D e r M e r k u r sta b
English Issue
2008
Der Merkurstab
Journal of Anthroposophic Medicine
Depression
• Markus Treichler
Melancholia in mythology,
art and literature – examples
of individual development
in depression
• Eckhard Roediger
Anthroposophical aspects to
psychotherapy for depression
• Johannes Reiner
How do antidepressants
affect essential human
nature?
• Michaele Quetz
Depression—a case record to
demonstrate diagnostic and
treatment approach based on
anthroposophical psychosomatics
• Susanne Reinhold
Treatment of depression—
music therapy
• Rudolf Steiner
Composure in facing destiny
• Wolfgang Rissmann
Depressive disorders—anthroposophical insight and treatment using anthroposophical
medicines and external applications
2008 English Issue
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D e r M e r k u r s ta b | Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a …
English Issue 2008
Melancholia in mythology, art and literature—
examples of individual development in depression
M a r k u s Tr e i c h l e r
Original title: Melancholie in Mythologie, Kunst und Literatur—
Beispiele individueller Entwicklung in der Depression.
Der Merkurstab 2006; 59: 384–94. English by A. R. Meuss,
FCIL, MTA
Melancholy and mythology, art and
literature—examples of individual
development in depression
■ Abstract
Historical view of melancholia in medicine and
philosophy; examples of melancholy in three
qualities through three historical figures:
Bellephoron, Kleist and Munch.
■ Keywords
Melancholia, depression, suffering,
psychopathology, ways of coping
W
hat does “melancholia” mean to us today? Is
it a temperament, a key mood, a literary
genre, a philosophical attitude, the feeling for
life of a genius, or a psychiatric condition? Is it a depressive mood which has its reasons, the melancholy from
earlier literature, endogenous depression, recurrent depressive disorder, monopolar or bipolar affective psychosis?
Melancholia has been seen in different ways through
the ages, the condition having been known for at least
2V millennia, being referred to in Greek medicine by
Hippocrates. Questions concerning details of it have
changed all the time, especially with regard to the causes and treatment. The symptomatology and phenomenology of melancholia, depressive moods or depression
have remained the same, however.
The encyclopaedia of the French philosopher and
writer Denis Diderot gave a beautiful definition of melancholia. In volume 10, published in Paris in 1765, we read:
“Melancholia is the constant feeling of being inadequate. It is the opposite of cheerfulness, which arises
from being satisfied with ourselves. It mostly results
from a weakness in the soul and of the organs; at the
same time it is a consequence of specific ideas of perfection which we do not find in ourselves or others, neither
in things and pleasures, nor in nature” (1).
He went on to say: “Melancholia as known in medicine is a term made up of melaina (black) and chole (bile).
Hippocrates used it to describe a condition which he
assumed to be caused by black bile, its generic and
specific characteristic being a particular delusion ... This
delusion tends to go hand in hand with insurmountable
sadness and a gloomy mood, homophobia and a marked
predilection for solitude. One can list as many forms of
it as there are people suffering from it” (1).
As to treatment, Diderot wrote:
“To cure melancholia and be sure of success, one
must first heal the mind and then treat bodily defects in
so far as they are known; for this, the prudent physician
knows how to gain his patient’s trust, entering into his
world of ideas, accepting his delusion and apparently
convinced that things are the way which the melancholic thinks them to be. He would then promise complete recovery; and one often has to resort to strange
methods in treating a melancholic.” (1)
The modern psychopathology of melancholia is indeed based on the premise that it has very much to do
with our ideas and expectations regarding perfection, or
perfectionism, as we say today. Hubertus Tellenbach, a
Heidelberg psychiatrist who has been studying melancholia, describes a “melancholic type” (2) of person who
is conscientious, tidy, performance-orientated, asking a
lot of himself and having ideals which are so great that
one cannot possibly live up to them. Progressive reduction and damage to self esteem is the result.
People of this type need not necessarily develop a
melancholic or depressive disorder. Additional factors
which may evoke or favour mental disease will, however, make them develop depression more easily than people who are not of this particular type.
My theme “Melancholia in mythology, art and literature”permits me to speak not only of the criteria for psychiatric diagnosis but also of dimensions of suffering
from melancholia (3).
Below, the attempt will be made to show three dimensions of the condition.
1. Suffering for what one is
Melancholia as presented in Tellenbach’s “melancholic type” and the quotes from the work of Denis
Diderot is a state where the individual suffers from his
own imperfection, feeling unable to meet one’s own
goals, ideas and expectations; the pain of one’s own
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emptiness, worthlessness, the weight of one’s own existence, the guilt that comes with being alive.
