When have YOU experienced Stendhal syndrome?

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by PirateWhistle [/i]
[B]Or rather, to what piece of art or music?
For me, it was hearing godspeed you black! emperor's F#A#(infinity symbol) the first time. For approx. sixty minutes, I simply sat, with my palms sweating, while vivid imagery filled my consciousness. It was like living poetry, channeled into my head through sound. Right? lol.
[/B][/QUOTE]
oddly enough, while not getting to that extreme, (I can't think of anything that represented stendhal's syndrome) east hastings nearly brought tears to my eyes (when the moan of the...instrument of which i dont know the name... is heard around the ten minute mark).

that post was in more of hopes that this board will do well, seems an interesting topic...

Pearl Jam
Live at the Palace of Auburn Hills
"Alive," the 11th song of their set
August 23, 1998

The first time I put in Cephalic Carnage's "Exploiting Dysfunction" in my car I nearly got into a wreck. I was totally amazed by the opening and nearly ran a stop sign.

It's usually music that has similar effects on me. When I first heard Pearl Jam's - Black. And pretty much on every hearing of it since.

And..... Tom McRae - You Cut Her Hair, knocked me sidewards for about a week. Seeing it performed live almost rendered me unconscious. And I'm not even sure why, it's not the kinda thing I usually like. But a year or so on, and having heard it at least once a day, every day, I'm only just becoming a little desensitized to it. The almost trance-like state comes, but stays for less time on each listening.

It happens to me alot with music...the most recent time would be seeing Sigur Ros at the Brown Theatre in Louisville, KY earlier this year.

It's only happened once with any other sort of art. I was visiting a friend in Chicago a few years ago and we went to the Art Institute. The featured exhibit at the time was Van Gogh, but they have tons of other well-known works there too that are more of a permanent installation. I roamed around for about an hour and saw many things I liked, and some that I was disappointed in. Then, I turned the corner into one particular room and hanging on the far wall was "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. I was familiar with this painting, but I had only seen it in books. Seeing it in person completely floored me. First of all, it's huge...over 10 feet wide. The technique he used...the whole thing is comprised of tiny dots of color...the time it took him (several years, I can't remember exactly). Well, I could have sat there for a long, long time staring at that one piece. In fact, I went back to Chicago just a few weeks ago, and seeing "La Grande Jatte" was one of my main reasons for going.

I'll bet a lot of Klimt's stuff is pretty powerful when seen in person.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it Stendhal syndrome, but a painting by Pantoleon (Greek guy) I saw at a gallery 6 years ago, made me stand there for a while whispering foolishly: "I want it... I want it..." No description of mine would do it justice. It was too expensive to even consider buying and I have not heard of the painter since (I hadn't heard of him [I]before[/I] for that matter). But, man, it was so beautiful.

Don't know if this qualifies for Stendhal, but for me it was at the Met in NYC in 93 when I first saw "The Heart South of Naples" by Jim Dine. I noticed it from across 3 galleries (upstairs in the Lila Acheson Wallace wing) and I literally saw myself in it - thought I was going to pass out. It was the only time I've ever connected that viscerally to a painting. The last time I went to the Met, it was gone - on loan or some tour - and I haven't seen it back there since, but I used to sit in front of it for at least an hour each time I was in NYC, which is regrettably seldom these days.

evolver - I know what you mean about La Grande Jatte. If you look closely at the outer edge you can see the nail holes from where the canvas was orginally stretched. Seurat removed it from the stretchers and re-hung it to make room for a frame of contrasting colors. Totally blew me away when I saw them...

I acutally applied my art history degree in the course of normal conversation. I mean, I know I'm not my Bachelor's Degree, but still...

When I saw the flaming lips play waiting for superman live.

Old man and the Sea.

A pointless battle where nothing was gained.

