From Hogarth to Nosferatu. The Iconographic History of the Madman’s Wall Motif
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F23%3A10470283" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/23:10470283 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=plKlh7_Oil" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=plKlh7_Oil</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/726050" target="_blank" >10.1086/726050</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
From Hogarth to Nosferatu. The Iconographic History of the Madman’s Wall Motif
Original language description
The film Nosferatu (1922) has graffiti created by the character of the madman Knock on the walls of his cell. This motif, which I call the 'madman's wall', has accompanied depictions of lunatics since the beginning of the eighteenth century. This article examines the origin, transformations and functions of this motif. The popularisation of the motif originates with the longitude diagram in the last plate of A Rake's Progress (1735) by William Hogarth, which subsequently found its way into the works of Hogarth's plagiarists and influenced illustrations of asylum interiors in the first half of the nineteenth century. The madman's wall also appears in literature, such as the popular novel The Father and Daughter (1801) by Amelia Opie, which was plagiarised and dramatised, and the legend of the poet Charles Smart, who allegedly wrote his poem on the walls of his cell. The main prerequisite for the madman's wall is the dungeon-like image of the asylum-presenting it as a prison. It is usually the author of the graffiti who displays the signs of madness, not the wall itself. As society distanced itself from the image of the asylum as a dungeon, the madman's wall disappeared after the 1850s. Paradoxically, many reports about the authentic wall art of asylum patients emerged in the press after the 1850s. The madman's wall in Nosferatu is the first example after an approximately seventy-year absence and could be a product of the period interest of avant-garde artists in the art of the mentally ill.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>ost</sub> - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60401 - Arts, Art history
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
ISSN
0075-4390
e-ISSN
2044-0014
Volume of the periodical
86
Issue of the periodical within the volume
November
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
53
Pages from-to
nestránkováno
UT code for WoS article
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EID of the result in the Scopus database
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