Xanthopsia is a color vision deficiency in which there is a dominantly yellow bias in vision due to a yellowing of the optical media of the eye. The most common causes are digoxin's inhibitory action on the sodium pump, and the development of cataracts which can cause a yellow filtering effect.
It has been suggested that Van Gogh contracted xanthopsia as a result of digoxin consumption. Digoxin is a medication derived from digitalis and used to treat various heart conditions. This theory claims xanthopsia as the cause of the yellow tinting exhibited by many of his works. [1]
Xanthopsia is also a rare side-effect of jaundice, in which bilirubin may be deposited into the eye in sufficient quantity to produce a yellow tint to the vision. [2]
Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. The severity of color blindness ranges from mostly unnoticeable to full absence of color perception. Color blindness is usually an inherited problem or variation in the functionality of one or more of the three classes of cone cells in the retina, which mediate color vision. The most common form is caused by a genetic condition called congenital red–green color blindness, which affects up to 1 in 12 males (8%) and 1 in 200 females (0.5%). The condition is more prevalent in males, because the opsin genes responsible are located on the X chromosome. Rarer genetic conditions causing color blindness include congenital blue–yellow color blindness, blue cone monochromacy, and achromatopsia. Color blindness can also result from physical or chemical damage to the eye, the optic nerve, parts of the brain, or from medication toxicity. Color vision also naturally degrades in old age.
Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves.
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterized by bold colors and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.
Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two colors. Complementary colors may also be called "opposite colors".
Photophobia is a medical symptom of abnormal intolerance to visual perception of light. As a medical symptom, photophobia is not a morbid fear or phobia, but an experience of discomfort or pain to the eyes due to light exposure or by presence of actual physical sensitivity of the eyes, though the term is sometimes additionally applied to abnormal or irrational fear of light, such as heliophobia. The term photophobia comes from the Greek φῶς (phōs), meaning "light", and φόβος (phóbos), meaning "fear".
Subconjunctival bleeding, also known as subconjunctival hemorrhage or subconjunctival haemorrhage, is bleeding from a small blood vessel over the whites of the eye. It results in a red spot in the white of the eye. There is generally little to no pain and vision is not affected. Generally only one eye is affected.
Nerium oleander, commonly known as oleander or rosebay, is a shrub or small tree cultivated worldwide in temperate and subtropical areas as an ornamental and landscaping plant. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium, belonging to subfamily Apocynoideae of the dogbane family Apocynaceae. It is so widely cultivated that no precise region of origin has been identified, though it is usually associated with the Mediterranean Basin.
Fall of Leaves , or Falling Autumn Leaves is a pair of paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. They were executed during the two months at the end of 1888 that his artist friend Paul Gauguin spent with him at The Yellow House in Arles, France.
Santonin is a drug which was widely used in the past as an anthelminthic. It is an organic compound consisting of colorless flat prisms, turning slightly yellow from the action of light and soluble in alcohol, chloroform and boiling water.
There is no consensus on Vincent van Gogh's health. His death in 1890 is generally accepted to have been a suicide. Many competing hypotheses have been advanced as to possible medical conditions that he may have had. These include epilepsy, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, sunstroke, acute intermittent porphyria, lead poisoning, Ménière's disease, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, substance use disorder, non-suicidal self-injury disorder ("self-harm"), and a possible anxiety disorder.
Cyanopsia is a medical term for seeing everything tinted with blue. It is also referred to as blue vision. Cyanopsia often occurs for a few days, weeks, or months after removal of a cataract from the eye. Cyanopsia also sometimes occurs as a side effect of taking sildenafil, tadalafil, or vardenafil.
Vincent van Gogh made many copies of other people's work between 1887 and early 1890, which can be considered appropriation art. While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months. Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists. About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet. Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique. Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color. His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work.
Flowering Orchards is a series of paintings which Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles, in southern France in the spring of 1888. Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 in a snowstorm; within two weeks the weather changed and the fruit trees were in blossom. Appreciating the symbolism of rebirth, Van Gogh worked with optimism and zeal on about fourteen paintings of flowering trees in the early spring. He also made paintings of flowering trees in Saint-Rémy the following year, in 1889.
Oleandrin is a cardiac glycoside found in the poisonous plant oleander. As a main phytochemical of oleander, oleandrin is associated with the toxicity of oleander sap, and has similar properties to digoxin.
Girl in White was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, during the last months of his life. Girl in White has been part of the Chester Dale Collection in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. since 1963.
Vincent van Gogh painted at least 15 paintings of olive trees, mostly in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in 1889. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and wheat fields.
Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy is a collection of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made when he was a self-admitted patient at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, since renamed the Clinique Van Gogh, from May 1889 until May 1890. During much of his stay there he was confined to the grounds of the asylum, and he made paintings of the garden, the enclosed wheat field that he could see outside his room and a few portraits of individuals at the asylum. During his stay at Saint-Paul asylum, Van Gogh experienced periods of illness when he could not paint. When he was able to resume, painting provided solace and meaning for him. Nature seemed especially meaningful to him, trees, the landscape, even caterpillars as representative of the opportunity for transformation and budding flowers symbolizing the cycle of life. One of the more recognizable works of this period is The Irises. Works of the interior of the hospital convey the isolation and sadness that he felt. From the window of his cell he saw an enclosed wheat field, the subject of many paintings made from his room. He was able to make but a few portraits while at Saint-Paul.
Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Color blind glasses or color correcting lenses are light filters, usually in the form of glasses or contact lenses, that attempt to alleviate color blindness, by bringing deficient color vision closer to normal color vision or to make certain color tasks easier to accomplish. Despite its viral status, the academic literature is generally skeptical of the efficacy of color correcting lenses.