Song... I think Eric Clapton's Secret Garden did it for me once - not really sure why though.
Movie...Watching Requiem for a Dream - I was like completely paralyzed I don't think I moved once or blinked!
Painting... A lot of Jack Vettriano's paintings - I just can't stop staring at them but I wouldn't call it Stendhal for any of these things. (And if you don't know who Jack Vettriano is you really need to check his work out - dark, erotic, magnificent paintings but see for yourself - some are really light and surreal!)

i though i was downloading a germs song being the young punk i am, when i listen to the first few seconds of it, i was like what the hell is this, it was mellow and . . i don't know what is was about it, and i just set ther and listen to the whole song, over and over twice, before i said wow, its was that good, its called germs by a band called acetone, its amazing, absolutly amazing. hard to find but worth it, if you can find it. i try not to listen to it to much cause i can't do much while listen to it, it still has "that" effect on me, elliott smith needle in the hay, a song a freind told me about, does the same to me but i can function while listen to it. it gives me that . . . kinda fellin you know the one. a coupe of the painting that do the same for me are:

[url]http://www.erowid.org/culture/show_image.php3?i=art/artists_b/bavari_alessandro_primummobile.jpg[/url]

[url]http://www.erowid.org/culture/show_image.php3?i=art/artists_b/bavari_alessandro_jeromsgarden.jpg[/url]

[url]http://www.erowid.org/culture/show_image.php3?i=art/artists_h/hiab-x_psychohedron.jpg[/url]

I recently went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and there was a gallery from two artists, Tim Noble, and Sue Webster... There were two massive constructions made of trash piles and random stuff, with lights on the floor in front of each, shining up to the walls. The first provided the wall with the New York skyline, and the second, was a sillhouette of two people, sitting back to back. It was incredible, and I couldn't keep my head and eyes from looking away, even after the lenthy time standing there, staring, and walking away. It was incredible.

[url]http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/noble%5Fwebster.html[/url]

I know the website isn't going to do much for people, but I thought people might want to read about the artists...

[QUOTE=HiGhJiNx]I recently went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and there was a gallery from two artists, Tim Noble, and Sue Webster... There were two massive constructions made of trash piles and random stuff, with lights on the floor in front of each, shining up to the walls. The first provided the wall with the New York skyline, and the second, was a sillhouette of two people, sitting back to back. It was incredible, and I couldn't keep my head and eyes from looking away, even after the lenthy time standing there, staring, and walking away. It was incredible.[/QUOTE]

I had a similar experience with another experiment at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston at an exhibit by a young artist named [url=http://www.heidimarston.com]
Heidi Marston.[/url] The exhibit was called "Valuable Information". There was one piece called "It's All In My Head".

I went home and wrote the following about it in my blog:

I was not aware before this thread that there was a name for this.

Looking at "The metamorphosis of Narcissus" by Salvador Dali' in the Tate Gallery (London).

For me, it was when I was in Youth Symphony. I played bass in the orchestra and we did Tchaikovsky's Piano Concierto. We rehearsed with a doctoral candidate in piano performance. She was capable, she knew the piece, and we were a bunch of teenagers trying to keep up. But the concert was with Andre-Michel Schub, a Van Cliburn winner and international hero of classical piano. Big deal right?

We'd rehearsed that piece to death but when he played the piano, it was stunning, the emotive power he brought to that exact same, note-for-note piece. I couldn't play for a while, I was just this third chair bass stunned, listening to the piano.

I've had a few other similar experiences, mostly with music, but that was the only time it happened when I was supposed to be DOING something.

