Les maladies dans l'art antique

Considering its richness, Greek and Roman art remains distinctly under-utilized in medical-historical studies of the period. It poses, of course, substantial methodological problems, as Grmek and Gourevitch outline in the introductory sections of their welcome overview of the pathological side of this subject. There is a realist strand in ancient art (particularly marked in the Roman era, with its rugged, "warts and all" portraiture), and in discussing why viewers admire representations of ugliness, illness, deformity and immorality, classical commentators stressed that it was the accuracy of the act of representation itself, art's precise imitation of nature, that was admirable, even beautiful, not the objects or scenes portrayed; however, many other artistic styles and practices are also apparent in antiquity. Stereotypes and caricatures abound, mythological depictions outnumber the quotidian, and artefacts come from a range of cultural contexts, such as the religious, which may further complicate their interpretation. Then there are the matters of forgery and damage; after all the number of armless classical statues is not to be taken as indicative of ancient amputation-rates! None the less, Grmek and Gourevitch are optimistic that, approached with care, scrutinized alongside the literary evidence (medical and otherwise), with due regard to historical context and productive genre, classical images can be made to reveal valuable information about their world, and about its diseases, their prevalence and meaning. It is both possible and rewarding to practise a cautious "icono-diagnosis" of the past. They have, therefore, scoured the artistic remains of Greece and Rome, most especially its sculptures, terracottas, and vase-paintings, but also, for instance, its frescoes, bronzes, engraved mirrors and mosaics, trying to identify those which might be considered to be proper representations of disease, images from which a realistic retrospective diagnosis can be made, as distinct from those which portray pathology in a much more broad and unspecific sense. That is, for example, which of the ubiquitous "grotesque" figures are simply compounds of recognized grotesque attributes such as large and distorted facial features, misshapen bodies and overgrown genitals-and which depict identifiable conditions, such as hunchback caused by tuberculosis of the spine, or rickets; which portraits of individual kings and emperors, for instance, demonstrate congenital hormonal disorders, and which just the conventions of monarchic imagery; whether the upward tilt of the head which so strongly characterizes portrayals of Alexander the Great derives from a medical condition or cultural aspirations and aesthetics. The material is organized, …