Artist Alzheimer writing self-portraits, is able to handle a brush

Self-portraits as clinical kartina

In 1995, the American painter William Atermolenu diagnosed with "Alzheimer's disease". Realizing that the disease will inevitably affect his studies in painting, William decided to spend the rest of his time with the maximum benefit and began to write self-portraits, in order to better understand themselves and convey that understanding to the audience.



Thanks to a unique series of paintings can own eyes to see how the artist changed the perception of the surrounding world. In the course of the disease distorted his work loses perspective became more abstract and less detailed. Judging by some of the peculiarities of the later self-portraits, Atermolen seemed to realize that his technique is getting worse, but could not fix it. "I think he knew that gradually loses spatial thinking" - recalls the artist's widow, Patricia, an expert on the history of art - "In these paintings with heartbreaking clarity depicted attempts William describe the changes in their personality, their sorrows and fears", - she said. < br />


According to Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California: "Alzheimer's affects the parietal lobe of the brain, which greatly reduces the ability to visualize and transferring of images onto the canvas. We see that the paintings became more abstract, increased blurring of images, their surreal, with the artist used a more subtle and sophisticated colors ».



After moving to a nursing home in 2000 by William Atermolen I stopped painting. The artist died in 2007, at age 74, and after his death, as so often happens, the popularity of his works has increased markedly - a touching story Atermolena talking and self-portraits and other paintings have been exhibited in many museums around the world.



"He was always an outsider," - said Patricia - "It is quite strange - to become famous because of the fact that you feel bad. I would say that he did not die in 2007, but much earlier - when he realized he could no longer paint ».









via factroom.ru