Abstract
Culture is transcendent of time and space. Ancient ideologies may have been discovered through in-depth analysis of art; art may serve as a looking-glass into the lives of those of the past. With focus on the importance of the humanities in medical practice, and the marriage between science and the humanities, this study examines a timeline of medical art from ancient to modern using methods of visual analysis based on the works of Panofsky and van Leeuwen, mixing the formal assessment of art with the analysis of visual discourse to discover the narrative these works present and the language the artists use. This analysis adapts Van Leeuwen’s use of the three compositional metafunctions and Panofsky’s three steps for art analysis including the natural subject matter, the conventional subject matter, and the intrinsic meaning of the content. The results of the analyses demonstrate certain tools or motifs the authors use to portray the doctors as distinct from their patients. Whether it is portraying physicians wearing robes, sitting on thrones, as holy beings, or as holding scepters, artists throughout the ages have developed icons to represent physicians in art. These icons, analyzed with the context of the period of art history in mind, have shown to carry certain ideologies. These ideologies can be interpreted as maintained through these works and presented in contemporary times and spaces.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Visual semiotics, Arts and Culture, Medical Humanities