2. Suffering because the world is as it is
The second dimension of suffering relates to the
world. It is the pain of a world which withholds the
longed-for fulfilment, making life difficult, a world that
weighs heavily on the mind, not granting any fulfilment
or importance, that does not let one have the breakthrough, to reach the goal, always limiting one and taking one to the edge of the abyss.
3. Suffering in the quest for meaning
I see a third dimension of melancholic suffering in the
quest for meaning.
It is the question, born from doubt, as to the meaning
of one’s own actions, the meaning of certain events, the
meaning of pain, the meaning of life, the meaning of the
whole of human existence; the question as to the meaning of human existence and of the world altogether.
A young teacher at a state school in her mid-20s,
whom I have been treating for over a year for severe recurrent depression, once said to me in the early weeks of
treatment: “I am so different—there is no room for me
in this world—I have no place where I can live, where I
can put up with myself ...”
Another patient in her early 50s whom I have been
treating for some years for severe recurrent depression
asked me one day:“What is the meaning, really, of my depression, that it still keeps coming back—do you think I
still have not learned my lesson?”
A third patient, a successful businessman age 56 and
a man of the world had attempted suicide in a state of
severe depression. He took a room at the Stuttgart Airport Hotel, put the“Do not disturb”sign on the door and
took an overdose of sleeping tablets. A chambermaid
had disregarded the sign at the door and come into the
room, seeing him lie unconscious on his bed, with the
empty tablet packs beside him; she called a doctor. This
is how the patient came to us at the Filder Clinic at that
time. Following that overdose episode, I gave him psychiatric treatment for some time. When the treatment
came to an end he said to me:
“Why did I get those depressions? I can’t see any reason. I have got everything I ever wanted—money, influence, success and yet I am desperately unhappy.”
We have been considering the three dimensions of
melancholic suffering as put into words by my patients.
They will emerge even more clearly as we go on.
Melancholia
Melancholia,
my protectress
wanting boundaries
and in league with losses.
Which is the language
in which to read you?
It is always the unexpected words
from which true sorrow breaks forth.
Peter Haertling
Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a … | D e r M e r k u r s ta b
Looking back on a specific interpretation of melancholia may open a new horizon for understanding it especially today (when depressive disorders are on the increase, particularly among young adults).
In Book XXX of Aristotle’s Problemata Physica we read
a description of the melancholic which also inspired
Duerer to create his Melancholia I. Aristotle began with
a question which at the same time also held the
answer:
“How can it be that all outstanding people (of genius)
in philosophy, politics, fine literature and art are evidently melancholics; some of them to such a degree that
they fall prey to morbid phenomena arising from the
black bile?” (3)
Greek heroes referred to by Aristotle were Ajax,
Bellerophon and Heracles; the philosophers were Empedocles, Socrates and Plato, and—as an example from politics—Lysander, greatest statesman of his time.
Aristotle was following the teachings of Hippocrates
in describing the disease, i.e. humoral pathology. He considered it to arise from black bile, as follows:“Black bile,
cold by nature, can also cause paralysis, frozen states, depression or anxiety states if it goes beyond the right
measure in the body. Yet if heated up excessively it
evokes abandonment, making one sing, and ecstasies.”
He was thus already referring to a warm-blooded and
a cold-blooded melancholic state, today’s manic depressive disorder. It is interesting that apart from these abnormal and clearly pathological phenomena he also
spoke of a third melancholy type where warm and cold
bile were in a balanced mixture, so that the individual
would be “more sensible and less abnormal”. He said of
these moderates who showed the best possible proportions of cold and hot bile: “In many respects they outshine the others. Some with their scholarship, others
with artistic skills, and yet others in their political effectiveness.” He called them unusual, outstanding people
of genius. “They do however tend to develop melancholic disorders on losing sight of themselves.”This last
half sentence seems very important to me; people of genius are this not because of their illness but because
they have a natural disposition, that is, a special personality structure. Yet if they “lose sight of themselves”, or
as we might put it today, if the individual does not pay
sufficient attention to himself, loses control, if his I cannot maintain the balance between hot and cold bile,
that is, between extremes, then this natural disposition
or personality structure also holds the danger of abnormality, pathology, morbidity, which is the other side of
the coin of being a genius: genius can turn to madness.
With regard to the natural disposition of the melancholics among people of genius, Aristotle referred to profundity of wisdom and scholarship; the refined nature of
artistic talent; and the strong-mindedness in political effectiveness and significance (3). Depth as a quality
touches on meaning and significance, profundity also on
the dark side, the abyss, the danger; effectiveness and
significance touch on gravity, weight, the force of gravity and earth’s powers of attraction, being dependent on
3
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Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Fresco from Pompeii, 1st century AD.
From Yalouris N.
Pegasus. Ein Mythos in der Kunst.
Mainz: P. v. Zabern
1987.
matter, a need for purpose, performance and success as
goals; the beautiful and refined touches on the sensual,
sensible and supersensible, the essence of things.
