Colorblind Painter Case Study

The Black and White Gift In order to gain a better understanding of an individual it is important to contextualize the person. Oliver Sacks used an interdisciplinary lens to contextualize his subject Mr. I in his case study “The Case of the Colorblind Painter”. Understanding an individual doesn’t only involve one factor that should be taken into consideration; rather, an interdisciplinary perspective must be used in order to avoid marginalization. Mr. I’s colorblindness can be analyzed through the sociological, psychological, and aesthetical point of view. Mr. I’s colorblindness caused him to change sociologically. When he became colorblind, he saw humans differently. Sacks explains that Mr. I “could hardly bear the changed appearances of …show more content…
I’s marriage affected him psychologically. Mr. I felt lost in the black and white world that he was involuntarily put in. He tried to visually remember the colors, but all the color in his life was gone. Mr. I used the defense mechanism of sublimation as a key to live his life. As a result of his colorblindness, he decided to turn to things that were already in the shades of black and white as Sacks states, “He turned increasingly to black and white foods—to black olives and white rice, black coffee and yogurt…/he even considered getting a Dalmatian” (7-8). This clearly shows that Mr. I didn’t want to give up and he found an alternative to his disability. Not only did Mr. I turn to black and white foods, he also painted his studio with the shades of gray. His studio was the only place that gave him comfort. Although Mr. I found ways to satisfy himself, he still felt desperate and agitated hoping to wake up one morning to the colorful world that he lived in before (12). Sacks mentions the fear Mr. I had, “He constantly feared that whatever had happened would happen again…depriving him of all his sight completely” (12). Mr. I constantly woke up in the fear that he would become completely blind. He knew color was there, but because he wasn’t able to see what he knew was there, he felt hopeless and distressed; he felt as if “the brain’s knowledge of color had been totally excised, leaving no trace…of its existence behind” (13). This situation can be seen as paradoxical because Mr. I had a remembrance of the colors but at the same time, he was unable to bring up the colors in his mind as if his past had never existed. Although it may seem like Mr. I gave up trying to make his disability a positive