Summer Evening on the Beach at Skagen: the Artist and His Wife

ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY

SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD Summer Evening on the Beach at Skagen: The Artist and His Wife It would be impossible to give you a detailed description of the living hell I am experiencing....Heisawful, all humanity and compassion has been ripped out of him. Marie Krøyer, January 19051(p101)

HEN ELEN CECILIE GJESDAHL WAS DECLARED ing that he smelled of urine), and melancholia. His mother, an unfit to care for her infant son, Peder, be- aunt on his mother’s side, and his daughter, Vibeke, all had symp- cause of her severe depression, he was placed toms consistent with bipolar disorder.1 Treatment was rest and with her older sister, Bertha. That placement quiet along with medication and mercury cream applications. inW Copenhagen, Denmark, was the pivotal event in Peder’s life. Krøyer left the hospital after 7 months feeling relatively im- Bertha Cecilie was married to Henrik Krøyer, a distinguished ma- proved, moved back home, and began to paint again. But Marie rine zoologist, who agreed to raise her young nephew. Consid- retained memories of his illness; she was cautious in the relation- ered mentally backward, Peder was educated at home by his fos- ship with him and, alert to recurrence, distanced herself from him.3 ter mother until his skill at drawing became apparent to Krøyer. In 1902 Marie met Swedish composer Hugo Alfveń (1872- When his foster father asked the artistically inclined 9-year-old 1960) in Sicily. Alfveń had seen Krøyer’s 1882 painting of her to look into a microscope and draw what he saw, Peder intently and was again stuck by her beauty that then had released his sexual looked down at the slide. He then turned away to reproduce from hunting instinct. Alfveń was known to be a womanizer and con- memory exact replicas of the crustacean parasites he saw. His draw- stantly sought new conquests. They began a passionate affair, ings were so accurate that his foster father presented them at a and later that year Marie requested a divorce. Krøyer refused, scientific society meeting. Soon afterwards Peder was enrolled in relenting only in 1905 when Marie became pregnant with Alfveń’s private art classes, moving on to the Royal Danish Academy of child; their own daughter, Vibeke, stayed with Krøyer after the Fine Arts at age 14 years. He remained there until graduation 6 divorce. Following hospital discharge in 1900, Krøyer had per- years later. Young Peder Severin Krøyer (1851-1909) went on to sistent mood swings and was readmitted to hospital in 1903 with study elsewhere in Europe where he developed his signature style, melancholia and again in 1906 for mania; he alternated be- which was to place him at the forefront of Danish naturalism.2 tween depressive episodes and mania until his death in 1909. On July 23, 1889, P. S. Krøyer married Marie Triepcke (1867- When in remission, ever the optimist, Krøyer continued to paint 1940), an aspiring art student who was considered one of the almost to the end of his life despite failing eyesight; some of his most beautiful women of that era. Krøyer had been a con- last masterpieces were completed while he was nearly blind in firmed bachelor and had many disappointed lovers. In Decem- one eye. He died in 1909, 4 years before Kraepelin’s classic book ber 1888, while in Paris, Krøyer learned he had impregnated a on manic depressive disease was first published.4 woman in Skagen, Denmark, the site of a major art colony, and Marie Krøyer was widely criticized for divorcing her hus- was under pressure to marry.3(p82) Under duress and realizing band and leaving her daughter behind. Marie married Alfveń in that his bachelorhood must end, fortuitously he spied Marie, 1912, but his numerous affairs culminated in bitter divorce pro- who had moved to Paris to study art, through a window at the ceedings between them. Later in life, she asked herself how she Cafe´delaRe´gence and went inside to join her and her friends. could have left Krøyer, “that good, high-minded lovable man,”5(p30) They fell in love and, after a whirlwind romance, married at yet his mood disorder symptoms had been terrible to live with her parents’ home in Germany 7 months after that chance en- (epigraph), as she had written her lawyer at the time of the di- counter. Marie became his most frequent model; he empha- vorce. Caregivers of patients with bipolar disorder report the con- sized their mutual infatuation and her beauty in his art. They siderable impact that their partner’s illness has on their own lives, were celebrated and widely admired. Marie continued to paint finances, and other social relationships; violence is a particular regularly until the birth of their daughter, Vibeke, in 1895. worry.6 Despite this, treating clinicians can usually rely on care- In the late 1890s Krøyer, like his mother before him, de- givers to commit themselves to take care of their family mem- veloped the first symptoms of a mood disorder. By 1899, when ber—as was the case with Marie Krøyer until, at a vulnerable time, he painted Summer Evening on the Beach at Skagen: The Artist when emotionally exhausted, she met Hugo Alfveń. and His Wife (cover), there were difficulties in their relation- ship. Krøyer paints them together on a moonlit evening on the James C. Harris, MD beach at the water’s edge at Skagen, Denmark. It is a nostalgic scene, but the romantic fantasy he had long portrayed in his REFERENCES paintings of her was beginning to fade. Krøyer places himself behind Marie and holds her arm. His faithful dog, Hvaps, pulls 1. Strandjord RE. Peter Severin Krøyer. In: Dietrichs E, Stien R, eds. The Brain and at the leg of his trousers. Despite the idyllic setting and radiant the Arts. Oslo, Norway: Koloritt Forlag; 2008. blue evening light, the viewer can discern a distancing be- 2. Sørensen JE, Pedersen ENPS. Krøyer: Tradition, Modernity. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus tween them; Marie seems to be moving away.2(p168) Kunstmuseum; 1992. On March 21, 1900, Krøyer was admitted to the Middelfart 3. Christensen C, Arnold T, Svanholm L. Portraits of a Marriage: Marie and P. S. Krøyer. Skagen, Denmark: G. L. Holtegaard/Skagens Museum; 1997. Asylum. His admitting diagnosis was neurosyphilis (dementia para- 4. Kraepelin E. Manic-Depressive Insanity and Paranoia. In: Barclay RM, Robertson lytica). Krøyer had been diagnosed with syphilis in 1886 and pre- GM, eds. Edinburgh, Scotland: E. & S. Livingstone; 1921. viously treated with mercury. However, rather than neurosyphi- 5. Svanholm L. Marie Krøyer. Copenhagen, Denmark: Herluf Stokholms Forlag; 1987. lis, his symptoms were more consistent with a mood disorder: 6. Ogilvie AD, Morant N, Goodwin GM. The burden on informal caregivers of people anxiety, self-blame, auditory and somatic hallucinations (think- with bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord. 2005;7(suppl 1):25-32.

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