The Healing Arts: Consultation de Medecins & Les Grimaces.

I’ll be indulging in a highlight of Louis-Léopold Boilly the next day or three. Boilly was an incredibly talented artist, with an extraordinary gift for portraiture. Looking at his paintings, you get a strong sense that you should not be staring in the window, looking at these people, because there is a profound intimacy in his paintings. The Geography Lesson (Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter) is a good example of this intimacy. I also think his portrait of Robespierre is the absolute best. Boilly was a prolific painter, producing a great many small portraits as well as full scale paintings. When it comes to Les Grimaces, I like Les Grimaces 3 best. I think. All images, click for full size!

Consultation de Medecins. 1760, Lithograph, Louis-Léopold Boilly.

Consultation de Medecins. 1760, Lithograph, Louis-Léopold Boilly.

Les Grimaces 1, Louis-Léopold Boilly, 1823.

Les Grimaces 1, Louis-Léopold Boilly, 1823.

Les Grimaces 3, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Lithograph, 1823.

Les Grimaces 3, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Lithograph, 1823.

Les Grimaces 8, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Lithograph, 1823.

Les Grimaces 8, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Lithograph, 1823.

Q Is For Quercus.

Quercus suber.

Quercus suber is the scientific name for the cork oak, a remarkable tree. Unlike the aforementioned Eucalyptus, the cork oak is native to southwest Europe (and northwest Africa). Interestingly, both trees are classified as pyrophytes, plants that are adapted to tolerate and resist fire. But while the Eucalyptus is considered an active pyrophyte that promotes the spread of forest fires through the production of inflammable oils, the cork oak is a passive pyrophyte that resists the passage of fire through its thick and insulating bark (cork). The canopy burns, but the trunk doesn’t and the tree quickly regenerates. If the tree doesn’t burn, every 7-10 years cork can be extracted in a process that doesn’t harm the tree and will promote the regrowth of a new layer of cork. Cork extraction is a sustainable practice and cork oak forests, minimally intervened for cork extraction purposes every decade or so, support unique and rich ecosystems.

This photo shows a relatively young oak tree from which cork has been recently extracted for the first time (this is called “virgin” cork and is of less quality than the one obtained in subsequent extractions). Below, the bark layer left after cork extraction that is of a gorgeous russet colour, and above it the cork of the upper trunk and branches that has been left.

All I have to say is WOW! Click for full size!

© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

The Healing Arts: Mary Toft, Stones In The Head, Elephantiasis.

A new series! The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library has an absolutely astonishing collection of old prints and drawings, all to do with medical matters. There are exquisite anatomical drawings, drawings of hospitals, and the like, but I won’t be posting those. There are wonderfully satirical prints, interesting characters, and depictions of certain maladies, etc., of which, many tickle my fancy. We’ll start with Mary Tofts, who drew a great deal of attention, from on high to low in her day, for giving birth to rabbits. (All images, click for full size.)

Mary Tofts of Godelman the pretended Rabbit Breeder, mezzotint, John Laguerre, c. 1726.

Mary Tofts of Godelman the pretended Rabbit Breeder, mezzotint, John Laguerre, c. 1726.

Moving on to…head stones! :D

Loopt loopt met groot... [Operation for Stones in the Head], Laid, Claes (Nicolas) Jansz Weydtmans.

Loopt loopt met groot… [Operation for Stones in the Head], Laid, Claes (Nicolas) Jansz Weydtmans.

I’m not at all sure what this is all about, it doesn’t look quite like trepanning, but who knows? One very interesting thing about this is that it leads to a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, called Cutting The Stone, aka The Extraction of the Stone of Madness. It’s quite clear that Bosch is not being complimentary to the medical profession. The Band Wire did a song about the painting, called The Madman’s Honey.

Finally, we have a scary look at Elephantiasis, [Warning: A very graphic photo at that link.] a most dread disease back in the day. Note that the woman depicted has 6 toes on each foot.

Woman with Elephantiasis, Laid, Anonymous, Italian, 18th Century.

Woman with Elephantiasis, Laid, Anonymous, Italian, 18th Century.

P Is For Posing and Pisco.

Posing. Pisco, Portuguese for robin.

An European Robin, Erithacus rubecula, making a break from insect hunting to pose for the camera. The name “pisco” applies to several different insectivorous birds and is usually followed by a qualifier, redbreast in this case, but there are also the “bluebreast” (bluethroat, Luscinia svecica), “bluetail” (Tarsiger cyanurus) and “blacksmith” (redstart, Phoenicurus ochruros). However, if someone says only “pisco” and nothing else, they are almost certainly referring to this bird.

Click for full size!

© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

The Philosophy of Beards.

Thomas Gowing felt the mighty yet fragile English Beard to be threatened with extinction by an invasive foreign species, the Razor. So he set out to defend the furry face mammal in every conceivable way. The resulting lecture was received so enthusiastically by a bushy-faced audience in Ipswich that it was soon turned into The Philosophy of Beards (1854) — the first book entirely devoted to this subject.

It is Gowing’s ardent belief that the bearded are better looking, better morally and better historically than the shaven.

[…]

In the last section, Gowing gambols through the ancient and modern past, attaching a beard or lack thereof to thousands of years of heroism and cowardice, honour and deceit. Viewing history through the prism of the beard makes things nice and simple: “The bold Barons outbearded King John, and Magna Charta was the result,” … “Henry the 7th shaved himself and fleeced his people”. Napoleon I only allowed men in his empire to have an “imperial”, an upturned triangle of a beard, as a way of letting them know “that they were to have the smallest possible share in the empire”.

[…]

Finally, he dismisses as “a foul libel” the idea that ladies don’t fancy a beard. He declares, presumably without much survey data to hand, that “Ladies, by their very nature, like everything manly,” and cannot fail to be charmed by a fine flow of curling comeliness.”

You can read much more at The Public Domain Review, including the book itself. The book has also been recently republished by the British Library, for the first time since 1854. You’ll find a link at The Public Domain. I’d think the book would be a fine gift for anyone’s bearded friends and loved ones.

You might also be interested in Beards of Time:

Two photographs of the same unknown man, each taken at a different studio in Texas – Source: left and right.

Two photographs of the same unknown man, each taken at a different studio in Texas – Source: left and right.

The House of Dreams.

Stephen Wright in the front room of the House of Dreams. Vice.

Feelings. This text in this picture describes how I feel about the House of Dreams, my work, and my artistic life journey. I sometimes don't have a clue what I am doing and why. I only know it's the right thing for me to do.

Feelings. This text in this picture describes how I feel about the House of Dreams, my work, and my artistic life journey. I sometimes don’t have a clue what I am doing and why. I only know it’s the right thing for me to do.

Take some time today to meet an extraordinary artist, Stephen Wright. His House of Dreams is amazing, to say the very least, and the story of his journey is both wondrous and terribly poignant. Vice has an in depth interview with Mr. Wright, and you can take a virtual tour of the House of Dreams, or book an actual visit.

Vice Story. The House of Dreams.