Visual Images Of Madness And Insanity In European Artistic Traditions From The Seventeenth To The Eighteenth Century

Assuming an interdisciplinary approach that acknowledges the synergetic relationship between art history, and the history of medicine and madness, this thesis argues that visual representations of madness and distraction have both reflective and constitutive qualities and are therefore adept at illuminating histories of madness. By closely analysing seventeenth and eighteenth-century iconographic representations of madness, in conjunction with the active presence of the male artist in the form of artistic conventions, subject matter, and critique, scholarly wisdoms are challenged. These include, the static history of seventeenth-century madness, humoural theory’s paradigmatic significance beyond Galenic medicine, aetiologies of female madness solely conceptualised as uterine disorder, and the limited relevance of race in the written European histories of madness. Given the manifest intentions of the artist, pitted against the multifarious and unintended impact of the imagery on the viewer, an iconological approach was adopted that enabled a close engagement with the art work, and the cultural context of their creation in order to go beyond assumptions or tropes made about the artistic process, and implicit beholders at the time of their production.

Beginning with an introductory chapter that affords the reader an understanding of the important underpinning popular, and learned discourses on madness and its management, four distinct but closely aligned chapters make up the main body of the thesis. Chapters Two and Three span the seventeenth-century and evidence the artist’s ability to utilise humourism’s essential materiality and ability to externalise madness’ internal manifestations, by using familiar tropes such as the stupidity of the lower classes, the unorthodoxy of the charlatan, and the inherently flawed female body. Chapter Four and Five introduces the eighteenth-century sensible and innervated body informing imagery that provokes a more active engagement from the viewer, either as an exemplum virtutis or voyeur. Chapter Six, concludes by offering a number insights garnered from the above analysis, and forges links with the modern eras preoccupation with abolition, race, and representation. Each chapter is used as a case study that challenges the histories of madness from which the works emerge, and offers new insights into the art and cultural scholarship accompanying the imagery.