Did you know that around 1910 Georgia O’Keeffe became
affected by a debilitating case of measles? The 23 year old artist was forced
to move back to her hometown of Charlottesville Virginia in order to recover,
and this viral infection changed her style.
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Georgia O'Keeffe, Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, 1935, The Brooklyn Museum Image credit: Wikipedia |
When she was back in Virginia she lived with her mother and
sisters, and after her successful recovery from measles remained there to take
classes at the University of Virginia. She
studied the artist Arthur Wesley Dow, who held a philosophy of design that art
should consist of filling space in a beautiful way. His teachings introduced her to “a method of
abstraction within decoration”, which not only inspired her to go back to
teaching art, but also influenced some of her most successful paintings.
Why did
she have to move after getting the measles?
Unvaccinated
people over the age of twenty years who succumb to measles infection are at a
much higher risk for complications. Additionally, the infection tends to be
more severe and last longer. Proper documentation
of what symptoms she had remains lacking, but since her symptoms prompted her
move from Chicago to Virginia, and the abandonment of her free-lance work, we
can infer that she was fairly ill. While
there is no evidence that she suffered from encephalitis, she did have ocular
inflammation, which prevented her from painting for a brief period of time.
It is well
known that she suffered from age related macular degeneration, however, is it
possible that complications from her measles infection may have exacerbated her
vision problems?
Since she
was young and the ocular inflammation was temporary, she probably made a full
recovery. The delicacy of shading and
contrast characteristic of her early works was lost in her later works due to
her age related macular degeneration, and she had to resort to the use of
assistants in order to help her paint canvasses. However, her works immediately
after her measles infection show no such loss of artistic control as evidence
in her later works.
-Cynthia Taylor
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