HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière'' () is an 1887 group tableau portrait painted by the history and
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
artist André Brouillet (1857–1914). The painting, one of the best-known in the history of medicine, shows the neurologist
Jean-Martin Charcot Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurology, neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on groundbreaking work about hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise A ...
giving a clinical demonstration with patient Marie Wittman to a group of postgraduate students. Many of his students are identifiable; one is
Georges Gilles de la Tourette Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette (; 30 October 1857 – 22 May 1904) was a French neurologist and the namesake of Tourette syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by tics. His main contributions in medicine we ...
, the physician who described
Tourette syndrome Tourette syndrome (TS), or simply Tourette's, is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood or adolescence. It is characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. Common tics are blinkin ...
. It hangs in a corridor of the Descartes University in Paris.


History

The painting is a large work—"remarkable for its dimensions, the figures being nearly life size"—measuring 290 cm × 430 cm, and is painted in bright, highly contrasting colours. It was painted by Brouillet at the age of thirty from individual studies made of the thirty participants, and presented in the prevailing tradition of academic group portraits. It was first displayed (with favourable notices) at the ''salon d'art'' of 1 May 1887, and later purchased by the ''
Académie des Beaux-Arts The (; ) is a French learned society based in Paris. It is one of the five academies of the . The current president of the academy (2021) is Alain-Charles Perrot, a French architect. Background The academy was created in 1816 in Paris as a me ...
'' for 3,000 francs.Harris (2005), p. 471. Brouillet was a pupil of the academic painter
Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academic painting, academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living art ...
who was, himself, also renowned for the fact that his paintings, such as '' Phryne before the Areopagus'' (1861), were so popular as prints that it seemed they were "painted in order to be reproduced."


The setting

The painting represents an imaginary scene of a contemporary scientific demonstration, based on real life, and depicts the eminent French neurologist
Jean-Martin Charcot Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurology, neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on groundbreaking work about hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise A ...
(1825–1893) delivering a clinical lecture and demonstration at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (the room in which these demonstrations took place no longer exists at the Salpêtrière). On the rear wall of the lecture room is the (1878) large charcoal work, drawn by the anatomist and medical artist Paul Richer, which reproduces the hysterical pose captured in one of the many photographs taken in the Salpêtrière. Entitled ''Periode de contortions'' ("During the contortions"), it depicts "a woman convulsing and assuming the arc-in-circle" posture: the ''arc en circle'', or Opisthotonus, "the hysteric's classic posture". Morloch (2007, p. 133), from his study of the actual painting, remarks on the striking and dramatic coincidence that, "in 1878 Richer reproduced the pose in isdrawing from a photograph ... ndnow, 1887 ... the hysteric is reproducing in life the pose from the drawing." Resting on the table to Charcot's right "are a reflex hammer and what is thought to be a Duchenne electrotherapy apparatus".


The participants

Except for the four individuals to Charcot's left, the participants are arranged in two concentric arcs: the inner circle displaying "sixteen of his current and former physician associates rrangedin reverse order of seniority", and the outer, depicting "the older generation of hysician associates... along with philosophers, writers, and friends of Charcot". Both Signoret (1983, p. 689) and Harris (2005, p. 471) have identified each of the individuals depicted in Brouillet's tableau; and Signoret (passim) provides substantial biographical details of each.


The Charcot group

The Charcot group of five are (from right-to-left): Mlle. Ecary, a nurse at the Salpêtrière; , the Salpêtrière's nursing director; Joseph Babinski (1857–1933), Charcot's chief house officer; Marie "Blanche" Wittman, Charcot's patient; and Jean-Martin Charcot himself.


The inner window-side group

The six sitting in the window-side of the painting are (from right to left): Paul Richer (1849–1933), medical artist, anatomist and physician (who created the painting on the back wall); Charles Samson Féré (1852–1907), psychiatrist, Charcot's assistant, and Charcot's secretary; Pierre Marie (1853–1940), neurologist; Édouard Brissaud (1852–1909), neurologist and pathologist; Paul-Adrien Berbez (1859–?), physician, and a student of Charcot, and neurologist; and
Gilbert Ballet Gilbert Ballet (March 29, 1853 – March 17, 1916) was a French psychiatrist, neurologist and historian who was a native of Ambazac in the department of Haute-Vienne. He studied medicine in Limoges and Paris, and subsequently became ''Chef d ...
(1853–1917), destined to be one of Charcot's last chief residents.


The outer window-side group

The six standing at the window-side of the painting are (from right to left): Alix Joffroy (1844–1908), anatomical pathologist, neurologist and psychiatrist;
Jean-Baptiste Charcot Jean-Baptiste Étienne Auguste Charcot, better known in France as Commandant Charcot, (15 July 1867 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris – 16 September 1936 at sea (30 miles north-west of Reykjavik, Iceland), was a French scientist, medical doctor ...
(1867–1936), Charcot's son, at the time a medical student and, later, a polar explorer; Mathias-Marie Duval (1844–1907), Professor of anatomy and histology; Georges Maurice Debove (1845–1920), later Dean of the medical school;
Philippe Burty Philippe Burty (6 February 1830 – 3 June 1890) was a French art critic. He contributed to the popularization of Japonism and the etching revival, supported the Impressionists, and published the letters of Eugène Delacroix. Burty was born ...
, art collector, critic, and writer; and Victor André Cornil (1837–1908), pathologist, histologist, and politician.