It is worth while giving some thought to the three
heroic figures mentioned by Aristotle—Ajax, Bellerophon and Heracles. Ajax and Heracles are no doubt the
best known and I have therefore chosen Bellerophon to
look for the archetype of melancholic suffering.
Archetype of melancholic suffering—Bellerophon
Hesiod described the birth of Bellerophon:“Eurimede
thus lay in Poseidon’s arms and gave birth to irreproachable Bellerophon who was superior to all men.”Begotten
of a mortal by Poseidon, god of the sea, Bellerophon
ranked among the heroes; great trials and heroic deeds
lay before him.
Iniquity marked his childhood—none of the sources
tell us how this came about—but he killed the hero
Belleros. His name then became Bellerophontes. He left
his native city of Corinth “and as he began to roam, his
father Poseidon gave him Pegasus, to bear him swiftly on
his wings” (4).
Pegasus, the winged horse, offspring of Poseidon
born at the source springs of the ocean, is primarily a
symbol for the flowing element. Tradition has it that a
spring would appear wherever Pegasus” hoof struck
mountain or rock.The famous Castalian spring at Delphi
is also said to have originated from Pegasus” hoof striking the ground.The unique power of flight reflects buoyancy, like the way in which water rises heavenwards as
vapour to form clouds. In a wider sense, Pegasus is at all
times, to this day, also a symbol of the source of inspiration for writers and artists. Above all Pegasus symbolizes
the buoyancy of the artist’s imagination, overcoming
the force of gravity in creative work. It is in this sense that
artists have depicted Pegasus through the millennia
(Fig. 1–3) (4).
The boy Bellerophon first visited with relatives in
Tiryns. The gods had endowed him with “remarkable
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beauty and courage” (Homer, Iliad), which may help to
explain why his aunt wanted to seduce him. When the
boy had rejected all her attempts she went to his uncle,
the king, accusing him of having attempted to approach
her, his aunt, in an unseemly way. The king sent him to
his friend, king Iobates, with a letter demanding the
penalty of death for the boy. When Bellerophon arrived
in Lycia, Iobates gave him three challenges instead that
were thought to be beyond anyone’s powers. The first
and most important trial was to kill the Chimaera, a fabulous creature with three fire-breathing heads, a lion in
front, a serpent in the tail, and a goat in the middle. The
creature was laying Lycia waste. Bellerophon was able to
meet the challenge thanks to his winged horse Pegasus,
attacking the Chimaera from the air and killing it by
throwing spears.The other two challenges—to vanquish
the wild mountain tribe of the Solymers and then the
warrior Amazons, were also met by the hero thanks to
Pegasus. Soon after this Bellerophon had reached the
high point in life. He was king of Lycia, with wife and
three children, and could be both proud and content,
having found peace and prosperity after long years of
being an outcast. Then,“in about the middle of his life, a
strange gloom descended’, as Marie-Luise Kaschnitz
wrote (5).“After all those blessings, the other aspect had
come into his life, the darkness which none can understand, for it seems to go against the laws that govern
life.” He lost a son in a fight among humans and his
daughter through a punishment by the gods. Having
felt himself to be loved by the gods for all time, he now
knew himself to be beaten. Doubts ate away at his faith
and confidence, making life devoid of all joy. Pain and
fear of further misfortune spread. His courage faltering,
he felt guilty and pursued by the fiery breath of the Chimaera in his heart. Then one day the terrible despair he
felt drove him to his final act. He no longer wanted to understand the meaning of his own destiny, nor merely the
earthly and human need, but at a higher level of doubtfulness he wanted to fathom the meaning of the world
as such, the existence of the gods, the cosmic order.
In the fragment of his Bellerophontes drama, Euripides made him say: “And they say that there are gods in
the heavens? There are none, none.”Did manic presumption make him blaspheme? Or was it the very height of
despair that made him mount Pegasus, his winged
horse, once more after years of lacking all drive and
standing still, to ascend to the gods themselves? He was
aiming too high, however. The gods would not tolerate
humans among them and made him fall. Pegasus raced
upwards to the heavens, where he would henceforth
serve Zeus; our hero fell down to earth, drawn by the
force of gravity, directed towards the centre of incarnation. Penniless and powerless, he roamed among people,
a beggar.
At this point, Euripides put famous words in his
mouth again: “I believe what is on everyone’s lips: It is
best for man not to be born at all.” In the play King Oedipus on Colonos by Euripides, the Choir speaks the words
which Kierkegaard, the melancholic philosopher, was
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Abb. 2
later to quote many times:“Happiest is he who is never
born. Human life is condemned to failure, and failure
does not even begin, for it is present without cease.”
