Fainting in classical art.
Publisher Summary Fainting (syncope) is a temporary loss of consciousness and posture. Fainting is far commoner than epilepsy, but in art, epileptic seizures are more commonly depicted than fainting. Syncope typically happens in particular situations such as hot crowded environments, including restaurants or aeroplanes, in the doctor's surgery, or in the bathroom at night; specific triggers include prolonged standing, emotional trauma, and pain. Emotional turmoil, particularly grief, usually causes the syncope shown in art; the common causes of syncope in real life, such as prolonged standing and being in hot environments, are rarely shown. Moreover, women in art are much more likely to faint than men, and typically are young, beautiful, and reacting to grief; in real life, the sex ratio only slightly favors women. When men are shown to faint in art, it is often through serious, even life-threatening causes such as severe blood loss or terminal illness. Simple faints in art, particularly in women, often has overtones of a psychogenic component (‘‘swooning’’). Thus, the fainters are often painted with pink skin, eyes closed, and held upright, seemingly without coming to harm.
The Death of General Wolfe
'This painting, which depicts General Wolfe dying at the Battle of Quebec in 1759, is Barry's only canvas treating a modern subject in the rhetoric of history painting. Two Louisbourg Grenadiers support Wolfe, while to the left stand a grieving naval officer and a midshipman. Behind them can be seen sailors pulling cannons up the cliff forming the north bank of the St Lawrence River with a glimpse of the masts of the anchored fleet beyond. At the lower left, daringly cropped by the frame, are the bodies of two of the vanquished - a French officer and his Indian ally. At the right Lt Browne points to the troops advancing across the Plains of Abraham toward the upper town of Quebec as he brings news of the British victory to the expiring general. In choosing this subject Barry was following in the footsteps of Benjamin West, who had exhibited a similar painting at the Royal Academy in 1771.'(Pressly, 60)
Genetic disorders in portraits.
Many artists have depicted genetic disorders in portrait paintings. In some instances such disorders can be identified in self-portraits, most notably the tetralogy of Fallot in the Dutch painter Dick Ket, or in portraits of the famous, such as the Habsburg jaw in the Emperor Charles V. But it is in other portraits that most examples can be found, such as the different types of dwarfism depicted by Velázquez. A table listing over 70 examples is provided.