20. Hermann Rorschach
Hermann Rorschach was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who followed the teachings of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Hermann was fond of inkblots his entire life, so much so that his classmates called him “Klex,” a reference to klecksography, the art of making images out of inkblots. Rorschach’s father was an art teacher, and Hermann himself struggled with whether to pursue science or art for his career.
He ultimately decided to pursue medicine and traveled Europe attending conferences on the emerging field of psychoanalysis. While still in medical school he began showing children inkblots and recording their responses. He prepared a dissertation on the results that became the foundation of his inkblot experiment. In 1921 he published the manual Psychodiagnostik, which contained the ten inkblots that ultimately became known as the Rorschach test.
Rorschach is another talented and handsome young person who sadly died quite young. He died of peritonitis, likely from an untreated ruptured appendix, at the age of only 37 in 1922. The photos of Rorschach as a young man show a shockingly modern-looking face that wouldn’t be out of place in films. One could easily picture a young Brad Pitt portraying Rorschach, as he looks somewhat like his character Lt. Aldo Raine from the movie Inglourious Basterds.