The figure and destiny of Bellerophon may well be
the earliest description of a melancholic figure in the
western world. We should not see it in a more pessimistic light, however, than it may well have been.
Marie-Luise Kaschnitz, a sensitive writer, also considered
Bellerophon in her work on Greek mythology. She described his end as follows:
“The gods will not suffer such desire for knowledge.
Bellerophon was thrown off. As Pegasus raced upwards,
a riderless, free, thundering horse, to serve Zeus, our hero
lay on the wasteland, fallen and beaten. Lamed, limping,
he rose from the ground, the gift of the gods, the boon
of rides in the clouds, gone forever. He did not return to
the palace but from then on lived as though in another
world, roaming hither and thither, taken in by country
folk and shepherds now and then—that was the last
period in his life. The years of his old age were like those
of his unsettled youth again, differing only in that there
was no hope left. For Bellerophon now expected no more
than the crust of bread to satisfy his hunger, and had
nothing to offer but his gratitude and counsel. That advice showed great wisdom and love of humanity, however, and it may well have been because of this that the
old wandering man, refusing to make offerings to the
heavenly ones, nevertheless may have been a blessed
friend of the gods to many.” (5)
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Abb. 3
We perceive the period when darkness came upon
Bellerophon to have been a melancholic mood with the
typical psychopathological triad of symptoms—doubt,
guilt and oppressive questions as to meaning in his
thoughts; pain, fear and darkness in his feelings; hopelessness, despair and apathy in the sphere of the will.
Melancholic suffering relating to the world—
Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), one of the great German dramatists, also was a great melancholic. A gloomy
mood, feeling inwardly driven and self doubt persisted
for all his life. As a boy he had still been full of the idea
that he would, and indeed must, strive for truth in his
life, so that with the truth garnered on earth he might
achieve further perfection on another star after his
death. At the age of 23, however, in 1801, he read Kant, understanding him to mean that our senses and the thinking based on them will not provide certain insight into
reality, a thing in itself, and therefore also no truth. This
led to a violent crisis. The thought that he could not
reach the truth lodged in Kleist’s soul like a thorn in the
flesh, never letting go. In March 1801 he wrote to his then
betrothed Wilhelmine von Zenge:
“My only, my greatest goal has fallen to the ground,
and I have none left now.”To his favourite sister Ulrike von
Kleist he wrote: “It seems that I will be one of the many
victims of the foolishness of Kant’s philosophy” (6).
On a rainy day in March 1801 Kleist was walking by
the Wannsee lake (in Berlin) with some friends. Out of
Fig. 2
Pegasus in Picasso’s peace mural.
From Yalouris N.
Pegasus. Ein Mythos in der Kunst.
Mainz: P. v. Zabern
1987. © Succession
Picasso/VG Bildkunst, Bonn 2006.
Fig. 3
Lithograph by
Odilon Redon
(1840-1916). From
Yalouris N. Pegasus. Ein Mythos in
der Kunst. Mainz:
P. v. Zabern 1987.
6
Fig. 4
Edvard Munch,
Melancholia. From
Exhibition Catalogue Essen: Museum Folkwang.
1987. Zurich, Kunsthaus 1988. © The
Munch Museum/The Munch
Ellingsen Group.VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
2006.
D e r M e r k u r s ta b | Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a …
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Fig. 4
the crisis in which he was concerning the meaning of
life, he talked with his friends about the most certain
way of committing suicide.They came to the conclusion
that the surest method would be to take a boat out on
the lake, where the water was deep, fill one’s pockets
with stones, sit on the edge of the boat and shoot oneself with a pistol.
This thought of suicide was Kleist’s constant companion wherever he went or travelled for ten years.
Again and again he would come to the insight that
seemed to govern his life:“The truth is that there was no
help for me on earth.”
As a young man, Kleist clearly had quite different
plans for life: “Someone who thinks freely will not stay
at the point where chance puts him ... He will feel that
one could rise above one’s destiny, indeed, that it would,
in the proper sense, be possible to guide one’s own destiny. He determines rationally where greatest happiness
lies for him, he makes his own plan for life. For as long as
one is not able to make one’s own plan for life, one continues to be dependent, be it as a child under one’s parent’s tutelage, or as a man under the tutelage of destiny”
(7). This was the philosophy of a 21-year-old who had no
idea then that his life would be driven and aimless. At
first he planned to achieve fame and success on earth.
Be it in military or government service, as a student or
later also with his writing—such success was to be denied him. He had hoped to be recognized, understood
and encouraged by Goethe, but the latter did not understand and took no interest in him. Kleist, who wrote so
many unforgettable plays, was never to see any of them
staged. Most were performed only after his death. And
so he wrote to his betrothed in 1801, the year of his crisis
over Kant:“Oh miserable ambition, it is poison to all joys
and pleasures” (6).
