Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Art Essays

  • The Isenheim Altarpiece and “homeopathic” hospital art

    Katrina GenuisCanada Art found in hospitals generally has the aim of comforting the viewer. Presumably, ill patients or exhausted on-call physicians who amble past pastoral countryside scenes or watercolour flowers are reminded that despite their current difficultly there is great beauty in existence. But residences for the sick have not always contained artwork that is…

  • Finding a Voice

    Ruth MargalitChristopher LeetOmaha, Nebraska, United States Erin Reets, a resident of the Siena/Francis House (SFH) homeless shelter, came in to discuss a medical problem with a doctor at the shelter clinic. Having addressed the medical problem, the doctor sat down and asked Erin to tell his story: How long had he been at the shelter?…

  • The Marjorie Kovler Center quilts

    Mary Lynn EversonGreg Halvorsen SchreckChicago, Illinois, United States Established in 1987, Chicago’s Heartland Alliance Marjorie Kovler Center transforms the lives of individuals recovering from the complex consequences of torture. The Kovler Center provides medical, mental health, and social services; trains and educates locally and globally; and advocates for the end of torture worldwide. The following…

  • The power of the creative

    Margo DavisNew York, United States The names used within this article have been changed to ensure patient privacy. The question is often asked of me, “What in the world do you do as an artist-in-residence in a hospital?” Over time, my answer has crystallized to: “I bring the creative process to sick kids.” Sometimes my…

  • Rodin’s Large Left Hand 1903

    Seth JudsonSanta Barbara, California, United States Walking down Madison Avenue in 1947, B. Gerald Cantor saw in a window a bronze sculpture of Rodin’s The Hand of God. This would be his first Rodin purchase, igniting the curiosity and passion that would eventually cause Cantor to endow Stanford University with the second largest Rodin collection…

  • Illuminating addiction: morphinomania in fin-de-siècle visual culture

    Natalia VieyraPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The etchings of Paul-Albert Besnard constitute a gruesome assemblage of nineteenth-century social ills—graphic depictions of the hard lives of women plagued by sickness, suicides, prostitution, infanticide, and poverty. Amid this collection of unfortunate modern imagery, an unusual etching featuring two fashionable Parisiennes stands out (Fig. 1). Who are these elegant…

  • Migrainous scotomata in art

    JH McAuleyLondon, United Kingdom More than simply representing their visual environment, artists depict their visual experiences. Their work is invested with a personal emotional context. In some cases, the subject becomes the emotion itself, as conveyed in abstract colors and patterns or invoked by the expression on a human face; a popular example is of…

  • Tithonus and Eos

    Emilio MordiniParis, France The Pio Monte della Misericordia, a building in the historic center of Naples, is today a museum that exhibits important paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Seven Works of Mercy and many Neapolitan Caravaggists. Here the visitor may come across a large painting of a gorgeous, blonde woman rising from pink and blue…

  • Painter, interrupted: Mary Cassatt and illness

    Christoper WalkerBielsko-Biala, Poland The year is 1868, and the twenty-two year-old Mary Cassatt has had her first painting, The Mandolin Player, accepted by the famous Paris Salon. The painting is in the realist style and is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s 1659 Self-Portrait. The background is lit as if there were a candle behind the sitting mandolin player, a…

  • A painful but tender embrace: Robert Pope’s Aesculapius

    Caroline WellberyWashington, DC, United States Robert Pope, early in childhood a student gifted in science, chose art as his career, and no one better melds the observing eye with the understanding heart. The shadow of cancer hung over him during the most productive years of his life: he died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age…