"Only in the state of delirium one can compose the most elevated poetry". These words are from Democritus (c. 460 – c. 370 BC, Greek philosopher and mathematician), and this might be a good starting point for this post.
Delirium, even if it might sound as an out-of-control state, I always relate it with a certain sublime state of thinking, where a certain group of dissociated ideas are placed together harmonically, in a certain order, apparently chaotic from outside but incredibly ordered from inside.
From the literature, below you will see a plot given by Google about the frequency of the word "delirium" during the last 550 years, exactly from year 1550 to 2018. It is interesting to see two regions with maximum values, around year 1778 and 1880. I cannot say exactly what was the reason for these two maximums, but probably important contributions in the narrative or in novels happened in those periods.
Delirium, even if it might sound as an out-of-control state, I always relate it with a certain sublime state of thinking, where a certain group of dissociated ideas are placed together harmonically, in a certain order, apparently chaotic from outside but incredibly ordered from inside.
From the literature, below you will see a plot given by Google about the frequency of the word "delirium" during the last 550 years, exactly from year 1550 to 2018. It is interesting to see two regions with maximum values, around year 1778 and 1880. I cannot say exactly what was the reason for these two maximums, but probably important contributions in the narrative or in novels happened in those periods.
According to the Oxford dictionary, "delirium" has two main definitions:
- An acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence, occurring in intoxication, fever, and other disorders.
- Wild excitement or ecstasy.
Delirium has the following synonyms: derangement, dementia, dementedness, temporary madness/insanity, incoherence, raving, irrationality, hysteria, wildness, feverishness, frenzy, hallucination, rare calenture,
Perhaps this was the state that Jackson Pollock (American painter, 1912-1956) felt every time he was creating his marvelous paintings. Pollock, who started to show his paintings and becoming a legend in the abstract expressionism movement, at the time when Pablo Picasso (Spanish artist, 1881-1973) and Henri Matisse (French artist, 1869-1954) were the most famous painters, Picasso with the cubism and surrealism movement, and Matisse with the modernism and post-impressionism movement. See below a picture of Pollock in action and one of his paintings:
- An acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence, occurring in intoxication, fever, and other disorders.
- Wild excitement or ecstasy.
Delirium has the following synonyms: derangement, dementia, dementedness, temporary madness/insanity, incoherence, raving, irrationality, hysteria, wildness, feverishness, frenzy, hallucination, rare calenture,
Perhaps this was the state that Jackson Pollock (American painter, 1912-1956) felt every time he was creating his marvelous paintings. Pollock, who started to show his paintings and becoming a legend in the abstract expressionism movement, at the time when Pablo Picasso (Spanish artist, 1881-1973) and Henri Matisse (French artist, 1869-1954) were the most famous painters, Picasso with the cubism and surrealism movement, and Matisse with the modernism and post-impressionism movement. See below a picture of Pollock in action and one of his paintings:
Going back in time, I must mention what Hilma af Klint (Swedish artist, 1862-1944) proposed. Klint is considered one of the first artists in the abstract art movement. From her notes, she described that her paintings were coming from spiritual thoughts, which she tried to represent in a visual way. This was mainly motivated by the early death of her sister. The spiritism was in vogue at that time, and together with different thinking theories could have given an important influence to Klint's paintings. One will never discover if Klint was immerse in deliriums, but the idea might not be far from the real explanation. See below a picture of Klint and one of her paintings.
At this point of my thoughts about delirium, it always comes to my mind a particular guy, Georg Cantor (German mathematician, 1845-1918). Before Cantor, nobody had understood well the meaning of infinity. This was a tricky subject that did not have a clear definition, but Cantor demonstrated that the notion of infinity was perfectly understandable. In fact, there was not only one but many infinities, some of them larger (e.g. decimals) than others (e.g. natural numbers and fraction numbers). Some mathematicians, when reading Cantor's works, get a bit nervous because as log as one goes into the reading, one starts to ask: what's going on here?, where does he want to go?. Besides his enormous talent and effort in this field, Cantor had also an important difficulty, he was a manic depressive, dealing with the illness at the same time he was immersed in his work, and from time to time he ended up in the University's sanatorium. There was not medical treatment at that time, however the sanatorium was a good place to be comfortable and quiet, where Cantor found strength to continue his studies about infinity.
The delirium also brings me the sounds of Rachmaninoff (Russian pianist, composer and conductor, 1873-1943), specially of one of his famous concerts: Piano concert N.3, where you can listen here together with the score, with a special sublime moment at minute 8.
It is not surprising that Rachmaninoff is in the list, together with Chopin, and Liszt, as composer with very demanding solo piano pieces. Listen some examples here.
This topic about delirium gives the chance for more discussion, but I think is better to stop now, for the moment, before the delirium comes and I cannot finish this post.
See you around!
Jesús
This topic about delirium gives the chance for more discussion, but I think is better to stop now, for the moment, before the delirium comes and I cannot finish this post.
See you around!
Jesús