Tag Archives: The Doctor’s Visit

Art and the myth of the “wandering womb”

January 24, 2017

Laurinda Dixon New York, United States   The Doctor’s Visit, 1663 Jan Steen Taft Museum of Art Seventeenth-century Dutch paintings bearing modern titles such as “The Doctor’s Visit” or “The Lovesick Maiden” are common.1 They were once produced in great numbers and, with some variations, illustrate the same thing. The example by Jan Steen in […]

Art and Medicine

January 24, 2017

JMS Pearce East Yorks, England   Art has been said to deepen compassion for suffering.1 Paintings have been interpreted as “metaphors for human feelings . . . they are nonliteral symbols of the inner life.”2 Paintings trigger emotions and insights, “generating associations and tapping new, different, or deeper levels of meaning.”3 It is inherent in all […]

Lovesickness in art and medicine

January 23, 2017

Frank Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States   Figure 1 The lovesick: Antiochus and Stratonice, 1641–1642 Pietro da Cortona Fresco Sala di Venere,  Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy Have you ever suffered the pangs of romantic passion? Count yourself lucky if you have not, for studies show that this feeling may thrive in any world culture.1 The […]