"From that moment on, he began to try to understand it by painting himself."

A painter responds to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer’s affects the right parietal lobe in particular, which is important for visualizing something internally and then putting it onto a canvas,” [neurologist Bruce] Miller said. “The art becomes more abstract, the images are blurrier and vague, more surrealistic. Sometimes there’s use of beautiful, subtle color.”

The artist, William Utermohlen, when he had his wits about him, steered clear of the modern styles of his contemporaries. ("Everybody was doing Abstract Expressionist, and there he was, solemnly drawing the figure.") Now, disease draws him into forms of expression he shunned.

But what do you think of the implication that modern art has something in common with the diseased mind? This resonates horribly with the Nazis' condemnation of "degenerate art." I don't know why the linked article -- in the NYT -- doesn't deal with this disturbing problem.