The history of surgery: Suffering for their art

ENTERING the small room that houses “War, Art & Surgery” at the Hunterian Museum in London, the visitor encounters two images hung one above the other. On top, in sepia tones, is “The Birth of Plastic Surgery” (pictured), painted in 1916 by Henry Tonks; below, strikingly similar though tinted in the blues and greens of the modern operating theatre, is “Hands, hands, hands”, by Julia Midgley, a contemporary artist. Her work has been paired with Tonks’s in this thoughtful show marking the centenary of the start of the first world war. The public might be forgiven for growing a little weary of the anniversary, but here at the Royal College of Surgeons, the subject is approached in an unusual light.Tonks, who was a surgeon himself as well as a subtle and perceptive artist, was not indulging in hyperbole in his painting’s title. The image depicts the operating theatre of Harold Gillies, the pioneer of facial reconstructive surgery. The two first met at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, where Gillies was developing the techniques that laid the foundation for modern surgeons’ ability to rebuild the human face, using as his subjects the young men who had...



from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1tTtCjI