Charcot as a collector and critic of the arts: Relationship of the 'founder of neurology' with various aspects of art

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-13-2025

Journal

Journal of the history of the neurosciences

DOI

10.1080/0964704X.2024.2439234

Keywords

Charcot; and music; fine arts; history of neurology in France; hysteria; literature; nineteenth-century society

Abstract

In his teaching, Charcot often used artistic representations from previous centuries to illustrate the historical developments of various conditions, particularly hysteria, mainly with the help of his pupil Paul Richer. Charcot liked to draw portraits and sketches of colleagues during boring faculty meetings and students' examinations, including caricatures of himself and others, church sculptures, landscapes, soldiers, and so on. He also used this skill in his clinical and scientific work. He drew histological or anatomic specimens, as well as patients' features and demeanor. His most daring artistic experiments were drawing under the influence of hashish. Charcot's tastes in art were conservative; he displayed little interest for the avant-gardes of his time, including impressionism, or for contemporary musicians, such as César Franck or Hector Berlioz. The pamphleteer Léon Daudet described Charcot's home as a pseudo-gothic kitsch accumulation of heteroclite pieces of furniture and materials. However, he taught medicine not only as a science but also as an art, a style that has now been almost universally forgotten.

Department

Neurology

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