Mélancolie

The piece of work "Melancholy" is 50x70 cm and painted on canvas.
The artist wanted to represent what a strange feeling melancholy is. "Strange" in the sense that one is unable to just define melancholy as a state of sadness, but rather as a complex condition that could represent the desire to find a past situation that has brought much joy and satisfaction to the person. Melancholy would be that enchanting souvenir that is no longer present in the life of the person.
The word melancholy is borrowed from Latin melancholia, transcribed itself from Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía) composed of μέλας (mélas), "black" and χολή (Khole), "bile". So etymologically the word means black bile. This refers to the Hippocratic theory of humors saying that the body possesses four moods, and each one of them determines our temper. These four moods are the blood, the lymph, the yellow bile and the black bile. Therefore the temper is blood when blood predominates, lymphatic whenever lymph leads, bile=ious when it is the yellow bile, and finally melancholy when it’s the black bile. And this black bile caused a sadness that was exclusive to geniuses.