Content available only in Spanish.
The pathohistory of art: between fascination and fallacy
- 2026, Volume 21 - Number 2
- Published: 15/07/2026
The pathohistory of art: between fascination and fallacy
Germán Latorre-González
Servicio de Neurología, Unidad de Cefaleas, Hospital Universitario de Fuenlabrada, Fuenlabrada, Madrid, España
Germán Latorre-González
La información completa de afiliaciones y autor de correspondencia está disponible en la versión original en PDF.
*Correspondence: Germán Latorre-González. Email: ger.latorre@gmail.com
Abstract
The field of study concerning the application of art history to pathology and medicine (specifically to neurology) is not clearly delimited from an academic point of view. It encompasses research on medical collections, artistic creations by individuals with specific diseases, the role of the physician in art, artistic representations of illness, and the influence of disease on the work of particular artists, among other topics. Most texts in this area are written by physicians, and although their technical quality is generally high, they often suffer from methodological and epistemological problems that generate dissonances when read from the perspective of contextual art history. These include difficulties in the formulation of working hypotheses, the absence of a clear methodology, a lack of positioning regarding anachronism or historical distance, and a rejection of a hermeneutic approach that could reconcile the heuristic and positivist stance of the scientific process under consideration. The most plausible explanation for these shortcomings is the limited training of health professionals in such concepts; therefore, we advocate for the promotion of multidisciplinary work that can enrich scholarly production in this field.
Keywords: Art history. Pathology. Art. History. Pathohistory. Pathobiography. Contextual history.
