Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: art

  • The art of nursing

    Isabelle J. St. JohnMilwaukee, WI Nursing is not just a science but an art, and I am an artist of care. This has been my guiding philosophy throughout my education and career. As a child, I was guided in the practice of analyzing and interpreting art by mentors, who did not shy away from challenging…

  • A plastic surgeon’s weeks in lockdown

    Neha ChauhanBangalore, Karnataka, India As I tuned in to the announcement on March 24th, 2020 that India would be completely locked down for next three weeks to flatten the curve of coronavirus spread, my heart skipped a beat and then almost sank. I spent a sleepless night trying to understand my reaction of experiencing a…

  • Together, We Are an Ocean

    Janet CaiNew Brunswick, NJ “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”– Ryunosuke Satoro Together, the individual cells, lamellae, and glands featured in these paintings contribute to a complete functioning body. There is a kind of beauty about the individuality and unity simultaneously exhibited; as physicians, nurses, social workers, and other healthcare personnel,…

  • Engage the emotions

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Captivated by the paintings of Caravaggio, I search for them wherever I travel. But no encounter has been as intense and personal as The Taking of Christ in the Beit wing of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The Taking of Christ depicts the moment of Jesus’s betrayal by…

  • Drawing blood: Depictions of transfusion in contemporary arts

    Diana-Andreea NovaceanuBucharest, Romania The history of blood transfusion has unfolded in stages, first from experiments on animals, then from animal to human, and finally to transfusion between humans. The subject, in all its intricacy, has been captured by medical illustrators and painters throughout the centuries. Over the course of the last decades, attitudes towards blood…

  • Blood policies and bioart in the 1900s

    Christopher HubbardOhio, United States Policies related to blood that were adopted in the U.S. during the early to mid-1900s produced cultural and legal effects for certain populations. In 1920, for example, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was passed by Congress,1 which modified how identity classifications and boundaries would be drawn up. The act classified an…

  • Arthritis in Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands

    Ariana ShaariNew York, New York, United States Albrecht Durer is considered one of the masters of German Renaissance art and has been dubbed “the da Vinci of the North.” He is especially esteemed for elevating printmaking to an art form and for deeply psychological and technically impressive works on religious subjects such as Life of…

  • Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm: An inseparable balance?

    John Graham-PoleClydesdale, NS, Canada Life blood: Humor and health In 1960, I entered St. Bartholomew’s Medical School on a full classics scholarship. I was a devotee of Hippocrates, with high hopes of embarking on a path of uniting medical science with the healing arts. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” was…

  • Bloody art

    Francesca Portante d’AlessandroRome, Italy Blood has always been depicted in art, from cavemen’s hunts, to medieval altarpieces and battle scenes, to modern film and photography. Blood is able to simultaneously represent both life and death, the sacred and profane, violence and martyrdom, disease and healing, purity and impurity.1 Its meaning, however, can also vary depending…

  • Paul-Emile Destouches: Can love triumph over disease?

    In this painting by Parisian artist Paul-Emile Destouches (1794–1874), a young woman visits a young man who is ill and lies in bed surrounded by his relatives. The woman hopes that her visit will cure him, and indeed the young man’s face, though pale, has brightened. But many of the figures present are already wearing…