Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 81. (Budapest, 1977)

KÖZLEMÉNYEK — ELŐADÁSOK - Gerevich József—Ungvári Gábor: Gulácsy Lajos betegségének kultúrtörténeti vonatkozásai

Summary Lajos Gulácsy, the visionary painter who created a style of his own to which it is impossible to attach a label, gradually drifted away from the norms of his age with the slow and progressive emergence of his schizophrenic illness. He set out in search of the "source", like Gauguin. He was influenced to a certain extent by the Pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau. His very personal "symbolism" can only be understood in the light of his accentuated personality. The subjects of his early work were derived from Art Nouveau. The dream world he created around 1904 was radically new and based on subjects foreign to the spirit of the age, even though the works were also an artistic expression of his concrete experience of Italian towns. His illness, as a symbol of rejection of society, gained cultural historical significance through his contemporaries who followed European intellectual trends. We now see the cultural historical significance of his illness in the fact that he drifted away from Art Nouveau when it was itself exhausted and he foreshadowed new trends before they had even emerged. His illness which arose from his accentuated personality and took the form of rigid stereotyped habits, thus falling mainly within the dimension of behaviour, is considered, on the basis of Leonhard's nosological system, to be systemic (affected) catatonia. Hungarian psychiatry has still to produce a pathography of Gulácsy. J. GEREVICH, MD G. UNGVÁRI, MD Clinic of Psychiatry at the Semmelweis Medical University Semmelweis Orvostudományi Egyetem, Psychiatriai Klinika H-1083 Budapest, Balassa u. 6. Hungary