How bizarre is this:

The nude, warns Dr. Graziella Magherini, a top psychiatrist in Florence, can be dangerous to one's mental health. "The nude, the nude body, masculine and feminine, above all those done by the great artists," she said, "is very provocative on the mind of a person."

She is Italy's expert on strong reactions to art: 30 years ago, she began studying what she later called the "Stendhal syndrome," named after the French writer who collapsed, as he wrote after a visit to Florence in 1817, from "a pitch of excitement wherein the celestial sensations of the fine arts meet the passions."

Over 10 years, she studied some 100 cases of visitors to Florence suffering similar breakdowns after their encounters with Italy's art, architecture and history, experiencing panic, euphoria, depression, even hallucinations.

These days, her studies have zeroed in on sex, and specifically how Caravaggio's sexually ambiguous young boys have caused similar mental episodes especially in men - more broadly, how the charge of sex in great art can also overwhelm.

That's right: visitors to Florence Italy, which holds one of the world's great collection of classical artists painting Men and Women just as God created them, has been causing people to have reactions ranging from fainting to hallucinations.

The NYT discusses this rather perplexing reaction:

Here in Florence, Dr. Magherini has turned her attention to the most famous nude: Michelangelo's "David." She is studying reactions to the "David," and has been looking particularly at a recent exhibition in which five modern works were displayed aside the classical beauty of the "David." The exhibition provoked "particularly violent and exaggerated reactions to the contemporary works," according to Francia Falletti, director of the Galleria della Academia, where the "David" is displayed. There have been no unusual reactions recorded at the new exhibit on mythology and erotica, though in theory there is time: the show runs through May 15.

An Italian newspaper called it a "porno shop," a description that Ms. Casazza, the museum director and co-curator of the exhibit, dismissed with a laugh.

"When you look at one of these paintings, do you feel like you are looking at Playboy?" she asked, and again the visitor was relieved when she answered her own question.

"No," she said. "They are different from men's magazines. This has a universal character. There is also the ability to represent the human soul."

Oh, no! Boobies!

Photo courtesy of NYT

Source:
Blush if You Must, for Art's Sake, but Don't Panic
Florence Journal
IAN FISHER
NYT, November 11, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/international/europe/11florence.html

Posted at 09:43 AM in Art & Design | Permalink

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