Hysteria as a Strategy of Representation in the Art of France in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Abstract
This article will consider the process of turning the disease called hysteria into a socio-cultural phenomenon and the strategy of representation in the second half of the XIXth century. It can be concluded that the verification of symptoms and phases of hysteria by artistic means coincides with Foucault’s concept of the process of aestheticizing the disease. The use of the artistic iconography of hysteria, which sharpened the problems of the binary opposition of health and disease and the relationship between doctor and patient, becomes a tempting way of veiled representation of various discourses of the second half of the XIXth century: political, social and others. The intertexts of hysterical contractures can be traced in the artworks. Analyzing and comparing these artworks with the iconography of hysteria formed in the hospital, it is possible to trace the processes of changes in the representation of the human body in art under the influence of new medical discoveries. It seems relevant to continue the research of hysteria in the field of visuality, because there is still no full-fledged study of the penetration of hysteria into the sphere of art.
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