elements. This subconscious drive would originate from the archetypal themes of life, death and creation. Schildkraut et al. [1994] found that more than half of New York expressionists suffered either mood disorders, preoccupation with death, or alcohol abuse. This is a very interesting finding in the light of the origin of abstract expressionism in the post-war era, characterised by global humanitarian crises, the deprivation of values, and pressures from Cold War politics. The other interesting findings from the abovementioned analysis are that almost half of abstract expressionists sought psychiatric treatment and 20% of them required hospitalisation due to psychiatric problems. Their life spans were shorter on average, as two artists committed suicide, two died in a car accident when at the wheel, and overall seven died before the age of 60 years. Schildkraut et al. [1994] postulated that depression led abstract expressionists to inward thinking and questioning of the purpose of living and dying, which subsequently confronted them with the existential dilemma of the sense of life and death. Confrontation with this existential mystery would give the basis for tragic and timeless art denuded of any form and references [Schildkraut et al., 1994].
Fig. 1. Portrait of “The Irascible Eighteen.” Nina Leen (photographer), November 24th, 1950, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. Front row: Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko; middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin; back row: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne. Reprinted with permission.
Exploring further the presence of disease in this group of artists, it is important to mention that two painters from “The Irascible Eighteen” group – James Brooks and Willem de Kooning – were diagnosed with dementia. Another abstract expressionist artist of Canadian descent, Agnes Martin, who came to New York in late 1950s, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and dementia in her very late years. In the next part of this chapter we will focus on the lives and artistic creations of these three artists.
James Brooks
James Brooks was born in St. Louis in Missouri on October 18th, 1906. He studied art at the Southern Methodist University at the Dallas Art Institute and moved to New York in 1927. He initially attended the Art Students League and worked as a commercial artist. Like many other future abstract expressionists, Brooks joined the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project in 1936 as a muralist and worked there until 1942. During this time he created his famous Flight project in the social realist style, telling history of flying from Greek mythology to contemporary times. His mural was placed around the rotunda of the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport [Guggenheim.org, 2018]. Due to the Cold War climate, his social realist style was not appreciated at that time and his mural was covered by another work, but eventually it was restored in 1980 [New York Times, 1992]. Between 1942 and 1945 he worked as an art correspondent with the US Army in the Middle East. After returning to New York he joined his colleagues from the Federal Art Project and took over Jackson Pollock’s Eight Studio. As far as his artistic creation is concerned, at that time he moved from figuration into abstract [Guggenheim.org, 2018]. His works were initially characterised with synthetic cubism with tight, compact forms painted with dark and muted colours [Vandorenwaxter.com, 2014]. In the late 1940s, he developed a technique based on gestural brushwork, painting on a cloth or other material glued to the canvas, which created both accidental and deliberate effects. He also diluted oil paint to allow it to stain the raw canvas, and staining became one of his most recognisable techniques [Vandorenwaxter.com, 2014]. His techniques evolved further in the 1960s, with the composition of larger, bolder and simpler forms [Guggenheim.org, 2018]. Brooks is considered one of the most technically advanced and innovative abstract expressionist. He was able to meticulously organise abstract elements, textures and colours in the space of the canvas [New York Times, 1992]. In 1951 Brooks participated in the Ninth Street Exhibition (also known as 9th St. Show or Ninth Street Show), which was organised by lower Manhattan artists. This exhibition was a ground-breaking event as it attracted art dealers, collectors and museum people, and it enabled the stepping out from New York avant-garde for the first time [New York Times, 1992]. Brooks received an award during the Carnegie International Exhibition in 1956, and another from the Art Institute of Chicago a year later. In the late 1960s he had a large exhibition of all his works at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His paintings are currently displayed as part of collections across the USA [New York Times, 1992]. Overall, Brook’s paintings evolved from linear sketches interspersed with colourful bands creating a dynamic and almost three-dimensional image, as pictured on one of Brook’s most famous paintings, Maine Caper (1948), to a purer exploration of colour and form. His late paintings differ in colour selection, with darker and colder hues and larger and less complex shapes and forms, as exampled in his painting Geomundo (1983). James Brooks was diagnosed with dementia in 1985, and his artistic activities basically halted at that time. He died on March 9th, 1992, in East Hampton.
The main question is whether James Brook’s painting style was affected by his neurological condition. However, the fact that he stopped painting at the time of his diagnosis suggests that either his disease stopped his artistic activity, or Brook’s himself withdrew from his activities. Looking at the evolution of Brook’s technique during his career, one could say that his style evolved from social realism through cubism into pure abstraction, stripped of any references to forms or contexts in the final stage of his artistic activities, which may be interpreted as maturation and purification of style rather than a consequence of organic brain disease. A partial answer and explanation is offered by Forsythe et al. [2017], who conducted a fractal analysis of paintings in seven artists – four with a neurodegenerative condition and three “healthy controls.” The authors included artists with Parkinson disease (surrealist Salvodor Dali and Norval Morrisseau, representing a pictographic style) and dementia (James Brooks and Willem de Kooning, both abstract expressionists). Marc Chagall (cubist and surrealist), Pablo Picasso (cubist), and Claude Monet (impressionist) served as the controls. The authors used a method of fractal analysis which involves the assessment of fractal dimension. This is a ratio reflecting a statistical index of complexity comparing how detail in a pattern changes with the scale at which it is measured. Forsythe et al. [2017] studied more than 2,000 large-scale digital images of paintings from the abovementioned artists. They included paintings representative of all artistic production for each artist from their early to late works and they analysed the relation between fractal dimension and aging. The main finding of this study was that there was a highly significant correlation between the age and decline in fractal dimension in artists with dementia (Fig. 2). In addition to this, artists undergoing normal ageing, despite a variation of painting style (e.g., Picasso) had a much smaller range of fractal dimension in comparison to artists with dementia, in whom the heterogeneity was more prominent. When analysing the 139 paintings by James Brooks, Forsythe et al. [2017] found a steady decline in fractal dimension from about the age of 40 years (Fig. 2). These results need to be interpreted with caution as the observed decrease in fractal dimension may potentially reflect the maturation of his artistic style with the simplification of technique and decrease in the level of details and complexity. This would fit into the idea of abstraction and simplification of creative output. In addition to this, there was no comparison to another abstract expressionist without neurological underlying dementia, hence this observation may be considered unilateral and not verified.
Fig. 2. Fractal dimension of work as a function of artist age and