“So I want to free myself from all things that unceasingly compel me to strive, envy and compete. For pain at
not amounting to much exists only in the world and not
outside it.” This he wrote from Paris in October 1801.
Kleist considered withdrawal from the world and wanted to buy a farm in Switzerland to live on. The attempt
failed. He felt compelled to return to France, where he
wanted to join the French army and serve in the war—
an undertaking not without danger for a Prussian officer. On 26 October 1803 he wrote to his sister:“I have read
through my work when in Paris, as much of it as was finished, rejected and burned it. And that is the end. Heaven denies me fame, the greatest good on earth; like a
self-willed child I cast all the rest before it. I cannot be
worthy of your friendship, yet cannot live without this
friendship. I throw myself into death.” (6, 8)
In the years that followed, Kleist wrote his most important works.Thus the play Penthesilea in 1807, the story of the Amazon queen in battle with Achilles. Kleist
made her say:“I have done the utmost of which humans
are capable—tried to do the utterly impossible. I put
everything I have on the cast of the die.The die which decides the issue lies there. I must understand this—and
that I have lost.’8 These words are like Kleist’s summing
up of his own destiny. In 1811 he wrote to his beloved
cousin Marie von Kleist: “I feel numb and dumb inside,
and see no light at all in the tunnel that might offer
some joy or hope. ... Truly, it is strange how everything I
try to do goes awry at this time; how the ground is pulled
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Abb. 5
away from under my feet every time I manage to decide
on a definite step.” (6, 8)
He wrote to her again on 10 November 1811, in a way
typical of melancholic genius: “Having always been involved with beauty and modesty, from my earliest youth,
in my thoughts and writing, I have grown so sensitive
that the least adversity causes two or three times the
pain” (6). And again, on 19 November: “Add to this that I
have found a friend whose soul soars like a young eagle,
the like of which I have never yet seen in my life; she sees
my sadness as one of a higher kind, firmly rooted and incurable, and therefore, though she would have means
enough to make me happy wants to die with me ... And
you will see that the whole of my jubilant care can only
be to find an abyss which is deep enough for me to
throw myself into with her.” (6)
They found their abyss, Kleist and Henriette Vogel, a
delicate young woman suffering from cancer. She spent
a happy day with him on 21 November by the Wannsee
lake in Stimmings, which is on the road to Potsdam, before they both shot themselves.
Heinrich von Kleist had lived with the thought of suicide for ten years, had created immortal works, finally
raised his own life’s goal of success and fame even higher in wanting to gain immortality, a goal which he did
achieve after his death. Quite unemotionally, though not
without drama, he wrote a farewell letter to a friend of
the Vogel family on the day of his death and also to his
beloved sister Ulrike. The letter to Councillor of War
Peguilhen began with the words: “We are lying, shot
dead, by the side of the road to Potsdam ...” (6).
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Abb. 6
Stefan Zweig, probably one of the most “psychological” German writers of the 20th century, who bore the
signs of an equally severe melancholia as Heinrich von
Kleist and, also like Kleist, committed suicide with his
partner, wrote about Kleist in an essay worth reading:
“He saw the world as a tragedy, and thus created
tragedies out of his world, the last and greatest of these
being his own life ... Kleist knew little of reality, but infinitely much about the essence.” (7)
To try and gain insight into such a destiny marked by
melancholia, it may help to consider a passage from
Zweig’s short story Untergang eines Herzens (decline of
a heart):
“To shake a heart to the ground, destiny does not always need to bring all force to bear nor to use its powers abruptly; indeed, to let perdition unfold from a fleeting touch thrills destiny’s great desire to shape and form.
In our dull human language we call this first light touch
“occasion” and are amazed to see its utter smallness
compared to the mighty effect which goes on and on;
but just as with a disease making itself known, so does
destiny of an individual not just show itself when it becomes visible, an event. Destiny has always been at work
inwardly in the mind and in the blood before it touches
the soul from outside.” (9)
Kleist’s destiny has also greatly occupied the mind of
Christa Wolf, a writer living in Berlin today. She has written a short story where she brings together Heinrich
von Kleist and Caroline von Guenderode in the home of
the Brentano family in 1804. Caroline, too, was a tragic
figure, melancholic, a writer who took her own life at the
age of 26 in 1806. In the story, entitled Kein Ort. Nirgends
Fig. 5
Edvard Munch, Self
Portrait 1881, aged
18. From Exhibition
Catalogue Essen:
Museum Folkwang. 1987. Zurich,
Kunsthaus 1988.
Fig. 6
Edvard Munch, Self
Portrait 1911. From
Exhibition Catalogue Essen: Museum Folkwang.
1987. Zurich, Kunsthaus 1988.
Figs 5 & 6
© The Munch Museum/The Munch
Ellingsen Group.VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
2006.
