“Charcot worked under the aegis of Fleury’s painting, which exhibits, in the foreground, the fetters and tools that tell the tale of the enchaining of the madwomen and their ‘liberation’ by Pinel; what is depicted is the turning point, or rather the decisive chiasmus, which Pinel is said to have effected in the mythology of madness. This chiasmus was, in the first place, the concept of madness that Hegel formulated, declaring himself wholly indebted to Pinel; madness was not supposed to be an abstract loss of reason, but a simple disorder, ‘a simple contradiction within reason’. This means that, in principle, a madwoman should be supposed, or presupposed, writes Hegel, to be quite simply a reasonable being.” (Invention of Hysteria. Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière by Georges Didi-Huberman, tr. by Alisa Hartz, The MIT Press, [1982]2003, p. 4)

Wikipedia entries for Tony Robert-Fleury and Philippe Pinel

About Adam Simpson : “Adam Simpson graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2004 with a First Class Honours degree in Illustration. In the same year he moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, where he began a Masters degree in Communication Art and Design. His work encompasses design, animation and illustration - always with a strong emphasis on drawing.” (Read more).