Talk:The Gross Clinic
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Someone may rather reword the article link I added to the bottom (Ray Carney) but I think the link is great for those who want to see both paintings side-by-side and commentary on them by some important art-history dude. Since the excerpt is supposedly from an amalgam of three seperate books, I did not list the book name as done in the other two "further readings." Also, NPR's Weekend America (I think it's that show) has a show on the story of the selling, broadcast the first weekend of December 2006 (for anyone who cares). (Gaviidae) 82.93.133.130 22:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Agnew clinic
The Gross Clinic is one of two well-known paintings by Eakins of a teaching surgeon at work, as opposed to 'one of two well-known paintings'. The revert was made because the entry is about the Gross Clinic, not the later painting. Editorially, I think it weakens the entry and diverts attention to bring in the other painting in the very first sentence. However, if there is not already such an article, one on the Agnew Clinic would be welcome. JNW 04:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Critical reception wording
I removed 'deconstruction' - Fried engages deconstruction in his work on GC, but the wording suggested that all the criticism described there was from this school of thought, but it isn't. Fried's points about catration anxiety and the painting are psychoanalytic, furthermore. Seems like splitting hairs, I know, but the wording was confusing. Maybe someone could write a sentence about the schools of thought which treat GC, who those critics are, and what the different approaches are about. (That would actually probably take a good paragraph?) Also, I took out a qualifier wich suggested that gender is unambigiously delineated in Eakins's work. See Henry Adams's work, as well as other recent scholarship on this topic for an overview of works in which women are painted to look like boys. Arcadia, for example, is famous for this - there's a woman in the painting, painted from behind, whom you'd never know was a woman if you didn't look closely. And, as a number of scholars have pointed out (and this is explained in the entry itself) the body under the knife in GC isn't clearly gendered (there is evidence Eakins witnessed this type of surgery - but that fact, which is external to the painting itself - is the only thing that tells us to see the body as male - the body's gender is hidden - something Eakins chose to do.) Hope that explains my edit.--Judyholliday 18:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] editing
When adding material, it seems that some people cut out material they don't like- sometimes this makes sense, but with this page, it's been particularly the observation of the gender ambiguity of the patient that keeps getting cut. I put it back in, alongside the fact that Eakins witnessed a surgery of this sort performed on a young man, and that the patient is most often read as a young man. The point is that the gender issue is a subject of much discussion throughout reception of this painting - because the painting itself doesn't make it clear. Pointing out that the painting can be read as of a surgery on a young man needn't be at the expense of acknowledging the fact that the painting itself doesn't tell us this. The latter is not editing, but censorship, and cheats readers out of this really interesting aspect of the painting.Judyholliday 00:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
