thecages

Here's a fascinating article on Alzheimer's disease from the NY Times.

When he learned in 1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist in London, responded in characteristic fashion.
“From that moment on, he began to try to understand it by painting himself,” said his wife, Patricia Utermohlen, a professor of art history.

The article gives a view on Mr. Utermohlen’s deterioration and how this translated to his self portraits as he lost control the mental faculties that allowed him to paint.
Neurologically it offers a view into the workings(or not) of the mind of someone who has Alzheimer's and how deterioration in different parts of the brain affect both the patient's visualisation of the world and ability to translate that image to an external form.

What fascinates me about the paintings is that they show a remarkable discipline and courage.
Mr. Utermohlen could have chosen to switch to painting nothing but landscapes or event daisies, but insisted on continuing to paint himself.
In some way self portraits(whether they be in paint, written form or music) offer the deepest view into a person's mind since the subject matter is so intensely personal.
Self portraits offer the viewer the most direct entry into the painter's self awareness.

What I do wonder about is how aware he was of his losing control over his paintings and to what extent looking at them during more lucid times scared him.
Something that has surprised me about my grandfather's loss of memory and context to Alzheimer's is that during his lucid moments he is frustrated by the difficulty he has in remembering names etc.[1] but that when he descends into a lost state he loses that frustration. And that when he then becomes lucid again he does not remember any of his inabilities when he was lost.
The disconnection between being present and being lost seems total.
This doesn't affect my grandfather as he doesn't keep a record of his lost times, but Mr. Utermohlen did.
Imagine waking up on a good day and looking at the history of your deterioration.

That Mr. Utermohlen chose to allow us(his wife, his doctors and now all of us) to view him so directly while he deteriorated into such a vulnerable state is remarkable.
What a magnificent way of refusing to let your physical situation control or debilitate you!

A biography of the artist and examples of more of his work is available here.

The portraits below are from NY Times.
























[1] even though his abilities are much better during those lucid moments than when he is in a fog