One movie that changed my life profoundly was a film about the Lakota and the issues of ownership of some of their land--the elders wanted to get their land back, but everybody else was just worried about paying the bills, getting the money from the settlement, all the stupid shit that all of our lives inevitably become about. I'm getting all teary just thinking about it now. The final scene was these two unbelievably huge earth movers dragging a ship anchor chain across acres and acres of ancient pinon trees just ripping the fuckers out of the ground leaving a path of destruction a mile wide. All this to make way for some shitty ticky-tacky suburban housing development. It was incomprehensible. Yet, shit like that probably happens all around the planet every day on my behalf so I can have shitty cheap plastic stuff from China or whatever. Oil from the Middle East so I can drive my shitty car to my shitty job to buy more cheap plastic shit made by children in sweat shops. I just have to shut that part of my brain off because it's too much to think about, idealism isn't the way to fix things either. That, my friends, is what it's like to be a Bhoddisatva, to have that awareness that each and every one of us if fucked, and that we're fucking up, and that we're all benefitting from the suffering of others. Maybe it's just easier to accept that someday every one of our species will be anihilated, it is inevitable, but impossible to predict when or how. Until you accept that you will die, shit is all that your life will ever be about, survival, but survival is not the only approach to life and reality. There is no after life, only nothing, less than nothing. Mind-body-spirit are not separate, they are inseparable.

I was at the world premier of John Tavener's [I]Icon of Eros[/I] at Saint Paul's Cathedral.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Tavener wrote [I] A Song for Athena [/I], which was sung by the Vienna Boy's Choir at Princess Diana's funeral. He's that good. With Tavener, everything is very symbolic, down to the placement of the solo violinist or choir in the actual concert hall.

I wished only to acquiesce to the mood of the evening and never have to return to my life. I was so moved by it, that when I left it was with mixed emotions. It was like waking up from a dream that you knew you could never have imagined on your own, and I could have sat there in the echo of that great cathedral, eyes closed, just for one more faint hint of [I]Icon[/I] reverberating through my being.

every time I see a sun rise

the first time I saw porn.

Reading 'Penny Dreadful' I find myself trancing, not making much progress through pages, but experiencing bodily sensations and psychological free-fall. That's pretty rare for me.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Reading 'Penny Dreadful' I find myself trancing, not making much progress through pages, but experiencing bodily sensations and psychological free-fall. That's pretty rare for me.[/QUOTE]
Sounds interesting. I get the same kind of thing from Matt Berry, I stayed up all night once reading [I]A Human Strategy[/I] and it was totally weird, but that's more like philosophy and nothing like 'Penny Dreadful' I'm sure.

this creator STILL hasn't read my damn PM

It occurred last night at the gym. I was working on my thighs and I looked over and saw the most beautifully chiseled god of a man. He was wearing a tight white wife beater and well fitting Dickies. He must have just started his workout because he was only slightly glistening with sweat, just starting to get that glow. As he pulled the weights toward his chest with ease I could see every muscle flex then release…flex…release…

[QUOTE=ALP]It occurred last night at the gym. I was working on my thighs and I looked over and saw the most beautifully chiseled god of a man. He was wearing a tight white wife beater and well fitting Dickies. He must have just started his workout because he was only slightly glistening with sweat, just starting to get that glow. As he pulled the weights toward his chest with ease I could see every muscle flex then release…flex…release…[/QUOTE]

I thought I saw you looking at me.

Seriously though, I believe I closely experienced it when I was 16 and saw my girlfriend naked for the first time. Not to sound immature and perverted, but I couldn't take my eyes away from her. I had seen naked women in movies and magazines before, but, I had to say, seeing it live and in person was a million times better.
I loved the way her neck looked without a top on. It seemed elongated, not like a giraffe but rather a swan. Her chest and her hips curved, not quite hour-glass but pretty damn close. Her soft hardened nipples were like perky half-dollars, possibly like puppy noses. I stared at her a good 5 minutes without saying a word. She looked at me shyly but didn't interupt me until she was finally getting cold.
I was in awe and thats why I believe I fell even more in love with her. As time went by and the more we had sex the more I got used to her. The female body is definitely one of the most beautiful things ever created.

__________________________

big S wrote:

Have a good one! I'd sing you happy birthday but the melody was written by a Sunday school teacher and i know how much you hate God so i won't sing to you. Have a good one though.

[QUOTE=owenwarland]I usually get quite a headrush after I finish a potent piece of literature, and I fell like I'm on a natural high, a whole new plane of existence. But then, I always just thought that I was weird. And still do.

