A painting shows evidence of insanity?

[Chad]

Over at this website

The person who posted a scan of this painting says the following:

* This was painted by a person with a rare and severe mental disorder. He was constantly seeing his own fantasies all around him. He also had a certain phobia (undisclosed).
* His (the poster?s) psychiatry professor showed this painting in a lecture, and said there was one tell-tale sign in it that showed the painter?s insanity.
* The professor didn?t say what that sign was, leaving the students to do the guesswork. The only clues he gave was, ?don?t look for small details, look at the whole; if you figure out what the phobia was, you?ve got the answer; ask yourself what could have preceded this scene; think of what the place would look like with all the objects removed?.
* The professor said that during the 15 years of his teaching, only one student had figured it out.

update:

He said the closest guess was ?fear of open spaces?, and gave another clue: ?what would you hear if you were inside the painting??

 

[TheoPetro]

well what the heck is the answer?

 

[Chad]

he's supposed to give it out later today

 

[moomoo40moo]

well i would say along with the crease in the middle, the shadows seem a bit off, the physics of the entire painting looks horrible, and the sleighs are too far in the foreground w/ the houses in the backrond leaving nothing in the middle (whatever phobia that would be) definitely a psychotic painting

 

[Chad]

i should point out, the crease in the middle is only a scanning defect

 

[Chad]

ok, to recap...


* rare and severe mental disorder

* constantly seeing his own fantasies all around him

* had an undisclosed phobia, if you figure out what it was, you?ve got the answer

* one tell-tale sign in the painting that "shows" the insanity [note: he doesn't say "proves"... but "shows"]

* don?t look for small details, look at the whole

* ask what could have preceded this scene

* think of what the place would look like with all the objects removed

* in 15 years only one student figured it out

* one guess posed to him: could it be that you?re the burning strawman? Reply: ?not a strawman ? but close? [this in reference to the this painting's depiction of the Maslenitsa]

* keywords are water and air

* closest guess so far is ?fear of open spaces?

* what would you hear if you were inside the painting?

 

[TheoPetro]

fear of being alone?

 

[Chad]

that's a pretty good guess actually.

something about snow though, i think. he says to remove all the objects, and if we do that we're only left with snow and the sky [which correlates to his water and air clue]. i also notice that it's not actually snowing, despite lots of snow on the ground. he asks "what could have preceded this scene". well, since we took out all the objects and all there is left is snow on the ground and the sky, i'm guessing what preceded this was the fact that it was snowing. lastly, they ask him if it's a burning strawman, and he says "no, but close". so i'm thinking snowman. it's close to a strawman and is made from [frozen] water and air essentially [ie: snow that falls from the sky].

so, i'm thinking it could be the fear of snow. [legit phobia]

the fear of rain or being rained on. [legit]

the fear of snowmen? [can't find anything on this at all]

but all these would only answer the phobia, at best. and he says if we know the phobia we will then know the serious and rare mental disorder. can't say the fear of any of those correlates to any serious and rare mental disorders. hmm. :/

i also have one last guess, that he may be some form of Narcissist. mostly due to how he has the children in the sleigh staring directly at him [fear of children?] to feed his need for NS and perpetuate his own self importance.

 

[TheoPetro]

I dont really understand the snowman thing but if you remove all of the objects from the scene then the houses wouldnt be there. No hoses (the houses have lights on) = no people. Couple that with "think of what happened before this scene" The people in the sleighs wouldnt be there yet. It would be snowing and noone would be outside. That was the reasoning behind my guess. Be sure to post the answer when he says it im interested in this one

 

[S Freud]

Would it have something to do with the fact the snow would be untouched before anyone was there, and the people walked all over it sort of "tarnished" it in a way...I don't really know what you would call this phobia though.

 

[TheoPetro]

Originally posted by: S Freud
Would it have something to do with the fact the snow would be untouched before anyone was there, and the people walked all over it sort of "tarnished" it in a way...I don't really know what you would call this phobia though.

I thought about that but you would think the painter would have made the snow more messed up. You can bairly tell someone has been there.

