It has been argued that people who suffer from epilepsy have an enhanced creative potential. Take the prominent Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) as an example. Art historians have long believed that the van Gogh's illness, culminating in a series of alternating bout of mood swing, eccentric judgement and hallucination in the last two years of his life, could be medical manifestation of temporal lobe epilepsy (1). While van Gogh was admitted in the psychiatric hospital Saint-Paul-de-Mausole at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from 1889 to 1890, he created some of the most enduring pictorial images the world has come to identify with van Gogh, featuring his bodacious use of bright hue and iconic wavy brushstrokes. Up until he committed suicide on 27 Jul 1890, he had remained devoted to his beloved art form and continued to build a prolific oeuvre while possibly battling with the deterioration of epilepsy precipitated by factors of inherent stresses and emotional instability (2).

Several not-for-profit foundations and patient empowerment initiatives are active in funding research exploring the implication of neurological conditions, such as epilepsy and migraine, in art creation and serve as the platform for artistically inclined epileptics to present their works and to interact with the broader community of people affected by epilepsy. These visual creations provide an unique angle from which neuroscientists can further elucidate the complex underlying biochemical and neurological processes of the illness and serve to reduce misconception and stigma among the public (3).

• Epilepsy Society: artists and epilepsy online gallery - https://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/artists-and-epilepsy#.W8NT8i97E_V
• Epilepsy Ontario - http://epilepsyontario.org
• Creative Sparks - http://www.artandepilepsy.com
• Museum for Epilepsy and the History of Epilepsy - http://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/index.html

Hi Karina Hsu,

Your post about Van Gogh’s art changes my perception about one of his paintings called Starry Night. Formerly, I thought that the painted halos around the moon and stars had a religious connotation. I wonder if Van Gogh’s struggle with epilepsy was incorporated into his paintings as an aura that can happen before a seizure. I think that I will use this as an example in my own pharmacy practice to illustrate the perceptual disturbances that can be manifested in patients afflicted with auras perceived as a strange light.

[ Comment by Brian Marcantel ]

Karina: When I was looking for poetry regarding epilepsy I came across a reference for Neil Young having temporal lobe epilepsy. A societal fault of mine is thinking that somehow people with epilepsy live outside of my reality. Probably because unless someone is seizing it's invisible.