Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Mona Lisa

  • Diagnosing Mona Lisa

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   “Mona Lisa looks as if she has just been sick, or is about to be.” – Noel Coward   Crowd photographing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum. Photo by Victor Grigas, June 25, 2014, on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was a many-talented genius of the…

  • The Girl with a Pearl Earring—A vanitas?

    James Lindesay Leicester, United Kingdom   Girl with a Pearl Earring. Johannes Vermeer. circa 1665. Mauritshuis. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. It is a truism that you only have one opportunity to see a picture for the first time. However, in our image-saturated age, by the time you get to see a famous painting in…

  • Bread of life and death

    Juliet Hubbell Littleton, Colorado, United States Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512–1516 Matthias Grünewald Oil on panel Musée d’Unterlinden, Colmar, France One of the world’s greatest masterpieces is often and mysteriously excluded from the common pilgrimages educated tourists make in their travels. While crowds will mill about the Mona Lisa in Paris or endure hours of air travel and…