ness. ‘The Antwerp neurologist and neuropsychiatrist Erik Baeck suspects that Pick’s disease completely destroyed Ravel’s creativity,’ says Bogousslavsky. ‘We’ll never be completely sure because after Ravel’s death on 28 December 1937, no autopsy was performed after his skull was opened. Still, there are enough indications that point in the direction of Pick’s disease.’ This form of dementia has a broad range of divergent symptoms, like personality changes, problems of concentration, speech problems, changes in sexual behaviour and even a changed diet. To the composer this range of symptoms meant the end of his story. Some scientists think that the endlessly repetitious theme of his ballet masterpiece Boléro is a sign of his illness. Just like the very particular style of his ‘Piano Concerto for the Left Hand’, which Ravel composed for the one-armed Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein. ‘But there are no proofs of this,’ says Bogousslavsky. ‘What is certain is that the illness extinguished his artistic flame. Ravel complained at the end of his life that he still had so much left to say, that there was still so much music in his head. But his ballet Morgane and his opera Jeanne d’Arc would never find their way to paper.’ Bogousslavsky’s first book was received remarkably well. Also among non-scientists. ‘This book got the best sales figures of all three of my books,’ Bogousslavsky says, clearly amused. ‘After having contact with Michael Hennerici, neurologist at the Universität Heidelberg, I realized that there was enough material for a second book. And also that book sold very well. Just like the third book, which appeared this year. Books two and three together cover almost fifty people whose extraordinary creativity shaped part of our artistic cultural universe. I have not yet planned a fourth one, but there would be about six chapters already that could be included in another volume if it were to be published. I do wonder whether a new book could really develop a new concept. Because the books are not really an easy read for the average reader, I’m thinking of publishing a more popularized version on the most ‘interesting’ cases. But reworking and simplifying all the material takes a lot of time.’
Creativity One of the most stimulating concepts in Bogousslavsky’s work is the ‘triggering’ of creativity after a brain injury. A positive consequence of something that is by definition negative. In some artists the urge to create is so strong that they can even overcome their strongest constraints. The injury would make them change their style, for
example, but at the same time preserve their artistic integrity and quality. Bogousslavsky: ‘The human brain’s plasticity is mind-boggling. There are also ordinary people who turn into artists after suffering brain damage. We haven’t studied this concept extensively, but it is truly a fascinating observation. I wouldn’t go as far as assigning a specific circuit in the brain to creative souls. There might be such an area in every human being. But until now it was quite fashionable to regard a neurological problem in an artist as the beginning of the end, as an exclusively negative change. Especially in the third part we focus on geniuses who successfully fought an acute or chronic neurological illness. People like Dimitri Shostakovich (ALS), Clara Wieck-Schumann (chronic pain), Hugo Wolf (syphilis) and Blaise Pascal (visual migraine). Or those who in a dynamic and paradoxically creative manner incorporated their clinical affliction in their artistic production, like Paul Klee or Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, who kept a remarkable and unique diary after suffering a stroke.’ The famous Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878 – 1947) euphemistically referred to the stroke that affected him at the age of 65 as ‘the adventure’. He was nevertheless able to continue writing his diary, recording and analysing his cognitive-emotional changes with an extraordinary depth, subtlety and precision. Ramuz’s linguistic and motoric dysfunctioning disappeared after a few weeks already, but left him with a feeling of emptiness and flatness. ‘As if someone else is living inside me, a devil,’ he wrote. His character had changed fundamentally: he was quickly irritated, anxious and tired, suffered from concentration problems and extreme depression. Ramuz felt as if he had been cut off from his creativity and inspiration. But still he resumed his literary vigor in 1944, just a few months after ‘the adventure’, and seemingly without showing any impact on his style or the quality of his literature. Bogoussavsky: ‘To me Ramuz is the most interesting case in all three books. Until his death he remained worried by the accident that had transformed him to such a degree. The diary he left is a unique document with invaluable information on the subjective emotional and cognitive experience that a stroke may produce. Ramuz describes a dream of an old man who puts a revolver to his head and pulls the trigger. ‘I could feel the bullet pass through my brain. Amazing.’
Reuterswärd (°1934). His work Non-Violence, an oversized knotted gun which sits outside the United Nations building in New York, is better known than its creator. ‘At the age of 55 Reuterswärd was left mute and aphasic after a stroke and his right hand, the hand he used for sculpting, was completely paralysed. To continue working, he learned to use his left hand. He did not learn to speak or walk again. That didn’t really interest him all that much. No, Reuterswärd learned to write, draw and paint again. It’s fascinating to see how his style had changed entirely afterwards. For the better in my view: his style is wilder, more attractive, schematic and innovative. Reuterswärd had to change hemispheres. His drawings bear the imprint of this: his first, new works resemble drawings by a three-year-old toddler, his last are those of an artistic genius.’ Bogousslavsky admits that the three books do not answer one of the most fascinating questions surrounding the ‘how’ of human creativity. ‘They are a kind of impetus to analysing the creative mystery in extraordinarily creative people, all of whom have influenced our ways of thinking in one way or another. The lives and creative output of some of them were destroyed entirely, in others they were changed and in a third group the pathology produced something quite new and beautiful. Our books illuminate why a particular artist developed the way he did. Other research would still have to expose the complex relationship between cerebral dysfunctioning and behaviour in artists who are still alive, by focusing on their sudden change in creativity. The brain does not have a creativity centre; the impact of local brain damage on the complete human being continues to baffle the observer.’
Non-violence Another figure in Bogousslavsky’s personal top five is the Swedish painter-sculptor Carl Fredrik
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