Hospital Auras

I know this week is all about the Benjamin(s) but I read the Buck-Morss and anaesthetics is on my mind. Here's an obvious reason why: I never contemplated the connection between anesthesiology and aesthetics though to look at the words next to each other makes an obvious connection.
With the invention of better methods of anesthesizing the patient also came better ways to anesthesize the doctor from the situation at hand (and also the watching audience). The drugged state of the patient helped add a kind of distance or sense of removal from what would we be a horrible situation of conflicted morality (to cause pain in order to help heal). Interesting how today that distance is even greater given the anesthesiologist is a specialty in itself, the surgeon never performs their own anesthesiology.




Hospital Aura



Painting by Joseph R. Wilder, M.D.

Read the descriptionbelow:

Sharp Dissection

This image captures what art critic Kuspit calls "Wilder's obsession with the demanding intimacy (far beyond ordinary colleagueship) of the operating room."

And says Koop of this series of works, "When I look at Joe's paintings, I remember and feel once again" the aura of the OR. "The way his figures stand, their body language, their very attitude propel from the page into my mind. . . . At times I used to think, 'This is as close as I will ever get to the precision of ballet dancing.'"