The Painting that Made Me Barf

I have always had a visceral reaction to certain works of art. Most dramatically, when I was a child, a picture by Picasso made me vomit. Everyone's a critic, huh?

Picasso's “The Old Guitarist,” the painting that made me throw up.

Back in the day, we had someone called The Picture Lady who would visit class with some reproductions of paintings and lay a little Art Appreciation on us. I always enjoyed these visits, I assume, since I enjoyed looking at pictures.

I think this was in the first or second grade. Anyway, one of the pictures she showed us on this particular day was Picasso's “The Old Guitarist.”

Along with the painting, the Picture Lady should have brought an air-sickness bag.

I remember looking in horrified fascination at the corpse-like subject of this painting. I recall staring at the sickly colors of his face. I was caught in a nauseating trance. And I kept staring and staring at the Old Man's face till nausea hit me and I barfed.

I’m sure the teacher went and got a plastic container of that industrial-strength Tang with which they used to cover our classroom mishaps. Maybe I was embarrassed, but all that I really remember is gazing at the picture until I barfed.

Now, did my reaction to this image by Picasdo make me a budding aesthetic conservative, a precocious enemy of Modernism? I don't think that’s the case. It's more that I was horrified by the cadaverous imagery and colors.

I haven’t thrown up because of a painting since then. But certain works of art, especially those that are overloaded with color, can make me queasy. I know i’m not the only one who has this kind of reaction to certain art. Marshall Vandruff told a story on the Draftsmen podcast about a student of his who had to leave the classroom whenever Mr. Vandruff showed drawings by Burne Hogarth because of the physical reaction she had to Hogarth's dynamic figures. Outside the realm of visual art, I once overheard someone say that he once threw up after hearing Gordon Lightfoot's “Sundown.”

And though I want people to respond to my artwork, that is not the kind of response that I hope to get. If my drawings made someone vomit, I would think that I had failed, somehow.

I’m really curious…has a work of art ever made you barf? If so, I’d be interested in hearing your story.