Abstract
Biographical accounts of famous artists usually try to relate the life story to the works (and vice versa). This gives the work a special “colour”, often the context for understanding for today’s recipients. This interrelation is complex and often judgmental, sometimes manipulative. Thus, medical (including psychiatric), characterological and psychodynamic assessments and interpretations must be made with great caution. Primary sources may be scanty and diagnostic concepts may have changed (Mozart died of hitzigem Frieselfieber [prickly heat fever]; in Hölderlin’s lifetime, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder did not yet “exist”). The attempt at a diagnostic classification often says more about the author and his time than about the artist (for example, the assessment of Robert Schumann’s or Friedrich Hölderlin’s mental illness). Against this background, elements of Ludwig van Beethoven’s biography are presented from a psychiatric perspective. In summary, Beethoven can be diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. A pronounced hyperthymic temperament is likely to have had a clearly positive influence on the course of the disorder. In particular, no influence of the alcohol use disorder on the musical quality of the work can be proven. A clear episodic course of affective symptoms as in bipolar disorder is not demonstrable. The deafness caused a severe reduction in quality of life.
Highlights
The image of Beethoven that dominates public opinion today, 250 years after the composer’s birth, is to a large extent a fabrication of tirelessly self-reproducing stereotypes, from whose feedback loop it is apparently almost impossible to find a consensual way out, even on the basis of current research. (Translation by AE). It is not the aim of this presentation to give a comprehensive review of Beethoven’s biography or to discuss all possible aspects of mental health in his life, but rather to discuss some aspects of how psychiatry in general assesses psychopathological phenomena, including full-blown psychiatric disorder, and how, the perspective of a clinical psychiatrist could possibly contribute to the understanding of Ludwig van Beethoven and of his “image” beyond self-reproducing stereotypes
The attempt at a diagnostic classification often says more about the author and his time than about the artist
Greenwood has summarised the interaction of the bipolar spectrum with creativity as follows: “Bipolar disorder may be better conceptualised as a dimensional trait existing at the extreme of normal population variation in positive temperament, personality, and cognitive traits, aspects of which may reflect a shared vulnerability with creativity [43].”
Summary
Summary Biographical accounts of famous artists usually try to relate the life story to the works (and vice versa). This gives the work a special “colour”, often the context for understanding for today’s recipients. The attempt at a diagnostic classification often says more about the author and his time than about the artist (for example, the assessment of Robert Schumann’s or Friedrich Hölderlin’s mental illness). Against this background, elements of Ludwig van Beethoven’s biography are presented from a psychiatric perspective.
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