The Picture of Health - Esther

Coronavirus.

They say you should avoid it & now that my partner & I have caught it, I’d tend to agree. 

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Apart from being ill, there’s a huge part of us that’s downright disappointed we have it because we’ve done all we were told, been socially-responsible citizens. It’s a sad defeat.

There was no way I could write this at the computer as I normally would, as it made me perspire & feel sick with the effort. Luckily I have Notes on my phone & Covid doesn’t seem to be adversely affecting my thumb. Yet.

Usually when I’m ill, I know what will happen & how long it’ll take to pass. I’ve had lots of illnesses so I’m not afraid of being sick. But this is different. You’re not sure what’ll happen or when. I hope you don’t get it but if you do & you feel lousy, don’t let anyone tell you it’s merely “unpleasant” or a “bad cold,” or even “it’s just flu!” as even among my friends & coworkers there can be a range of associated symptoms depending on the individual. It’s like teaching. Everyone’s an expert because they once had a teacher… With Covid, everyone has read so much, they know it all. But really, they only know their own symptoms if they’ve had it.

At the risk of being very morbid (I am), I got curious about how the art world treats illness - as it were. & why would artists portray sickness at all anyway? As Lachlan Goudie once said, “Art bears witness.” Sometimes to inform, sometimes to fuel the imagination, sometimes simply to record. Every facet of human existence will make its way into art somehow.

So over several days I’ve cobbled together an inexhaustive but exhausting blog about illness in art from my Notes & scrolling for pictures on the internet on my phone. 

Egon Schiele, The Family (1918)

I’ll start with what I consider to be the most tragic examples. At the risk of sounding very dramatic I’ve been thinking a lot about Egon. In our self-isolation this week my partner & I have had to rely on each other a lot. I think of Egon & Edith’s final days, stuck at home, gradually realising how sick they were from Spanish flu in 1918. Egon wrote to his mother saying he was preparing himself for a worst-case scenario. Edith, pregnant with their only child died & three days later Egon died too. The Family was one of his final works. It’s Egon visualising a possible future family that was never to be. 

Edvard Munch, The Sick Child (1907)

Also caught up in the 1918 pandemic was Edvard Munch. Happily he survived but throughout his life was plagued by the fear of the mental illness that ran in his family & afflicted his younger sister. Here we remain firmly in the sneezing, coughing, sweating realm of physical illness however & Munch portrays this as well as the psychological side of sickness. The Sick Child depicts his older sister’s tuberculosis, which would take her life at fifteen. The adult’s pain & grief is evident, despite her face being hidden. He once wrote, “I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity." 

Félix Vallotton, The Sick Girl (1892)

Someone once told me, “There’s nothing dignified about illness,” & she was right. When your face is an explosion of tears & mucus, what’s the point of attempting to put on makeup? If you’re writhing around in pain & discomfort, why would you wear fitted clothes? Pyjamas are designed that way for a reason. Vallotton’s sterile The Sick Girl challenges this truth however. The whites are dazzling, the patient’s hair is immaculately tousled & the nurse is cheerfully bringing a nice cup of tea which will surely be just the job. But in creating this image, Vallotton makes a number of compositional decisions that make us think twice. Why is the patient’s face turned away from us? Why does she have her back to the window? & doesn’t she look uncomfortable in that position, against the prison bars of her headboard? 

Harold Mockford, The Sick Man (1978)

Mockford’s is a similar scene but has a more queasy, sinister atmosphere, with artificial lighting & a less hopeful mood. Mockford has an interesting way of making paintings. He lays down areas of paint then leaves the canvas face down on a blanket. The resultant smudges become part of the finished pieces as he works into them to create the image.

Richard Tennant Cooper, Syphilis (1912)

You don’t have to look far before you happen upon sexually transmitted illnesses in art. This was a chance for particularly tedious 19th century painters to assert their moral superiority. Cooper was apt to make images of provocative women as carriers of syphilis, the men in his pictures portrayed as innocent victims of the infection. We’re left in no doubt that these women & their wiles are fully to blame. Poor, poor men.

Arnold Böcklin, The Plague (1898)

Böcklin has personified illness as an enormous part-bat Godzilla-esque monster, unseeing, uncaring & destroying all in his path. Despite being a metaphor, the colours are nevertheless a reality, the greens & greys referencing decay, mould & rotting flesh.

Before & After Cholera

In the 19th Century cholera was known as the Blue Terror since it would render the unfortunate victim with a blue pallor. The skin would sink, wrinkle & shrivel as extreme dehydration set in. Should you contract cholera in London or Paris or anywhere at the time, you could expect an early death. In London they were of course keen to blame “foreigners,” but in trying to ascertain the cause of the illness, they also suspected bad smells, miasmas & bad air. Cholera is by no means eradicated today (although it’s treatable), killing as many as 28,800 worldwide in 2015.

Punch, A Drop of London Water

I’m always grimly amused by Punch magazine’s imagining of what the bugs in a drop of 19th Century London water would look like. They’re mostly oddly benign & Bosch-like…& whimsically similar to the emojis of today. The word “PESTILENCE” can be seen worming its way over them on the right.  

Now wash your hands.