Beyond the Temples of Science - continued...

According to Przybyszewski, one effect of excess in the brain caused by inhibition is a "pathologically increased sensitivity." An oversensitive brain, Przybyszewski explains, "perceives differently from all other, it feels where other humans perceive nothing, and because the brains of his fellow humans are incapable of reasoning where this individual experiences the most violent vibration, it is simply lonely and forsaken" (All citations Przybyszewski 1892, p. 101-105).

Edward Munch's "psychic naturalism," illustrated by his painting Jealousy from 1896. In the foreground is Przybyszewski; in the background, Munch himself fighting for a woman's heart.

On the other hand, the extraordinary intense way of perceiving is also the creative potential of the decadent individual. If a person is equipped with a hypersensitive brain due to stifling social arrangements, this creates the nervous-physiological prerequisites for him or her to deviate from the masses in the arts as well, and thus to transcend the aesthetic of naturalism. In Przybyszewski's view, a new art, "so infinitely different from a bleak naturalism with its wretched, spiritless coins de nature," could be produced only by a decadent individual such as Edvard Munch, whom Przybyszewski knew from Berlin avant-garde circles (Przybyszewski 1892, p. 120).