The Face of Medicine: Visualising Medical Masculinities in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris

2017 | Art, Photography & Fashion

The face of medicine examines the overlapping worlds of art and medicine in late nineteenth-century France. It sheds new light on the relevance of the visual in medical and scientific cultures, and on the relationship between artistic and medical practices and imagery. By examining previously unstudied sources that traverse disciplinary boundaries, this original study rethinks the politics of medical representations and their social impact. Through a focused examination of paintings from the 1886 and 1887 Paris Salons that portray famous men from the medical and scientific elite - Louis Pasteur, Jules-Emile Pean and Jean-Martin Charcot - along with the images and objects that these men made for personal and occupational purposes, Hunter argues that artworks and medical collections played a key role in forming the public face of scientific medicine. The face of medicine is essential reading for scholars and students of art history, visual culture, gender studies, French history, museum studies and the medical humanities.

Marsha Meskimmon (Author)

Amelia Jones (Author)

Mary Hunter (Author)