Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Vanitas

  • 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…

  • There is a time

    Joel L. Chinitz Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Vanitas, 1686 Adriaen Coorte, Dutch (1660–1707) Oil on canvas 19.72 × 16.3 in When the doors flew open, the noisy hoard—many in dirty, white jackets and floppy, bloodstained, green pants—circled the nurses’ station and overran the medical Intensive Care Unit. Wednesday renal rounds had begun. As two…