The art of visual neglect

Abstract

paintings showed fluctuating left visual neglect and loss of depth. A French painter, after his stroke, continued to produce elegant line drawings, but characterised by neglect of the left of the sheet and some neglect of the left side of figures across the picture space. Otto Dix (1891–1969), Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), and Anton Raderscheidt (1892–1970) all had right hemisphere strokes. In a drawing that Dix made 4 days after his stroke, there was a clear neglect, but his later drawings and lithographs, though freer than before, showed no impairment. Raderscheidt and Corinth made slower recoveries, which can be traced through their work completed after stroke. There is also one report of right neglect after left hemisphere neoplasm in a right-handed painter. We here describe the case of a well-known English artist whose left neglect after stroke initially impaired both his drawing and his painting, as reported in previous studies. We also show how neglect can affect the ability to sculpt.