8
D e r M e r k u r s ta b | Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a …
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Edvard Munch, Self
Portrait as an old
man. From Exhibition Catalogue Essen: Museum Folkwang. 1987. Zurich,
Kunsthaus 1988. ©
The Munch Museum/The Munch
Ellingsen Group.VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
2006.
(No place. Nowhere) she described the melancholia and
dark mood of these two figures with great empathy and
literary skill (10).
Dark mood of melancholic suffering for what
he was—Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was the second of five
children in a pietistic family. His father was a medical
corps captain and also ran a small practice in a workingclass suburb of Christiania, which is today’s Oslo. Munch
wrote about his family:
“My mother came from a farming background, a
strong-willed family. Tuberculosis bacilli had already attacked the root, however. As you know, my father’s forebears were poets, of some genius, but also showed signs
of degeneration. I was baptised at birth as they thought
I would die. My mother already had the seed of death in
her then. Six years later, tuberculosis deprived five young
children of their mother. Sickness, madness and death
were like dark angels standing guard at my cradle. They
have stayed with me throughout life. My father tried to
be both father and mother to us. But he was melancholic, nervous—a hereditary trait—with periods of religious fervour that came close to madness. For days on
end he’d be striding up and down in his room calling on
God. I soon enough came to know the misery and dangers of life, hearing of life after death and eternal torment in hell for all sinners. When he did not have one of
these religious episodes he could jest and play with us
and tell stories. This made it twice as hard for us to bear
the torment when he punished us. He could then be
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quite beyond himself. I inherited his nervous vehemence.” (11)
In his puberty Edvard once had a dispute with his father over the length of time for which infidels would
have to suffer in hell. He thought that no one could be
so great a sinner that God would torment him for more
than a thousand years. His father thought differently.
The boy did not want to give in, the dispute grew violent
and ended with Edvard slamming the door as he left the
room. He walked through the night-dark streets of Christiania, roaming aimlessly, and his rage gradually subsided. Edvard wanted to make his peace with his father
when he got home, but he’d gone to bed. He crept into
his father’s bedroom and saw him kneeling at the bedside in prayer. The boy crept away, quietly closing the
door. He could not settle down and go the sleep. Finally
he went and got a drawing pad in the middle of the
night and began to draw his father as he knelt by the
bed. He got his box of paints and applied colour. Finally,
he wrote,“the picture was good. I was at peace and went
to sleep immediately” (11).
This may have been the beginning of Edvard Munch’s
career as a painter who put his inner life on paper or canvas. He painted his inner state of soul, fixing them in images, putting them outside himself, and so was able to
be at peace again.
This was the birth of expressive art, expressionism,
giving expression to states of soul. The cathartic, soulcleansing effect could be experienced and attested. His
paintings are seismographic records of his states of soul,
things he lived through, moods, and things discarded. In
his diaries he wrote:“I do not believe in an art that does
not evolve of necessity from the heart’s urge to reveal itself. All art, literature and music must have been created
with the heart’s blood.” (11) (Fig. 4)
For Munch, his art was learning about himself, self affirmation and therapy. He could not imagine a life without art. “I was true to the goddess Art, and because of
this she is always at my side.” Munch accepted a life full
of difficulties, financial problems and inner conflict, and
did so for his art:“My path has taken me along an abyss,
bottomless depths. I had to jump from one stepping
stone to another. I left it now and then, precipitating myself into teeming masses of humanity in life. But I always
had to go back again on the path by the abyss. I must follow this until I fall into the depths. Fear of life has always
been with me, for as long as I can remember. My art has
been a self avowal … Without fear of life and sickness I
would have been a rudderless craft.” (12)
This seems to have been a key image for Edvard
Munch’s life. Without fear and sickness he would have
been a rudderless craft, i.e. exposed to the elements and
currents of life without being able to set a direction for
himself. Fear and sickness were the elements Munch
was able to use to give direction and form to his life and
his art. He wrote to a friend:“You know my paintings, and
you know that it has all been personal experience. My
paintings are my diary. My art gave meaning to my life.”
(11) (Fig. 5 and 6)
English Issue 2008
Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a … | D e r M e r k u r s ta b
Fig. 8
Edvard Munch, The
Sun, 1912-13. From
Exhibition Catalogue Essen: Museum Folkwang.
1987. Zurich, Kunsthaus 1988. © The
Munch Museum/The Munch
Ellingsen Group.VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
2006.
Fig. 8
His first paintings date from the time when, at 17 or
18, he was permitted because of illness to give up the
study of engineering which he had started at his father’s
wish. Hence this self portrait of the 18-year-old, with
solemnity and severity clearly apparent. It was only a
year later that he went to the government school of art
and received instruction. From 1874, in early puberty, that
is, at the age of about 14, Edvard Munch painted all his
life, until his death at the age of 80 in 1944.