Now if a building went on fire while I was reading, I'd still have the wits about me to run like Hell.[/QUOTE]

I get a natural high while reading/shortly after finishing a *good* book. There have been some though that I wouldn't have the wits about me to get out if my house was on fire. Case in point - you can't talk to me on the phone while I'm reading, and it gets worse as the book progresses. I have always wondered if it meant that I had some sort of wierd psycho disease. Books that I have experienced it with? Choke, The Hours, Perks of being a wallflower (so good for being put out by MTV), and The Virgin Suicides.

But even though I get some wierd high off of books I'm not entirely sure that is Stendahl's Syndrome becuase I have to make the concious effort to open the book and engage myself in that mode. I think the closest thing that I have experinced is to the REAL Stendahl's is a music video to a song that already really had a meaning for me. For example, My Immortal by Evanescence. I already had a connection to the song (long break-up story) and then when I saw the video I stared at it on repeat and bawled like a 2 year old kid with a skinned knee.

Lovvvveee this thread

I starred at my computer screen for nearly an hour after I'd written down a really short dream I once had. A few days later I sent it to my best friend through MSN messenger, she was so "stendhalized" that she didn't answer me for half an hour.

Everytime I am listening to "fix you" or "amsterdam" by Coldplay I cannot focus on any clear thought. Kindda sucks when it happens while I am driving a car...

And I still cannot take my eyes of this painting everytime I see it...
[url]http://www.odel.dk/danskold/udslidt1.jpg[/url]
it's 2.07 x 2.70 and was kick in the nuts the first time I saw it.
The title is Danish and means something like "worn-out" or "run-down".

God aften

that painting makes me uncomfortable...

I rarely ever listen to classical, but one afternoon I was digging through my CD collection and found this thing I hadn't listened to in years. I put on the first track, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number 1, and it just blew my mind. At little over two minutes in came this part which was just absolutely unbelievable to me - I got really dizzy and had to mellow out on the couch for a while.

[QUOTE=funnymeat;110080]When I saw the flaming lips play waiting for superman live.[/QUOTE]

that was a big one for me too. it was the soft bulletin tour and blew my mind but not i don't think qualifies for a Stendhal expereince for me. Two very specific incidents come to me:

phish in atlanta on july 4, 1999. they played slave to the traffic>the horse>silent in the morning. it was one of the most intense, bizarre experiences of my life. my palms began to sweat and my mind wrapped itself around the notes warbling from the stage so far away and it was...i cannot aptly describe it here. and i wasnt on acid.

the second was the first time i saw the mountains. having been born in minnesota, big hills were the grandest thing i had ever seen, so when my family moved to the heart of appalchia in the mid eighties, i was blown away.i rememebr having fallen asleep for the last eight or so hours of the car ride, and when i woke i was surrounded by these huge green and blue mountains, teeming with life and ungodly beauty. i didnt move for quite sometime. a s a matter of fact, my parents would later describe the moment as a silent seizure.

[QUOTE=happy_hooker;1024721]

phish in atlanta on july 4, 1999. they played slave to the traffic>the horse>silent in the morning. it was one of the most intense, bizarre experiences of my life. my palms began to sweat and my mind wrapped itself around the notes warbling from the stage so far away and it was...i cannot aptly describe it here. and i wasnt on acid.
[/QUOTE]

i'm going with my first phish show in like '97, it was the anaversary of jerry's death and the encore was terrapin.

also the first time i head the cinematic orchestra's album "everyday".

[QUOTE=Grtst_Comn_Fctr;1024724]i'm going with my first phish show in like '97, it was the anaversary of jerry's death and the encore was terrapin.[/QUOTE]

i was at that show!! virginia beach-- good shit. they did "if i only had a brain". i saw jerry's face in the clouds during terrapin. i WAS on acid for that show...or maybe it was shrooms. either way, it was awesome. while early 90's phish is classic and wonderful, i think 97-99 were the prime years (despite hearing character zero at almost every show)

when i heard godspeed you! black emperor's "moya" for the first time.