VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGIES: EXAMPLES AND PROBLEMS OF STUDY
The article is devoted to a retrospective analysis of the causes of the appearance of representations of mental diseases in the visual field and the problems of visualization of pathologies on the example of cases and artworks of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. The problems and points of interaction between art and psychiatry are touched upon, the reasons for the appearance of psychiatric illustration, the commonwealth of psychiatry and photography, and the genre of medical portraits are analyzed. As a result, it can be concluded that psychiatric photography, medical portraits and psychiatric illustrations inherited previously existing aesthetic and representative traditions, as well as cultural and historical ideas about mental diseases, which in turn gave rise to symptoms. Such a visual “dead end” has created a problem of representation, which also exists in contemporary art. Thus, the “objective” representation of psychopathologies in art is still problematic and requires analysis and search for solutions.