For Munch, as we know from his own words, fear of
life and depression gave him his bearings in life. His art,
his paintings, expressed that fear of life, his crises,
episodes of despair, depression, and at the same time
provided the means to deal with and finally overcome
them. Painting therefore also was like an illness to him:
“Painting is a sickness for me, an intoxication. A disease
I do not want to be rid of, an intoxication which I need.”
Elsewhere he wrote: My art had its roots in reflection ...
Why was I not like the others? Why born—something I
never asked for. (Reminiscent of Kierkegaard in this.) But
the reflection on it and the release in my art was an urge
and the wish that my art might bring me light.” (11)
Concerning the hypersensitivity which brought repeated crises in his life, leading to alcoholism, and the
fear of life which was always with him, Munch wrote in
his diary: “These weaknesses, which I shall retain, are
part of me. I do not wish to reject my illness, for my art
owes much to it.”
“With my art I have tried to explain life and its significance to myself. I also wanted to help others to face up
to life.” (11)
These words also refer to the way Munch reflected on
life and his paintings. This would again and again help
him to get out of crisis situations and despair (Fig. 7).
9
Munch was one of the most brilliant portrait painters
of his time and much in demand as such—and he was
fully aware of this ability. He wrote of himself: “When I
get it right I hit the bull’s-eye. Leonardo da Vinci studied
the insides of the human body, dissecting dead bodies. I
try to dissect souls. ... When I paint people, the opponents of the model will always say that the portrait looks
very much like the person. The sitter himself is of the
opinion, however, that all portraits are good, except his
own” (11). When a society lady was not happy with her
portrait by Munch his confident advice to her was: “In
that case you’ll have to see to it that you get to be like
your portrait.”Munch represented his sitters and people
the way he saw them.“Meeting a new face, I always ask
myself: What kind of person is this? I cannot rest until I
have painted him.” (11)
Walther Rathenau had him paint his portrait in Berlin
in 1907, for instance.When the portrait was finished, Rathenau looked at it for a while before saying:“A nasty fellow, isn’t he? That is what you get when you ask a great
artist to paint you. You come out more alike than you
are!” (11)
In his forties, from 1912 onwards, Munch lived in Germany, for he had felt the people in his own country did
not understand him or his art. He did a little better in
Germany, though not fundamentally so. In the winter of
1905 his anxieties grew into a manifest psychiatric condition which he himself described like this: “A bird of
prey has come to roost in me. Its talons grasp my heart,
its beak has entered my breast, the beat of its wings
darkens the mind” (11). In those years of crisis between
1902 and 1908 he also spent months as an inpatient in a
sanatorium on one occasion. Professor Jakobson, the
psychiatrist in charge, was evidently a very vain, arrogant
10
D e r M e r k u r s ta b | Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a …
English Issue 2008
of the dead—the souls of those dear to us—and evil
spirits.” (11)
As he grew older, Munch managed to overcome his
father’s pietistic religiosity, delusional at times, which
had always been with him in his fear of life, by gaining
insight, from his spiritual thoughts, into a supersensible
world of the spirit. “It is the ‘land of crystals’, the astral
world of the stars, into which human beings enter after
death, to live on as an immaterial entity invisible to people on earth” (11, 13).
Yet he was still on earth, his body growing fragile, almost blind in his last years but still painting, on larger
canvases and in strong colours, so that his weak eyes
might still perceive some of it (Fig. 9).
In a dark mood, he wrote: “When you are tired to
dance to nature’s tune, there is only one way out—to
take your own life. It is not funny to grow old, nor is it funny to die. We really do not have much of a choice.” After
giving it some more thought he came to a new, remarkable insight:“I did die before, when I was born. The actual birth, called death, still lies ahead ... Death is the beginning of life—it takes one to a new crystallization. I was always inclined to think that nothing is lost. We are crystals, we dissolve and then grow into new crystals.” (11)
Munch was thus able to die reconciled to himself and
his life at the age of 80.
Fig. 9
Prospect
Fig. 9
Edvard Munch, The
Bridge. From Exhibition Catalogue
Essen: Museum
Folkwang. 1987.
Zurich, Kunsthaus
1988. © The Munch
Museum/The
Munch Ellingsen
Group.VG BildKunst, Bonn 2006.
man and Munch felt that he was treating him progressively less well. Munch therefore proposed to him one
day that he might paint his portrait. In his narcissistic
vanity the professor accepted immediately and sat for
Munch. In this way, Munch wrote, Jakobson became his
captive. Munch now had the power which the psychiatrist had had over him until then and by painting him the
way he had experienced him gained control; the sitter
became tame and subservient, hoping that the great
painter would paint a good portrait.
