Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Art Flashes

  • Did Salvador Dali follow the prolactin discovery in his painting of the fountain of milk?

    Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States   Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Artists Rights Society © 2019 The Fountain of Milk Spreading Itself Uselessly on Three Shoes by Salvador Dali remains one of his most enigmatic works. It shows a nude woman on a pedestal, milk flowing from her breasts, while an emaciated man is…

  • Ford Madox Brown: His model and his medical grandfather

    Few ladies would look their best when painted in bed with their hair down while recovering from a dangerous infection. But Emma Hill looks beautiful, resting, her coiffure immaculate, sheets unruffled, a flower in her hand. In 1848 while still in her teens, she had become the model and then mistress of Ford Madox Brown,…

  • The old women of Francisco Goya

      Time is running out for these two decrepit old crones who clearly have seen better days. In this 1820 painting titled El Tiempo, Francisco Goya shows the figure of Cronos hovering over the two women, ready to sweep them away with a broom into the memory of time. The woman in white, her face…

  • The Plague of Ashdod, by Nicholas Poussin

    The Plague of Ashdod, Poussin’s famous painting of 1630, is based on the Old Testament account of an epidemic affecting the Philistines after they had captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and moved it to their coastal city of Ashdod. According to Samuel 1:5, the Lord first destroyed the statue of their…

  • The Bitter Potion by Adriaen Brouwer

    It has long been the belief of the prescribing professions that medicines work better if they can impress the recipients by their efficacy. A painful injection may thus work better than a painless one, and an intramuscular injection of ascorbic acid will remind the patient of its continuing efficacy for at least one week. A…

  • Lorenzo Costa: A painting for services rendered?

    Giovanni Battista Fiera was born in Mantua in 1465. He studied at the University of Pavia, from where he graduated in 1485 with a degree in medicine, but extended his interests to poetry, philosophy, and theology. Moving to Rome after graduation, he published there in 1490 one of the first books on dietetics, La Coena…

  • Adriaen Brouwer: surgery in the tavern

    Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6-1638) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in genre scenes, particularly in taverns. He favored humble, unkempt peasants engaged in various activities, from drunken brawls to fireside chats. In these paintings the village barber-surgeons are shown performing operations on the back and the foot of peasants, who wince from a procedure done…

  • Edvard Munch: The child who never grew up

    Michael YafiHouston, Texas The paintings of Edvard Munch are often used as an example of the association between creativity and mental illness. Can we, however, analyze them from the perspective of the feelings of a child? Traumatized by the death of his mother when he was only five years old1 as portrayed in The Dead…

  • A man with a psychotic disorder by Diego Velazquez

    Fernando ForcénChicago, Illinois, United States During the modern era, kings employed jesters for the entertainment of monarchs and their guests. These jesters were often people with mental illnesses or congenital metabolic diseases. They were payed for their services and often lived in the royal household. There, they amused the royal family and other members such…

  • Child’s play and art

    Bojana CokícZajecar, Serbia Childhood is an important time of learning and development. Play is the work of childhood, affecting sensorimotor, cognitive, emotional, moral, and social development.1 Children have always played.3 Throughout history, children’s games have changed with the social environment. In past centuries, children’s play began in the evening, on the street, after girls had helped…