ABOVE: Michaelangelo’s David is apparently capable of inducing fits in tourists who look at him. Could it be those evil hypno-eyes? (note artists’ rough conception of glowing hypno-eye energy)

Great works of art can temporarily drive you kind of insane, Italian researchers said over the weekend. The team has been working at the Accademia Gallery in Florence for several months now, analyzing the responses of tourists who are overcome upon seeing Michaelangelo’s David, a condition now known as The David Syndrome. They say that as much as 20 per cent of people who look at great art have the urge to destroy it immediately, and that the stress and emotional rush of that moment can cause mental breakdown. The researchers have found so far (the study is to continue for a year yet) that Americans are most likely to swoon, while the Japanese are least likely.

The reseachers think the David Syndrome has something to do with the statue’s towering physical perfection, and they trot out some wheezy, dime-store Freudianisms to back it up, talking about the link between sex and death, the erotic charge the statue provokes in both genders, and the equation of creation with destruction and vice versa. Kind of entertaining, nonetheless.

LINK: Boston Globe > Psychoanalyst identifies impulse to destroy art