El Greco's strokes revealed through iconodiagnosis of self-portrait

A team of researchers used iconodiagnosis, a discipline applying medical diagnosis to art, to identify signs of stroke in El Greco's self-portrait 'Portrait of an old man' (1595-1600) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Raffaella Bianucci (paleopathologist, University of Turin), Otto Appenzeller (neurologist, New Mexico Health Enhancement and Marathon Clinics Research Foundation), and art historian Fernando Marìas (Autonomous University of Madrid) analyzed details such as a less wrinkled left forehead, larger and differently shaped ear, atrophic left temporal muscle and cheek, and a slightly curved left mouth corner. They concluded El Greco suffered a right parietal lobe stroke about fourteen years before his death, from which he recovered well. A second stroke in 1608 caused agraphia; he partially regained writing ability two years later, but by 1614 his signature was unrecognizable. The study, published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, indicates El Greco experienced a series of ischemic events culminating in his death.