Maria Magdalena Rudbeck
Embroideries illustrate the dream of flying
Maria Magdalena Rudbeck has intensive dreams about flying. She tries
to work out different ways of realizing her dream. Some of her theories
are fantastic and unrealistic. As her idea that human beings may
mate with birds. Or that wings may stick to her body, if Maria Magdalena
cuts herself, which she tries to do. Other ideas rather remind of
Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. However, while Leonardo da Vinci
draws his creations, Maria Magdalena embroiders hers. With chain-stitches
and knots she makes imaginative constructions meant for travels
through the air. Another much more frightening apparatus that Maria
Magdalena thinks out is a combination of a knife and a crusher,
whose function is to counteract apparent death, a destiny which
she seems to have dread.
Lived at a mental hospital for more than
50 years
Perhaps these embroideries served as a weapon against anxiety and
weariness and helped Maria Magdalena to endure. With the aid of
her creations she could carry out mental flights away from her confined
life at the mental hospital of Sankt Lars in the Swedish town of
Lund, where she spent 53 years of her life
Worked as a teacher before taking ill
Maria Magdalena Rudbeck was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1866 by
a seventeen year old girl who wanted to remain unknown. Maria Magdalena
was brought ut by her fostermother, the widow baroness Magdalena
"Malla" Rudbeck, who belonged to a distinguished family. Maria Magdalena
later qualified as a teacher and earned her living as a mistress
principal in the Swedish town of Sderhamn. During a period she
also worked abroad as a governess. However, at the age of 35 she
is taken psychically ill and attempts to commit suicide. She first
comes to a nursing home, but in 1902 she is brought to the hospital
of Sankt Lars, after an application by her fostermother.
The time spent at Sankt Lars hospital
Maria Magdalena gets the diagnosis schizophrenia. Although she does
not seem to have had any delusions or hallucinations when she arrived
at the hospital, she is kept in captivity there. In a letter which
is not let through the censorship of the hospital she writes that
she is without legal rights. She also tries to escape but is captured.
The longer Maria Magdalena stays at Sankt Lars, the more ill she
gets. She remains at the hospital until her death in 1955.
During her stay at the asylum Maria Magdalena
creates many embroideries that represent flying-machines and other
constructions, which are meant as designs for building.
Embroidery by Rudbeck that
represents an air track and which is meant as a construction drawing.
The Museum of the History of Medicine in Lund, Sweden.
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