 

[Chad]

we are really kind of sidetracked to just the phobia now though. i think we need to think more on the "serious and rare mental disorder". the phobia is only a clue for that. granted, the way he worded it, it's obviously a very strong clue.

is there a website out there that lists serious and rare mental disorders?

 

[Printer Bandit]

there is no evidence of insanity in the painting.

 

[Chad]

p.s. my interest is strong in this b/c of my daughter's autism and seizures.

 

[TheoPetro]

im not familiar with mental disorders so all I can guess at is the phobia

 

[Ephemeral]

The whole painting seems very sterile and lifeless. Everything also appears to be, "rounded," as if it is an interpretation of having circular eyes. All of the children on the sled show little to no interest in what is happening, and they all seem to have their focus on the viewer of the scene. Also what kind of horse runs like that? They look as though they belong on a carousel.

If it has something to do with air and water, maybe it is the fear of being or becoming a snowman?

Or maybe I'm reading into this too much, and the whole point of the exercise is to have you analyze the painting until you yourself go crazy.

 

[Chad]

Originally posted by: Ephemeral
The whole painting seems very sterile and lifeless. Everything also appears to be, "rounded," as if it is an interpretation of having circular eyes. All of the children on the sled show little to no interest in what is happening, and they all seem to have their focus on the viewer of the scene. Also what kind of horse runs like that? They look as though they belong on a carousel.

that's really interesting you say that, cause the whole painting kind of looks like a scene in a Christmas globe thingy, which is round/circular [and that hasn't been shook up yet, therefore why it's not "snowing"] and is very sterile and lifeless. it also explains the horses weird leg positions b/c it is a "posed" scene.

very observant of you.

running with this... so could it be he sees the world as if he himself is disconnected from it? almost as a 3rd party. he sees the world as though he's outside looking in (?). kinda like we would view a snow globe, maybe? which ultimately would lead us to some form of Schizophrenia.

 

[Czar]

Afraid of the dark?

there are no light sources anywhere except for the houses. The people are not enjoying themselves, expecialy obvios when you compare it to the original painting which is much brighter and more joyful. The group of people dont seem to notice one another, like it is in the original.



ohhh I get it now, take notice there are three of everything there, three horses, three people on each sleigh not counting the rider, three windows on each floor, three people, three trees in groups. I think its that disorder where you have to count everything you do, you dont do, like you open a door, you have to open it three times. Dont know what its called.

 

[TheoPetro]

obsessive compulsive disorder?

 

[I Saw OJ]

How dare the platypus reply before me!

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: TheoPetro
obsessive compulsive disorder?

jah, that one

 

[Chad]

Originally posted by: TheoPetro
obsessive compulsive disorder?

yes but he is not the original painter. the original painter chose those numbers. remember that our "insane" guys painting is a copy of another painting. the original guy is not insane [or is he? i don't actually know]. therefore, the numbers theory immediately falls apart b/c the non-insane guy chose those numbers.

edit: it seems the professor didn't know this was a copy of some other painting.

hmmm

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: Chad

Originally posted by: TheoPetro
obsessive compulsive disorder?

yes but he is not the original painter. the original painter chose those numbers. remember that our "insane" guys painting is a copy of another painting. the original guy is not insane [or is he? i don't actually know]. therefore, the numbers theory immediately falls apart b/c the non-insane guy chose those numbers.

edit: it seems the professor didn't know this was a copy of some other painting.

hmmm

thats the reason the insane guy thought the painting so fascinating that he decided to copy it... probably three times

 

[Chad]

i dunno.... OCD is pretty common so I don't know if I would consider it "rare" or "serious" for that matter. and i think it would be even more pronounced if it was some extreme Monk'ish version of OCD.

i'm still thinking Schizophrenia. it fits pretty much everything.

 

[DrPizza]

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of that type of psychology has fallen by the wayside... Especially things like rorschache (sp?) tests. It seems only a couple weeks ago when I was reading an article on how ridiculuous those things are (from an empirical point of view). The author of that study/article made a comparison between those and other nonsense such as astrology and palm reading.

Essentially, what it comes down to isn't that the professor/"scholars" *knew* the artist had some sort of mental condition, THEN looked at the painting and said, "ohhhh, I see it now. He painted that the way he did because he has that mental illness."