The remaining group

The remainder are either sitting parallel to the back wall, or on the side of the lecture theatre immediately opposite the windows. The remaining thirteen individuals are (from left to right):
Théodule-Armand Ribot Théodule-Armand Ribot (18 December 18399 December 1916) was a French psychologist. He was born at Guingamp, and was educated at the Lycée de St Brieuc. He is known as the founder of scientific psychology in France, and gave his name to Ribot's ...
(1839–1916), psychologist; Georges Guinon (1859–1932), neuropsychiatrist, and one of Charcot's last chief residents;
Albert Londe Albert Londe (26 November 1858 – 11 September 1917) was a French photographer, medical researcher and chronophotographer. He is remembered for his work as a medical photographer at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, funded by the Parisian ...
(1858–1917), medical photographer, and
chronophotographer Chronophotography is a photographic technique from the Victorian era which captures a number of phases of movements. The best known chronophotography works were mostly intended for the scientific study of locomotion, to discover practical infor ...
(wearing an apron); Léon Grujon Le Bas (1834–1907), chief hospital administrator at Salpêtrière; Albert Gombault (1844–1904), neurologist and anatomist; Paul Arène (1843–1896), novelist; Jules Claretie (1840–1913), journalist and literary figure; Alfred Joseph Naquet (1834–1916), physician, chemist, and politician; Désiré-Magloire Bourneville (1840–1909), neurologist and politician; Henry Berbez (with pen and notebook), younger brother of Paul-Adrien Berbez (who is sitting opposite at the table); Henri Parinaud (1844–1905), ophthalmologist and neurologist; , chief of electrodiagnostics, discoverer of the electrical activity of the skin (in the skull-cap); and, finally, in the apron,
Georges Gilles de la Tourette Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette (; 30 October 1857 – 22 May 1904) was a French neurologist and the namesake of Tourette syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by tics. His main contributions in medicine we ...
(1857–1904), the neurologist and physician Gilles de la Tourette (1857–1904), Charcot’s intern in 1884, then Charcot’s ''chef de clinique'', and, finally, Charcot’s personal secretary.


Current location

Apparently the painting has only recently returned to Paris, having "spent most of its life in obscurity in Nice and Lyon."Morlock (2007), p. 131. Today it hangs, unframed, in a corridor of the Descartes University in Paris, near to the entrance of the Museum of the History of Medicine, which houses one of the oldest collections of surgical, diagnostic, and physiological instrumentation in Europe.


Reproductions

In the nineteenth century, a considerable number of different versions of the original painting were produced. Morloch's approximation (2007, p. 135) is that there were at least fifteen uniquely different reproductions produced by techniques as varied as "
engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...
,
etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
, lithograph(y),
photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...
, along with other photomechanical processes" between the painting's first appearance in 1887, and its disappearance from public view in 1891.


Freud's lithograph

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
had a small (38.5 cm × 54 cm) lithographic version of the painting, created by Eugène Pirodon (1824–1908), framed and hung on the wall of his Vienna rooms from 1886 to 1938. Once Freud reached England, it was immediately placed directly over the analytical couch in his London rooms.According to Morlock (2007, p. 130) — who suggests that " t is almostas if the painting itself was painted in order to be reproduced" — Pirodon's lithographic reproduction of Brouillet's original "was so successful that it was published at least three times by two separate printers".


See also

* Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital * The Salpêtrière School of Hypnosis * Other paintings on medical subjects: ** '' The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deijman'' ** '' Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp'' ** ''
The Gross Clinic ''The Gross Clinic'' or ''The Clinic of Dr. Gross'' is an 1875 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is oil on canvas and measures by . The painting depicts Dr. Samuel D. Gross, a seventy-year-old professor dressed in a black frock coat ...
'' ** ''
The Agnew Clinic ''The Agnew Clinic'' (or ''The Clinic of Dr. Agnew'') is an 1889 oil painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It was commissioned to honor anatomist and surgeon David Hayes Agnew, on his retirement from teaching at the University of Pennsylvan ...
''


Footnotes


References

* * * * * * Micale, M.S. (2004), "Discourses of Hysteria in Fin-de-Siècle France", pp. 71–92 in M.S. Micale (ed.), ''The Mind of Modernism: Medicine, Psychology, and the Cultural Arts in Europe and America, 1880–1940'', Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clinical Lesson at the Salpetriere, A Hypnosis History of medicine in France History of neuroscience History of psychology Psychology experiments Paintings by André Brouillet 1887 paintings Paintings in Paris Medicine in art Fonds national d'art contemporain