From the name of the famous writer who, during the Italian campaign – war was part of literary entertainment at the time – one day came to a stop in front of the beauty of a church in Florence:
” I was in a sort of ecstasy. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, I saw it up close, I touched it, so to speak. I had reached that point of emotion where the heavenly sensations given by the Fine Arts meet the passionate feelings. Leaving church I had a heartbeat, life was exhausted at home, I walked with fear of falling “.
End of quote.
This description of Stendhal, this feeling, this disturbance felt by the traveling writer in front of the Florentine beauties, gave its name to the symptom, and this text constitutes one of the first descriptions.
Since then, each year, ten people are victims of uncontrolled reactions in front of the “David” of Michelangelo, or the “Venus” of Botticelli.
It is not a disease reserved for Italian art, but in fact, whenever the expectation of an emotion is very important and it is too strong. It can be in front of a place, a painting, a landscape; rarely a concert … Never a television show, I can assure you.
The symptoms are always the same: dizziness, loss of sense of identity and sense of direction, severe chest pain, tachycardia, and it can even lead to depression. The subject goes from a state of elation, of feeling of power, to panic attacks and fear of dying.
In some, this disease lasts several days and requires treatment in a specialized environment.
So does art have an immense force which can transmit absolute emotion?
One of the specialists in this syndrome even believes that we are all carriers of Stendhal syndrome and that this phenomenon remains diffuse for most of us. In certain conditions of intimacy, a work of art works for the one who views it as the symbol of an inner drama.
But in fact, isn’t this syndrome just what popular common sense calls “love at first sight”?
Probably…
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