The Clinic & The Person

Painting an Ideal: Luke Fildes’ The Doctor with Hannah Darvin

J. Russell Teagarden & Daniel Albrant Episode 25

Send us a text

The renowned English social realist and portrait painter, Luke Fildes (rhymes with “childs”), created The Doctor in 1891 after Henry Tate commissioned a painting from him for his new museum, the Tate Britain. The subject of the painting was Fildes’ choice. Despite a poor reception among art critics when it was first exhibited, the painting quickly became iconic as the physician ideal. Over its 133-year history, the painting has been used for a variety of purposes, including inspiration, education, propaganda, and politics. During that time, the ways in which the painting represents the physician ideal changed. We talk about these aspects of the painting with Hannah Darvin from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She has conducted extensive research into the painting and its creator.

Links


The next episode will feature opera and how as an art form it can render illnesses in ways that elaborate on bioscience texts and teachings. For examples, we will draw from two operas featuring female characters with tuberculosis (“consumptive heroines”), namely, La Traviata and La Bohème. Joining us will be Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, who have combined their expertise in comparative literature and medicine, respectively, with their love for opera into an expansive body of scholarly work making both opera and medicine more interesting and better appreciated.


Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to this text link, or email to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.

People on this episode