From Stendhal Syndrome to Suren Syndrome

Stendhal Syndrome

You may have already heard of Stendhal Syndrome. If not, here’s a brief overview: Stendhal Syndrome, also called Florence Syndrome, is a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, confusion, hallucinations, and even fainting, allegedly triggered when individuals are exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of exceptional beauty. The syndrome is named after the 19th-century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Marie-Henri Beyle), who described his own experience with it during his 1817 visit to Florence, Italy, in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo Galilei are buried, he was overwhelmed with profound emotion. Stendhal wrote:

"I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty… I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations…"

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1480s) and The Birth of Astghik by Smbatyan (1982)

Suren Syndrome

While Stendhal Syndrome is mostly triggered by Renaissance artworks, Suren Syndrome occurs when encountering Soviet monumental art. In my case, the first time I experienced a similar mental and physical state was when I saw the mural shown below. My heart raced, it felt as if blood rushed straight to my brain, and I struggled to focus. There was a strange inner force pushing me to run from corner to corner, capturing as many photos as possible. I call this reaction Suren Syndrome.

This is the fresco I first saw inside an abandoned chemical factory. That initial encounter threw me into a mental and physical state I later named Suren Syndrome.

Later, I experienced it several more times. Another instance was when I first saw Garnik Smbatyan’s massive mosaic, The Birth of Astghik, or the “Sasuntsiner” fresco by Sargis Muradyan. The same overwhelming combination of awe and energy took over me, leaving me both mentally and physically exhilarated.

A more recent account of Stendhal Syndrome occurred in 2018, when a visitor to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence suffered a heart attack while admiring Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. The mosaic I encountered in Armenia seems to evoke the same overwhelming effect, inspired by Botticelli’s masterpiece.