descent into dementia …
William Utermohlen’s series of self-portraits after his diagnosis of dementia. NYT essay slide show JMP article
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art
the thread of life …
… The mother herself becomes a key element of the drama: she weaves the thread of life, in contrast with the image of the Fates, who weave the thread, but they are always ready to cut it. The artist wants to underline the importance of the presence of another person, although silent, which is able to
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what in fact is death?
A child who has to go through the woods in the dark will still be scared even if you prove to him a hundred times that there is no danger. He is not afraid of something specific that he could name, but rather he experiences in the dark the insecurity, the vulnerability, and the eeriness
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pauper infirmus …
In the Middle Ages, the figure of the sick man identifies the poor, the outcast and the man in need. Disease is the feature of a particular social class and therapy coincides with assistance to the poor, and with the charitable care of poverty. Poverty itself is defined “morborum genitrix (the mother of diseases)” and the sick man is
a footprint within history …
Jesus’ Resurrection points beyond history but has left a footprint within history. Benedict XVI – Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week p. 274
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to search for humanity …
Theodore Géricault portrayed a series of psychiatric patients, performing introspective studies with almost scientific features, as required by the customer, who intended to use these paintings for educational purposes. Gericault painted real portraits, characterized by a deep analysis of man’s psychology, even though in the 19th century portraits were destinated only to important clients. This
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curiosity and desire …
Manuel Jimenez Prieto (Aranda) (1848-1904) – Visit at the hospital. Jean Martin Charcot (probably) auscultates a patient. Oil on canvas, 1897 “Medicine was born as an Art; it has been defined by scientific features only after Hippocrates. Science itself, anyway, is bounded to art. They share the same claim: to know the essence of reality
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that gaze and that hand …
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) – Louis Henry Vaquez at “La Pitié” hospital (1921), Oil on canvas, National Academy of Medicine, Paris The assistants take part in the general atmosphere and in the gestures of their chief and mentor, as they watch the patient, who constitutes the real focus of the painting; the lines drawn from the
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