The Stendhal syndrome

The Stendhal syndrome is an interaction phenomenon which takes place between the artist who created the artwork and the observer. When this syndrome occurs the individual experiences loss of identity and memory, mainly affecting Europeans and Japanese.

While creating their artworks artists enter into an inner extra-temporal condition that allows them to tune in with the most subtle part of the Self, even to the Soul, and therefore to shape and inform matter itself. The observer, standing in front of the artwork and letting go of all mental conceptions and preconceptions, is able to enter into entanglement with what the artist transferred onto the canvas thus entering into a state of confusion that makes the observer lose consciousness.

This confusional state is due to the fact that the observer does not have a mental structure prepared and ready to perceive what is beyond the illusory-material reality and hence experiences a kind of short circuit within the areas of the brain, which are forced to make an unusual use of connections. Therefore, this syndrome cannot be considered a disease but an attempt to arrive at deeper and more subtle perceptions which an individual is not normally accustomed to.