

38:47

Doesn't this look like the kiss?

38:48

Here she is at work very similar to Rodan.

38:52

Here is Camille Cordell doing hand studies.

38:56

And as you, if you've been

38:57

to the Rodan Museum in Philadelphia,

39:00

you'll see multiple hand studies that Rodan did.

39:03

Now, of course, you know, that's

39:05

what artists do in sculpture.

39:06

You know, they focus on things like the hands.

39:09

But, um, that accusation

39:12

that he was stealing her ideas,

39:14

and she got confined to the insane asylum to,

39:19

to shut her up rather than

39:21

because she had paranoid schizophrenia is questionable.

39:24

Now, there is documentation that she lived in squalor, she,

39:28

uh, you know, did not take care of herself, et cetera.

39:31

So she definitely had some mental illness,

39:33

but I, I just thought that it was interesting, um, to see

39:37

that just like Claude may have been the muse

39:42

and the inspiration for some of Rodin's work,

39:45

we also see the same thing in his depiction, for example,

39:49

in the, um, Dantes Inferno here versus her work

39:54

in the same v vein of desperation that you see here.

40:00

And the same thing is true with, uh,

40:02

as I mentioned with man and Mari.

40:03

So at that exhibit that I went to, it was pretty clear

40:06

that Mari so is doing certain things

40:09

and looking at different subject matter

40:11

that Monet had not in the past looked at.

40:16

And because of their interaction, he started

40:19

to paint similar subject matter.

40:21

So Mauri, so exhibited this woman at the mirror.

40:25

And, you know, within six months you see a Manet,

40:30

uh, rendition of a woman at the mirror.

40:32

And at the exhibit, you see lots of examples of this.

40:36

She had paintings of

40:39

a child facing outward looking over a bridge

40:43

with the mother in the foreground.

40:45

And three months later, there's Monet's picture

40:48

of a mother in a foreground, a child with a back

40:50

to you looking in the background, looking at in, you know,

40:54

into the outside.

40:56

And, uh, a similar sort of pattern of

41:02

work with, uh, subject matter.

41:06

So as I mentioned, uh, the rendition of

41:09

that same work may have been affected

41:11

by the position since abnormalities that, uh, money had.

41:16

So I wanna read, uh, this is, uh, again, a quote from one

41:19

of Monet's friends with the own set of symptoms

41:21

of tertiary syphilis.

41:22

A significant change may be said

41:24

to have taken in Monet's creative process for an artist

41:27

who never left his apartment

41:29

or studio without a pencil or sketchbook.

41:31

He became, because

41:32

of his physical impairment from the Tabius Salus, um,

41:35

less mobile, and he became confined to his studio

41:39

where he was often obliged to paint sitting down.

41:42

And in his final years,

41:44

he was practically nailed to the chair.

41:46

He couldn't really move very much

41:47

because of that deficits from his,

41:50

um, from Ms.

41:53

Tabis dorsal. This then changed his artwork.

41:56

He was never one to do still lifes.

41:59

And then in the, when you look at the last months

42:03

of his life on his deathbed, well, maybe he, you know,

42:06

he wasn't exactly looking out on the, um, landscapes

42:10

and the activities of the city.

42:13

He was receiving flowers from friends, bringing it

42:17

to his death bed or to his hospital bed.

42:21

And hence, when you look at the subject matter

42:24

of him in his latest phase, it was all, um,

42:29

flowers, I mean, lots of depiction, beautiful depictions

42:32

of flowers, but not what he would normally be looking at.

42:36

So the subject matter changed by virtue

42:39

of the neuropathology of the tape or salus the gangrene,

42:44

and ultimately his death.

42:47

So we come to the end of this assassinating talk,

42:53

I hope, uh, as I said to, to, um, Ashley,

42:55

I'm expecting an a plus plus plus plus plus, uh, grade.

42:59

On this, we'll answer the questions.

43:01

Which French impressionist artists had a skeletal testos

43:04

ptosis that was to lare in his sssts.

43:10

Why did one impression artist ignore the call

43:12

to paint on plan air for medical reasons, Dega,

43:16

because of his stargardt retinopathy retinal pathology, uh,

43:20

could not handle bright light, and hence he worked indoors.

43:25

And hence he painted, you know,

43:28

generally ballerinas in dark light,

43:31

which painter exploited the use of dabs of color,

43:33

the little tash in, in French, um,

43:37

a known impressionist technique

43:39

because of his debilitating rheumatoid arthritis.

43:41

You saw it, A video of Ogus Road, Renoir actually painting

43:45

with his rheumatoid hands.

43:49

Gus Maldi was debated to be due

43:51

to absent poisoning lead toxicity mag precious

43:55

depressive disorder, digitalist toxicity and porphyria.

44:00

That would be Van Gogh. Interesting.

44:02

Um, just if you look up the derivation of porphyria,

44:07

it is related to the color purple,

44:09

and that's how we get the color purple.

44:11

And, and there was a purplish hue to I think, the urine

44:13

of patients who have porphyria so purple again.

44:18

And finally, which artist died of the complications

44:21

of tertiary syphilis That was, uh, eduard Manet secondary

44:26

to his tabia Dous leading to the difficulty

44:29

with dealing in his lower extremities, leading to an ulcer,

44:32

leading to gangrene, leading to amputation, leading

44:35

to sepsis and death.