After the break-downs and having overcome his
crises, Munch wrote in 1909:“I have lived through some
dangerous early autumn gales and they stole the best
time in a man’s life, the height of summer, from me. –
Now, in the autumn, heavy limbs have broken of the
tree. But I admit that I have a skin that heals well and
perhaps will also put everything right again.” (11)
Having overcome depression and anxieties, Munch
decided to withdraw and live a different kind of life. “It
is terribly difficult if you are used to having friends and
sharing in festive occasions, as I have been wont to do,
to have to do without these completely. But it is absolutely necessary.” (11)
From then on he turned more to spiritual thoughts and
partly also began to reflect this in his paintings (Fig. 8)
“Are there spirits—we see what we see—because we
have the eyes for it. If we had eyes of a different kind—
we might see the outer rings of flame around us …
Why then should not—other spirits with more easily
dissolved molecules be around us and in us—the souls
I have attempted to present melancholia, a form
of depression, from a different point of view and in a
different language.
I wanted to bring out three basic forms of melancholic suffering.
• Suffering because of being what one is in the destiny
of Edvard Munch, but perhaps also in the question of
my patient quoted earlier on, as to whether she had
still not been able to learn the lesson of her depression ...
• The suffering of the melancholic because the world
is as it is in the destiny of Heinrich von Kleist, and this
was also to be heard in the question asked by the
young teacher: “There is no room for me in this
world—I have no place where I can live ...”
• And the third basic form as suffering in the quest for
meaning, for one’s own destiny, in the archetypal
melancholia of Bellerophon in Greek mythology—
and in the words of the 56-year-old patient whose
suicide attempt had failed. Having overcome his depression he said:“The broadening of my mental horizons experienced with this depression has been
something I have never before known in life—and it
has been worth it just for this ...” (14)
Markus Treichler
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist
Filder Clinic
Medical Director, Dept. of Psychosomatic Medicine,
Psychotherapy, Art Therapy and Eurythmy Therapy
Im Haberschlei 7, D-70794 Filderstadt
[email protected]
English Issue 2008
References
1 Sillem. Melancholie oder vom
Glück, unglücklich zu sein. Ein
Lesebuch. München: DTV, 1997
2 Tellenbach H. Melancholie.
Berlin – Heidelberg: Springer.
4. Aufl. 1983
3 Tellenbach H. Schwermut,
Wahn und Fallsucht in der
abendländischen Dichtung.
Hürtgenwald: Pressler, 1992
4 Yalouris N. Pegasus, ein
Mythos in der Kunst. Mainz:
P. v. Zabern, 1987
5 Kaschnitz ML. Griechische
Mythen. München: DTV, 1983
6 Kleist H. von. Geschichte
meiner Seele. Das Lebenszeugnis
der Briefe. Hrsg. Helmut
Sembder. Frankfurt: Insel, 1977
7 Zweig S. Heinrich v. Kleist in:
Der Kampf mit dem Dämon.
Frankfurt: Fischer, 1981
8 Kleist H. von. Werke und
Briefe in vier Bänden. Frankfurt:
Insel, 1986
9 Zweig S. Untergang eines
Herzens in: Phantastische Nacht.
Frankfurt: Fischer, 1978
10 Wolf C. Kein Ort. Nirgends.
Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1989
11 Arnold M. Edvard Munch.
Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 1986
12 Carlsson A. Edvard Munch.
Leben und Werk. Stuttgart–
Zürich: Elser, 1984
13 Munch E. Ausstellungskatalog. Essen: Museum Folkwang,
1987. Zürich: Kunsthaus, 1988
14 Treichler M. Auf der Schwelle:
Bellerophon und Pegasus.
Versuch einer Mythologie der
Melancholie. Die Drei 1992:
S. 599–606
Tr e i c h l e r | M e l a n c h o l i a … | D e r M e r k u r s ta b
Further reading
• Gadamer HG. Mythos und
Logos. Gesammelte Werke
Band 8. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1995: Seite 170
• Glatzel. Melancholie und
Wahnsinn. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1990
• Günderode K. von.
Der Schatten eines Traumes.
Hrsg. Christa Wolf.
Hamburg: Luchterhand, 1981
• Köpf G. Faust V. Hg: Psychiatrie
in der Literatur. Wiesbaden:
DUV, 2003
• Blöcker G. Heinrich v. Kleist
oder das absolute Ich. Frankfurt:
Fischer, 1977
• Maass J. Kleist. Die Geschichte
seines Lebens. Bern: Scherz, 1977
• Sandblom P. Kreativität und
Krankheit. Berlin – Heidelberg:
Springer, 1990
• Wolf C. Der andere Blick.
Köln: Luchterhand, 2005
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