[Pictorial creations of a painter presenting with left-sided neglect]

We report the pictorial evolution of a well-known French painter, before and after a left hemiplegia. Before the stroke he was famous not only for his drawings but also for his paintings. The evolution comprised 3 periods. Just after the stroke, the painter presented with severe exacerbation of a chronic depression. The second period was characterized by a rich pictorial production, with an excellent spatial organization of drawings; the style remained well recognizable and the favourite topics were unchanged: streets' scenes, country women, bunches of flowers. Shapes, drawings and volumes were well preserved. The neglect concerned not only the left hemispace but also the "microspaces" on the left side of which the painter's gaze attention had been fixed. Analysis of the production for this period supports the hypothesis according to which the neglect would be explained by a selective defect in automatic orientation of the attention on the left side. In the last period the aggravation appeared to bear more on the instrumental processes than on the esthetic capacities.