Rorschach in Reverse

The layman who know?s nothing about art but suspects that abstract painters are off their rockers won support last week from a Paris physician who has treated about 70 abstractionists in the last ten years. Not only are they sick, said Dr. Elie Bontzolakis in the weekly Arts, but "the more abstract, the sicker they are."

No psychiatrist but a general practitioner, Crete-born Dr. Bontzolakis. 51, divides abstractionists into two classes. By far the larger: the poseurs, attracted by snob appeal, laziness, money or mere lack of talent. These, he finds, are rarely neurotic. But about one-third of his patients are passionately sincere, and they have both emotional and physical symptoms.

Blood-Pressure Gauge. Most obvious, says Dr. Bontzolakis, is anxiety accompanied by nervous tension. This may range from irrational fear, when confronted with something as objective as a photograph, to chronic delirium or schizophrenia. Then he often finds local itching which he attributes to allergic reactions with an emotional basis. Finally and more surprisingly: among Dr. Bontzolakis' patients, the higher the blood pressure, the greater the tendency to abstractionism.

Among several case histories, Dr. Bontzolakis described a man of 57 who complained of dizziness, headaches and leg cramps. He had an enlarged heart with irregular beat, blood pressure of 250/130. Within six weeks, on reserpine, he improved (no headaches, less dizziness) and gave up abstractionism for expressionism. The doctor pushed the treatment: the heartbeat became regular, blood pressure dropped to 160/100, and the leg pain got better. The patient switched again--to primitivism. Dr. Bontzolakis was delighted. But two years later the man returned in worse shape than before, with blood pressure up again. What had happened? He had backslid through expressionism to abstractions, had quit his medicine, and was painting wilder canvases than ever.

Backs to the Wall. Many abstractionists go to Dr. Bontzolakis. not only because they are a franc a dozen in Paris but also because his wife paints (as Colette Bonzo), and her friends take their troubles to him. Madame Bontzolakis' work is strictly representational--flowery examples hang in her husband's office.

Dr. Bontzolakis is not alone in equating abstractionism with emotional disturbance. Arts quoted another Paris doctor: "In abstract art, the process of creation is ... the famous Rorschach test reversed." Said another: "Abstract art translates a disturbance which is perhaps only the anguish of these painters backed against the wall."

Dr. Bontzolakis makes no exception for greatness. Picasso, he says, "is obviously an arteriosclerotic afflicted with hypertension," and has recently shown "the same aggressiveness as the abstractionists show when they attack a canvas."

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