Statistical Image Properties in Works from the Prinzhorn Collection of Artists with Schizophrenia

Abstract

The Prinzhorn Collection preserves and exhibits thousands of visual artworks by patients who were diagnosed to suffer from mental disease. From this collection, we analyzed 1,256 images by 14 artists who were diagnosed with dementia praecox or schizophrenia. Six objective statistical properties that have been used previously to characterize visually aesthetic images were calculated. These properties reflect features of formal image composition, such as the complexity and distribution of oriented luminance gradients and edges, as well as Fourier spectral properties. Results for the artists with schizophrenia were compared to artworks from three public art collections of paintings and drawings that include highly acclaimed artworks as well as artworks of lesser artistic claim (control artworks). Many of the patients’ works did not differ from these control images. However, the artworks of 6 of the 14 artists with schizophrenia possess image properties that deviate from the range of values obtained for the control artworks. For example, the artworks of four of the patients are characterized by a relative dominance of specific edge orientations in their images (low first-order entropy of edge orientations). Three patients created artworks with a relatively high ratio of fine detail to coarse structure (high slope of the Fourier spectrum). In conclusion, the present exploratory study opens novel perspectives for the objective scientific investigation of visual artworks that were created by persons who suffer from schizophrenia.

Comparative Computational Analysis of Global Structure in Canonical, Non-Canonical and Non-Literary Texts

“…For example, dementia and cerebral stroke have been shown to alter artistic creativity (Miller et al, 1998;Sherwood, 2012). Changes in low-level image properties have also been observed in the art produced by persons with schizophrenia, (Henemann et al, 2017).…”

‘(Un)healthy Minds’ and Visual and Tactile Arts, c.1900–1950

“…This 'computer-based analysis' compared 'schizophrenia' artworks with 'artworks by healthy artists' and found that images in the Prinzhorn collection by six of the fourteen artists selected possessed 'image properties that deviate from the range of values obtained for the control artworks'. 76 In this case, the possibility of reading the artworks as articulating the individual experiences and voices of those in asylums is curtailed by the study's pathological premise which implied from the start that the objects could reveal symptomatic formal properties. Ethical questions about ownership, naming and terminology are, crucially, not only historically embedded in the production of the work but are by necessity present-day concerns about how material should be read, displayed, interpreted and labelled responsibly.…”