Showing 11 - 20 of 178 Visual Arts annotations

Little Angel

Sesow, Matt

Last Updated: Jun-28-2016
Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Painting

Summary:

Two harshly drawn figures make up this painting, an adult cradling a baby. Both figures stare out and confront the viewer with round bulging eyes. Their wide red mouths are drawn into grimaces, displaying long rows of teeth. Their bodies are pale, but are outlined roughly in black, and marked by gashes of blue, pink, and red. They stand, highlighted in yellow, against an angry and energetic backdrop of red and orange.  

A small black halo sticks out stiffly from the head of the baby, while two sharp black horns protrude from the crown of the adult. The adult’s disproportionately large thick hand presses the baby close to their body. Is this an adult or is it a monster or a devil? The viewer is left to decide. Whoever or whatever the figure is, it holds the baby in a way that is protective and menacing at the same time.

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Annotated by:
Shafer, Audrey

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Painting

Summary:

Theodor Billroth, one of the most innovative and outstanding surgeons and educators of late 19th century European medicine, is depicted in this painting at the height of fame when he was about 60 years old. Billroth, in full white beard, stands in the center of the canvas, looking away from the patient--an assistant is handing him a surgical instrument. His visage is regal, his bearing composed.Seven white-coated assistants surround the patient, who lays supine with his head elevated. The patient's head is shaved, and according to the artist's notes, the operation is a neurotomy for trigeminal neuralgia--a painful condition of the face. The patient is receiving general anesthesia by open drop method. Billroth favored a mixture of alcohol, chloroform, and ether, anticipating a modern trend to administer multiple agents in anesthesia. Billroth is also using Lister's methods of sterilization and antisepsis. Note that rubber gloves were not yet used in surgery at this time.Light from a large window to the surgeon's right bathes the operating theater with brightness. A full gallery of onlookers includes the artist on the right side of the first row, and the Duke of Bavaria, seated at the opposite end, who came to the operations and lectures for entertainment. Billroth was a celebrated teacher, and thousands came to the Allgemeines Krankenhaus, the General Hospital of the University of Vienna, to observe and study his techniques.

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Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Photography

Genre: Photography

Summary:

In this series of black-and-white photographs, Hannah Wilke poses half-naked for the camera, mimicking the postures of female celebrities and models in magazines and advertisements. She is mockingly flirtatious in some images, playfully wearing a man’s tie, tousling her hair, smiling suggestively with her lips parted. In other images, her expression is cold and distant, as the viewer gazes at the sensuous curves of her neck, back, and breasts.

But there is more. Wilke has also stuck tiny chewing gum sculptures of vulvas to her body. These sculptures simultaneously confront and repel the viewer. The vulvas explicitly confront the viewer about their sexual thoughts and desires as they view photographs of a woman’s body. And the vulvas sprout from her face, back, and chest like warty or diseased growths, and causing the viewer to step back in revulsion, thus breaking their lascivious gaze.

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Annotated by:
Clark, Stephanie Brown

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Painting

Summary:

In this famous group portrait, seven figures, situated in the anatomical theatre of the Surgeon’s Guild in Amsterdam in 1632, gaze intently in various directions--several look towards the cadaver of Aris Kindt, a criminal recently executed for robbery; others towards the 39-year old surgeon and appointed "city anatomist" (Praelator Anatomie) Nicolaes Tulp; several figures seem to look towards the large text at the bottom right of the painting, possibly the authoritative anatomical atlas by Andreas Vesalius, De Humani Coporius Humani [Fabric of the Human Body] published in 1543; several figures gaze out towards the viewer. Tulp himself appears to look beyond the guild members to an audience elsewhere in the anatomical theatre.Only the left forearm and hand of the cadaver have been dissected. With forceps in his right hand, Tulp holds the muscle which, when contracted, causes the fingers to flex (flexor digitorum superficialis). Tulp’s own left hand position seems to demonstrate this movement. The figure farthest from the cadaver appears to imitate this position. The palour and stiffness of the cadaver contrasts with the intensity and colour on the faces of the onlookers, and with the living hands of Tulp the dissector.

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Cauda Equina

Lehrer, Riva

Last Updated: May-05-2016
Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Painting

Summary:

A woman stands nude with her back to the viewer. Her arms are raised, hands interlaced behind her neck. Her back is deformed and scarred, but her body, depicted in warm flesh tones, looks solid and capable. She stands uncomfortably but patiently, as if she is waiting for a medical exam in a doctor’s office, or as if she is inviting the audience to look and learn.  

A skeleton is superimposed anatomically over the lower half of the woman’s body, including her lower spine, pelvis, and femurs. A round form surrounds the lower spine which looks abnormal. In the blue background is a skeleton of a horse. The horse is angled away from the audience, such that we see its rear and tail most prominently. But its head is turned to look backwards, so that its empty eye sockets appear to be peering at the woman and at the audience.  

