Tag: painting
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Passion, paint, and pain: the journey of Robert Seldon Duncanson
Mildred WilsonDetroit, MI, USA Lead poisoning (saturnism) has been present throughout history.1 Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini is considered the first to have made the connection between paint and artists’ health. In his book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba published in 1700, he stated, “The many painters I have known, almost all I found unhealthy. . .…
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George Stubbs—“Horse painter” and anatomist
Nothing exemplifies more the French saying “on revient toujour a son premier amour” (one always returns to one’s first love) than the life of George Stubbs. Already at the age of eight he was sketching animal bones in his father’s tannery in Liverpool. Later, as a teenager, he was dissecting dogs and horses, then decided…
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Healing hidden wounds: a personal perspective
Jean CozierChicago, Illinois, United States When we’re small and we hurt ourselves, we usually find ways to fix it. We may cry a little, suck the wound, or run to Mommy so that she can kiss it and make it better. But what if we don’t know for sure we’ve been hurt? If no one…
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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…