Del i serien Visual Cultures and German Contexts

Picturing Health and Illness in Northern Europe

Medicine, Art, and the Body, 1880-1930

Inbunden, Engelska, 2027

1 969 kr

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How did advancements in modern medicine influence artists at the turn of the 20th century? How, in turn, did visuality come to dominate health culture? The human body has perennially been a focus of the visual arts, yet the idea of the ‘perfect’ body is a largely modern one. This book explores the ways in which visual culture shaped, as well as reflected, public perceptions of health at the turn of the 20th century. In Germany, Austria and Norway, images of idealized or diseased bodies proliferated in illustrated media and visual art, and anxieties over good health dominated popular culture. Newly independent, these countries viewed health and well-being as an issue of national importance; a means of creating social cohesion and strength of identity. Moreover, the drive to enhance medical literacy gave impetus to new forms of medical illustration and narration as well as a burgeoning interest among artists in the medicalized body.This book presents ten case studies in how modernity manifested in the visual narration and public display of bodies, exploring contexts as diverse as early Swiss sanatoriums, Germany’s Freikörperkultur movement, Edvard Munch’s vegetarianism, and changing reproductive rights, among others. Together, they reveal the vital role of visual culture in our understanding of what constitutes ‘good health’; an ideological construct where health, technology, nationhood, gender, and race are at play. Novel artistic approaches, from interactive pop-up books to over-exposed nude photography, celluloid “stitching” to Oscar Kokoschka’s intimate letters to a tuberculosis sufferer, show how modern art offered new understandings of the human body and humans’ position in the world. Combining original research and unpublished documents, Picturing Health and Illness in Northern Europe reveals how preconceptions around health and body-image can be traced to a defining moment in modern European history.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2027-02-04
Mått156 x 234 x 14 mm
Vikt387 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieVisual Cultures and German Contexts
Antal sidor272
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN9781350583146

Tillhör följande kategorier

Konsthistoria inom Kultur
Medicinhistoria inom Medicin
Naturvetenskapens historia inom Naturvetenskap och teknik

Patricia G. Berman is the Feldberg Professor of Art at Wellesley College. Also serving as Professor II at the University of Oslo, she facilitated a multi-year project entitled “Munch, Modernism, and Modernity.” Her books and exhibition catalogues include Munch: Inner Fire (Munch Museum and Palazzo Reale, 2025); Munch|Warhol, and the Multiple Print (2013, American-Scandinavian Foundation); A Fine Regard: Essays in Honor of Kirk Varnedoe (Ashgate, 2008); James Ensor: Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889, (Getty Museum Studies on Art, 2002); and Edvard Munch and Women: Image and Myth (Art Services International, 1995).Marsha Morton is Professor of Art History at Pratt Institute, USA. A specialist in German and Austrian cultural history with a focus on interdisciplinary topics of art, anthropology, science, and music, her books include Max Klinger and Wilhelmine Culture (2014) and the co-edited anthology The Arts Entwined (2000). She is also a co-editor and contributing author to Visual Culture and Pandemic Disease Since 1750: Capturing Contagion (2023).

List of IllustrationsList of ContributorsIntroduction: “Know Thyself”: Visualized Encounters and Transformations of the Body in Cultures of Health and Biomedicine, Marsha Morton (Pratt Institute, USA) and Patricia G. Berman (Wellesley College, USA)Part One Lebensreform and the Experience of Spas and Sanatoriums1. Matters of Life (Reform) and Death: Health, Illness and the Moral Self in Max Klinger’s On Death Series, Marsha Morton (Pratt Institute, USA)2. X-ray Eyes: Seeing Oskar Kokoschka’s Mountain-Body-Paintings, Gemma Blackshaw (Royal College of Art London, UK) 3. Purification by Light: Photography and Phototherapy in the German Body Culture Movement, Katarina Korola (University of Minnesota, Canada) 4. Kohlrabi Apostle? Edvard Munch’s Modernist Occult Vegetarianism, Allison Morehead (Queen’s University, Canada) Part Two Medical Authority and the Nation: Collaboration or Control5. Illustrating Children’s Embodied Healthcare in Late-Nineteenth-Century German Children’s Books, Amanda M. Brian (Coastal Carolina University, USA)6. Cleansed: Pools, Showers, and Health Planning in Kristiana, Patricia G. Berman (Wellesley College, USA)7. Vital Signs? Weimar Hygiene, Film, and “Gesolei” (1926), Kathryn Carney (University of Pittsburgh, USA)Part Three Somatic Interventions and Interpretations8. Athenamania: Illness, Allegory, and Transformation in Gustav Klimt's Faculty Paintings, Nathan J. Timpano (University of Miami, USA)9. The Transience of Abortion in German Health Fair Culture (1926 – 1933), Caitlin Powell (University College London, UK) 10. Figment Phalloplasty: Christian Schad’s Medical Imaginary, Jonathan Odden (Graduate Center, CUNY, USA)Index