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Sheri / Dragon

Lehrer, Riva

Last Updated: May-05-2016
Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Drawing

Summary:

A woman drawn in charcoal crouches tensely on all fours, arms wide as if proudly claiming territory, but with one hand raised in hesitation. Her legs are strong, and her breasts are exposed animalistically. But the viewer’s eyes are drawn to her face, which looks sad and weary.

A green dragon is super-imposed onto the body of the woman. It glares at the audience, snarling toothily with a red open mouth. Its head is raised proudly, and its wings are spread defiantly. It is ready to attack. But the dragon looks partly mechanical, and it fits onto the woman like a costume, with her head, chest, arms, and legs exposed. It is armor that simultaneously protects yet burdens her.

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Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction — Secondary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Graphic Memoir

Summary:

A nurse-poet well-known for her empathic descriptions of patients, Cortney Davis suddenly found herself in the hospital bed with a life-threatening condition.  Although she is a masterful writer, she could not find words to capture what she experienced as a patient.  Instead, she started painting her emotions—fear, suffering, and loneliness expressed through color, line, and tone.  The first of 12 paintings in this pathography shows her lying naked on a white slab, not literally what happened but expressive of how vulnerable and helpless she felt.  Each of the 12 paintings carries an emotional and spiritual truth—often raw and miserable.  Davis accompanies each painting with a brief commentary about how and when the painting was done, explaining, for instance, why some of the figures have no facial features. But the vivid paintings speak for themselves, and they add a different way of knowing not available through words.

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Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Literature / Nonfiction — Secondary Category: Visual Arts / Visual Arts

Genre: History

Summary:

This book examines the rise of the obesity epidemic through the perspectives of art, literature, and medicine, particularly in Britain, with brief mention of continental Europe and North America. In the first chapter, the authors set the scene by explaining the medical significance of obesity: namely, how and why obesity leads to illness. The remainder of the book is devoted to discussing historical perceptions of obesity, the history of eating, the history of exercise, and the history of weight loss remedies. Historical perceptions of obesity are addressed from several angles, including the business of “fat folk” circus freaks; the portrayal of obese figures in art, from Paleolithic stone sculpture to seaside post cards to modern film; and the depiction of obese figures in writing, from Chaucer to J. K. Rowling. Throughout the book, the authors are careful to emphasize that obesity is not simply a self-inflicted product of gluttony and sloth, but a condition brought about by many factors, including genetics and social influences. They conclude the book by urging society to take a more aggressive stance against obesity by reminding readers that obesity kills.

David Haslam is a general practitioner in the United Kingdom, He is also Clinical Director of Britain’s National Obesity Forum, a charity formed in 2000 to increase awareness of obesity as a medical condition. Fiona Haslam is a historian of medicine and art, with a doctorate from the University of St. Andrews. She is also the author of From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth Century Britain (Liverpool University Press, 1996). 

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Medicine and Art

Emery, Marcia; Emery, Alan

Last Updated: Mar-18-2015
Annotated by:
Lam, MD, Gretl

Primary Category: Literature / Nonfiction — Secondary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: History

Summary:

Medicine and Art discusses the evolution of medicine and the changing role of the physician in society as depicted through art. The book is organized in rough chronological order, beginning with a copper statue of Imhotep of Egypt and a vessel featuring Hippocrates of Greece. Artworks depicting Ayurvedic, Tibetan, Persian, Chinese, North American Indian, and African medicine are also included, but the main focus of this book is Western medicine as portrayed in European and American paintings. These paintings take the reader through history, from nuns caring for the sick in the 1300s to quacks attracting gullible customers in the 1600s to the use of the stethoscope and the start of vaccination. The final artwork is a 2001 embroidery piece by Louise Riley depicting the link between patient and medical researcher.

The book features 53 images that are organized into 53 bi-fold layouts, with a written description and discussion of the artwork on the left hand page and an image of the artwork on the right hand page. These images are generously sized, taking up much of the page, and the vast majority are in color. Concise paragraphs explain the image by providing both medical and art historical context. 

Alan E.H. Emery and Marcia L.H. Emery are the husband and wife team who compiled this book. Alan E.H. Emery is a distinguished British neurologist, medical genetics researcher, and amateur oil painter. Marcia L.H. Emery
is a librarian and a psychologist.

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Annotated by:
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Visual Arts / Painting/Drawing

Genre: Painting

Summary:

Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler painted his model and lover Valentine Godé-Darel in a series of drawings and paintings after she became ill and was dying of cancer (of the reproductive organs). For a painter of that time to focus his/her work on a dying individual over a period of many months (1914-1915) was highly unusual. In this painting, Valentine's head and face are seen in side view in the left of the picture. She is lying down with her head partly elevated and sunken into a pillow. Her features are bony with high cheekbones and a prominent nose. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open. Blue is a featured color, forming the background as well as tinting her face. Hodler also favored blue in many of his landscape paintings. The woman's head and face are carefully drawn but the pillow and bedclothes are sketchy, drawing the viewer's attention immediately to the dying woman and holding it there.

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