The Stendhal Syndrome

French novelist Stendhal is patient zero for a peculiar psychosomatic affliction caused by works of art. In Florence, he became faint after visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce and contemplating Volterrano’s fresco of the Sibyls in the presence of the tombs of Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo. “Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty… the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.” Since then it has been documented that certain tourists visiting the statue of David in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence often require medical attention. Being in the presence of this famous 17 foot-tall naked man carved from one block of marble is too much for some minds to bear and the body responds in kind: increased heart rate, dizziness, hallucinations and fainting can occur. Botticeli’s Birth of Venus has caused an epileptic fit and heart attacks. Persons who succumb to this syndrome likely have a susceptibility to being induced, particularly in a foreign context. A lack of defenses allows the art-objects to overwhelm their psych resulting in a physical response. The victim is already vulnerable to the idea of art as Art. Nearly ten years ago I experienced an intense somatic response visiting Dia Beacon for the first time: I had never understood either minimal or conceptual art until seeing this work in person in the dim rain-lit galleries: Sol Lewitt, Michael Heizer, Louise Bourgeois, On Kawara, Agnes Martin; I was dizzy with a heady vertigo, my pulse singing in my ears, my head hammering with a throbbing pain. Conversely we might propose a Ben Lerner Syndrome, as detailed in his novel Leaving the Atocha Station: Ben Lerner’s fictional self visits a gallery in Madrid and while comprehending the art he expects an emotional response and yet feels nothing. It is an explicit flat affect that defines this art experience. The Ben Lerner Syndrome would be an invulnerability to the bewitching powers of art; a refusal of its special status.