The Art of Disease

With the recent outbreak of the coronavirus in China, the country is essentially closed off from the global arts economy. Movie releases have been canceled and orchestra tours have been suspended because of quarantines and fears of contagion. Art Basel Hong Kong, one of the most important destinations in the international art market calendar, will no longer take place, depriving dealers and artists of the opportunity to show works to buyers based in China and throughout Asia. The economic impact is still being determined, but as the third-biggest art market in the world in 2018, according to last year’s UBS Global Art Market Report, great losses are to be expected, without any sign of improvement occurring any time soon. 

But while this is a case where art is being impeded by the outbreak of disease and widespread panic, disease has also had a presence, as well as the subject, in various different artworks. As illness is met with various responses, it can be significant to explore the different ways in which it is represented in works, used a coping method through depictions of personal experiences, as well as a medium for social change. 

The representations of illness stand at the intersection of art and medicine. Medical illustrations, for example, have been made possible since the beginning of medicine, or in any case for hundreds or even thousands of years. But in this case its use was more practical rather than artistic, as they were created to record the different pathologies of the body and aided in the development of studies in anatomy. It is only from the Renaissance onwards that we start to see artists reliably depicting signs of disease or illness, as characteristics of their sitters. Artists inspired by Greek and Roman statues created naturalistic representations of the human figure, including its ailments and afflictions. An example of this is a painting from 1545 by the Florentine painter Agnolo Bronzino, Allegory of Love. It displays two aspects of love: on the one hand the erotic and romantic, and on the other the ravages of passion and disease. We can see how the figure in agony at the left of the image can be easily identified as suffering from neurosyphilis, or an infection of the brain and spinal cord, at a time where the first cases were being reported throughout europe. This provides important insight into the medical practices and scientific understanding of the diseases of the time.

Aside from being insightful and educational, art depicting disease can also depict suffering. Edvard Munch created a series of paintings, lithographs and etchings depicting Sophie, his older sister, on her deathbed suffering from tuberculosis.  One of those works is The Sick Child, which was painted around 1885, where Munch developed the rapid brushwork and vivid colour that suggest the evocation of this painful and traumatic memory. He called it a breakthrough in his work and often referred to it as the birth of all the other works he created from that point onwards. 

Another example is Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting Christina’s World, where the figure, Christina Olson, suffered from a degenerative muscle condition, possibly polio, that left her unable to walk. She refused to use a wheelchair, preferring to crawl and used her arms to drag her lower body along. Wyeth’s work attempted to depict a life of resilience and struggle that most would consider hopeless. 

Moving from suffering and pain to quiet activism, we finally look at the poignant works of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who’s many works can be understood as a reflection of his experience with AIDS. Untitled (Perfect Lovers)  is a work from 1991 that consists of two clocks that start in synchronisation but slowly fall out of time. It is a moving comment on his private life, as it symbolizes the artist’s HIV positive partner Ross and his deteriorating health and inevitable death from AIDS. Without being loudly political it brings attention to the AIDS crisis in a work that is meant to be disseminated and created in collaboration with the viewer, bringing them into this very intimate experience. 

Taken as a whole, the representation of disease in art shows how people have sought explanation for these illnesses, through study and treatments, through personal experiences, and through raising awareness, and it may be significant to look at art in these moments of fear and uncertainty to remind us of what we have overcome, to prevent our descent into further panic.