44:38

You learned so much today. Thank you very much.

44:43

Um, don't even know what the time is.

44:45

Oh, I got 15 minutes for questions, which, um,

44:49

Ashley, it's all you.

44:52

It's all me. Thank you so much for that. That was awesome.

44:54

I feel like I learned a lot of fun facts for parties.

44:59

Um, if anyone has any questions, please go ahead

45:02

and put those in the chat or that q and a feature.

45:04

Um, yeah, I, it might take a second for those

45:07

to come in Dr. Uson, but

45:09

No problem. I'll,

45:10

I'll, I'll just, I'll just, um, imp improvise.

45:14

Um, so for those of you who like impressionist art

45:18

or, um, are interested in the topic, I wanna give you a few

45:23

top museums to go to Clearly.

45:26

Um, you wanna go to the Louvre and,

45:28

and there are a lot of French impressions,

45:30

but there is the Ju de poem,

45:32

which is the Impressionist Art Museum in Paris

45:36

that is specific to impressionist art,

45:39

but you will see great art pieces there.

45:41

If you are in the United States, I highly recommend

45:45

that you go to Philadelphia, to the Barnes Foundation.

45:49

Um, Dr. Barnes who made his money, um,

45:54

effectively with mature chrome, the, the iodine, um,

46:00

cleanser or, or antiseptic, uh, collected enormous number

46:04

of French impressionist paintings.

46:07

And beside the French, uh, the Philadelphia Museum

46:12

of Art, about a hundred yards away is the

46:15

Barnes Foundation Museum,

46:17

and it has the greatest collection in America

46:19

of French impressionist art.

46:21

Fantastic. Just 50 yards from the Barnes is

46:25

the Rodan Museum in Philadelphia, and I love that museum.

46:29

It's, it's, um, just amazing what, what you see

46:33

with, um, Rodin's work.

46:34

Um, so those are, you know, top highlights.

46:39

If, as I said, there, there will be this, uh,

46:42

I believe nationally traveling our, uh, group

46:47

with, with the Manet and Maurice.

46:49

So that is currently in San Francisco. Go see that.

46:52

That's fantastic as well.

46:54

Um, and if you are a baltimorean

46:58

or come to Baltimore or come to see Johns Hopkins,

47:02

or God forbid, have to go to Johns Hopkins

47:04

for medical treatment, um, the cone, uh,

47:08

sisters, COHN.

47:11

Uh, were along with Dr. Barnes

47:14

and the Barnes Foundation, big collectors

47:17

of French impressionist art.

47:19

And you can see a great selection

47:22

of French impressions art at the Baltimore Museum of Art

47:25

with the Cone Collection.

47:27

And, um, um, my goal in life

47:32

after I finish with neuroradiology is

47:34

to be a docent at the Baltimore Museum of Art,

47:37

and you'll see me talking about French impression

47:39

art and the cone exhibit.

47:41

So there you go.

47:44

Uh, were there any questions

47:46

or is it clear as mud, so to speak?

47:49

Yeah, a lot of compliments in here. Dr.

47:52

Usam, I'm curious, um, have you

47:56

outside of impressionist art, you know, the Picassos

47:59

of the world, have you applied the same sort of thinking

48:02

and, uh, applying, you know, the intersection

48:05

of neuroradiology for some of these other artists

48:07

that are famous and maybe had some eye issues

48:11

or mental health issues?

48:13

Okay, so is it limited to impressionism is I guess

48:15

what you're asking and, and Yes, I suspect, I suspect not.

48:19

And again, as I said, this is a little bit tongue in cheek.

48:22

Um, I kind of forced this because I wanted,

48:26

'cause I wanted to combine my two, uh, my two passions

48:30

of neuro neuroscience and, and impressionism.

48:34

Um, but you know, there are a lot of artists who, who have,

48:39

um, I would say psychiatric disorders

48:43

that were manifested in their artwork.

48:45

I mean, you can't look at someone like Edgar Munch

48:49

and his, some of his, uh, material, you know, the scream

48:52

and everything, and not wonder whether he was,

48:55

uh, a little nutty.

48:57

Um, so I, I will have to come back

49:00

and do another talk on neuropathology in the

49:06

modern art world potentially, or something like that.

49:10

Perfect. I love that. I'm not seeing any questions.

49:14

Just a lot of excellent.

49:15

Thanks. Excellent. Well, it was so clear.

49:17

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed it. Again, it's a nice break.

49:20

We're in the, um, we're in the holiday season

49:24

and this is a little break from the monotony or the, uh, or,

49:28

or the usual rigors of, um, science.

49:31

But, um, a little bit of art is good for you.

49:35

Thank you for your attention.

49:37

Thank you so much Dr. Yuzu and I totally agree.

49:39

It's always good to take a break

49:41

and art is a really good way to do that.

49:47

You can access the recording of today's conference

49:49

and all our previous new conferences

49:50

by creating a free account.

49:52

And we will also email out a link to the replay later today.

49:55

Be sure to join us next Thursday,

49:57

December 18th at 12:00 PM Eastern, where Dr.

50:00

Alka Singal will deliver a lecture entitled

50:02

Scrotal Ultrasound.

50:04

You can register for that@modality.com.

50:06

Follow us on social media for our future noon conferences.

50:10

Thanks again for learning with us and being here,

50:12

and have a great day.