and, years later, Ludwig Binswanger claimed that mannerism was not only a symptom, but also an essential feature of the schizophrenic way of existence. I suggest that, moreover, every one of the fundamental symptoms of this disease, in the sense of Bleuler, could be understood as the expression of an extreme form of mannerism and this is linked to a strange association with one of its favorite subjects, namely, the labyrinth:
Thought disorder: the looseness of associations, including nonsensical sentences; the incomprehensible and arbitrary character of associations; frequent misuse of repetitive and meaningless words or phrases in the middle of other sentences, stereotypes and mannerisms, in both language content and structure, all of them characteristic symptoms of schizophrenic thinking, take us to the labyrinthine space, so characteristic of mannerist art, as well as to the employment of artificial ornaments and of whimsical forms.
Affectivity disorder: the typical affective flattening or emptiness of schizophrenics corresponds to the great importance of the subject of the mask in mannerist art, as well as to that lack of interiority I mentioned with respect to the beautiful, yet cold Bronzino portraits. The use of blue, violet, and bilious green colors, characteristic of the artwork of both Bronzino and of El Greco, also points to a certain form of hiding the most intimate individuality and feelings.
Ambivalence: mannerist art employs frequently the subject of the mirror and nothing could reflect more that duplicity of feelings and wills, characteristic of schizophrenic ambivalence, than a mannerist mirror. One is and is not at the same time, one loves and does not love, one feels and does not feel simultaneously. One is one's own image (in the mirror) and the own image is oneself. Surprisingly, this ambivalence characterizes the feeling and acting of most of the myth's characters: King Minos, who punishes the stepson on account of his wife's infidelity and locks him in the labyrinth, while at the same time he worships him as a god. So, he complains to Theseus: "You have snatched him from us" (TES 817).
Autism: the labyrinth is the autistic space per se. There is no reference to the other, but only to oneself. In this space persons with schizophrenia move with the ambivalence of binary junctions, without ever finding either the route or the exit and having to face, sometimes directly, that is, with very few defense mechanisms, the fears coming from one's depth (psychotic anxiety).31 Yet autism is more than just a complex psychopathological phenomenon, and certainly not a mere symptom. It is also a style of life, one of whose characteristics is, like in the labyrinth, the difficulty to get out of it. Prior to the era of psychopharmacological drugs, schizophrenic patients, once entering the autistic style of life, remained within its bound, as in some way it protected them against the threats and strangeness of the world. Now, a huge pharmacological arsenal enables physicians almost regularly to ease their positive or
31 BG, color insert between pp. 200-1, Case 16, fig. 117. © Sammlung Prinzhorn, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg.
Figure 15: Fear, vacuum horror in labyrinthine setting: "Descent from the Cross and Pieta" (water color) 40 x 45 cm.31
