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Art and Surgery: The Expert Hands of Artists and Surgeons

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery

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Abstract

This chapter examines artworks with surgical themes produced between the late nineteenth century and the present time to provide analyses of the functions of art in the history of surgery. It concentrates on three very different case studies that exemplify key artistic and thematic tropes in depictions of surgery in modern and contemporary art. Through close visual readings of artworks by Henri Gervex (1852–1929), Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), and Christina Lammer (1968) it considers how painting, drawing, and filmmaking have been understood and visualised as parallel practices to surgery, particularly through the representations of hands and manual dexterity.

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Further Reading

  • Anderson, Julie, Emm Barnes, and Emma Shackleton. The Art of Medicine: Over 2000 Years of Images and Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

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  • Barnett, Richard. Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery. London: Thames and Hudson, 2015.

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  • Bordin, Girogio and Laura Polo D’Ambrosio. Medicine in Art. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2010.

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  • Clair, Jean, ed. L’Âme au corps: arts et sciences 1793–1993. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1993.

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  • Gilman, Sander. Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to Aids. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

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  • Haeger, Knut. The Illustrated History of Surgery. London: Harold Starke, 1989.

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  • Petherbridge, Deanna and Ludmilla Jordanova. The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy. University of California Press, 1998.

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  • Sheehan, Tania. Doctored: The Medicine of Photography in Nineteenth-Century America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Mary Hunter

Authors
  1. Mary Hunter
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mary Hunter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Thomas Schlich

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© 2018 The Author(s)

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Cite this chapter

Hunter, M. (2018). Art and Surgery: The Expert Hands of Artists and Surgeons. In: Schlich, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95260-1_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95260-1_15

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95259-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95260-1

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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