Édouard Manet's Tabes Dorsalis: From Painful Ataxia to Phantom Limb.

Édouard Manet's Tabes Dorsalis: From Painful Ataxia to Phantom Limb. Front Neurol Neurosci. 2018;43:59-75 Authors: Bogousslavsky J, Tatu L Abstract Édouard Manet (1832-1883) is considered the "father" of impressionism and even of twentieth century modern art. Manet's genius involved getting away from the classical narrative or historical topics and replacing them by the banality of daily life. Technically, he erased volumes into flat two-dimensional coloured planes, and distorted conventional perspective with often gross brushstrokes intentionally giving an "unfinished" aspect to the work. It is little known that Manet had a very painful second part of his life, due to excruciating limb and chest pains, which developed in parallel with proprioceptive ataxia and gait imbalance. Manet always remained discreet about his private life, and we mainly know that his future wife was his family piano teacher, with whom he had a liaison at the age of 17 years. Later, the great but platonic passion of his life was the painter Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), who married Manet's brother Eugène. In fact, we do not know whether he had a mistress at all, although he had several elegant "flirts" in the mundane and artistic milieu. Thus, while Manet's progressive painful ataxia from the age 40 years yields little doubt on its tabetic origin, how he contracted syphilis at least 15-20 years before will probably remain a mystery. It is fascinating that Man...
Source: Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Tags: Front Neurol Neurosci Source Type: research