Art Criticism - The State University of New York

ate effort to reproduce fully an impression incapable of reproduction by the
expedients of the painter's art as devised by men of normal vision."6 Here
Nordau suggests that degenerate art, as he calls Impressionism, can only be
understood by those who are themselves degenerate. He seems to be suggesting
the familiar stereotype of all artists as mentally decadent, hysterical creatures.?
While Max Nordau is certainly influential on the study of hysteria,
the scientific, medicinal, and psychological study of hysteria in the nineteenth
century was led by two primary figures. These are Jean-Martin Charcot and
Sigmund Freud. I intend to place the work of these scholars within their contemporary
framework of decadent literature (the Goncourt Brothers) and social
thought in an effort to show that the hysteria they were treating was not found
solely within the medical field.
A key figure in the nineteenth century definition and diagnosis of
hysteria was Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot began his study of medicine at the
University of Paris when he was nineteen and eventually wrote a persuasive
thesis on rheumatism in 1853. At the age of 37, Charcot was made physician to
the Salpetriere hospital that had become a renowned institution via Charcot's
predecessor Pinel. It was at Salpetriere that Charcot was to make his greatest
contributions to neurology and neuropathology. Salpetriere hospital itself
housed mainly "insane" and potentially incurable women patients suffering
from various ailments, primarily neurotics and t1pileptics. R During the eight
years that Charcot worked as chief of the medical services at Sal petri ere, his
most famous work was produced in advancing the study of multiple sclerosis.
After ten years of service at Salpetriere, Chacot was offered a professorship
of pathological anatomy at the University of Paris, which he held until
1882 he then became professor of diseases of the nervous system at the same
university.9 With this change to a new professorship in a new department,
Charcot's academic focus changed from neuralgic-based studies to studies of
hysteria, neurosis and hypnotism. This shift in focus, although a logical outcome
of Charcot's career, had much to do with changes made in the physical
placement of patients. Sections of Salpetriere that were normally delegated to
patients became too run down to use, thereby forcing the administrative staff
to move the patients elsewhere. The epileptics as well as the hysterics were
separated from the insane and placed together in their own ward the, quartier
des epileptiques.1O
Due to this movement of patients, something quite astounding occurred.
The hysterics began to mimic the epileptic fits that they were increasingly
exposed to, given their new proximity to them. Although Charcot did not
recognize this hysterical manifestation of mimicry at first, he eventually came
to understand that what he originally attributed as characteristics of the hysterical
fit, were only visually learned appropriations of reaction and not neces-
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Art Criticism