Changes in Painting Styles of Two Artists With Alzheimer’s Disease

A substantial body of literature supports the idea that systematic changes can occur in artists’ painting styles after the onset of degenerating neurological illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease or Fronto-temporal dementia. However, these studies have typically been descriptive and qualitative in their analyses. Our study was motivated to show that quantitative methods can be applied to the neuropsychology of art production and to determine whether there are systematic changes in the art produced by two individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Using the Assessment of Art Attributes which probes 6 formal characteristics (depth, color temperature, color saturation, balance, stroke, and simplicity) and 6 conceptual characteristics (depictive accuracy, abstractness, emotion, symbolism, realism, and animacy), we found that both AD patients produced paintings with more abstraction and use of symbolism and with less depictive accuracy and realism. Their paintings did not change in the use of depth, or balance or in the quality of their stroke. When these observations are combined with those made recently in 3 artists with focal brain damage, we find that conceptual more than formal perceptual attributes are susceptible to change after neurological illness.