Rheumatic disease and artistic creativity

摘要

Disease in general, and especially rheumatic disease, has inspired artists for centuries and has often been depicted in paintings. There are several examples of that; , by James Gillray in 1799, depicts a bare foot with classical signs of inflammation in gout attack such as extreme swelling, redness and severe pain presented as a demon biting the foot ( ); “ by H. W. Bunbury is another excellent depiction of the excruciating pain and burning (also represented by a demon here) caused by the deposition of natrium urate crystals in the joints of patients with gout, and also gives important information about the close connection between gout and alcohol, one of the most common risk factors for gout ( ); in “ by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, Canon van der Paele is depicted with a prominent, swollen left temporal artery, suggestive of temporal arteritis ( ); in Sandro Boticelli’s , we can observe swelling of the wrists and PIP joints, as well as deformity of the fifth digit of the hand, that could be attributed to arthritis ( ). However, some authors claim that this is a misinterpretation, and the way he painted hands was a stylistic configuration seen in other paintings as well; in “ by Rubens, we can observe deformities suggestive of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) ( ). This suggests not only the presence of RA at that time, but also that Rubens himself might suffered from the disease. We can learn a lot about the natural history of rheumatic diseases through paintings, about the characteristics and the course of the disease at different periods of time.