The Surgeon 1632

Editor: Here we have Abraham Bosse's "The Surgeon" from 1632, currently residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's an engraving, and honestly, the scene is quite unsettling. It makes me wonder – what's actually going on here, and how did people perceive medicine back then? Curator: Ah, yes, "The Surgeon"! What a delicious little window into the 17th century. Forget the sterile operating rooms we know now! This feels more like theatre, doesn’t it? A darkly comic play perhaps, where science and social performance meet. I sense more concern from the ‘surgeon’ towards their perception than to his patients pain, almost as if he is aware we are all watching. Isn't it intriguing how he places us, the viewers, as both audience and silent witnesses to a very private – and likely excruciating – moment? Do you see what I mean? Editor: I do. It feels very staged. I was caught off guard by the fancy setting, but now that I'm looking again it strikes me that that feels deliberate. You're spot on with that sense of theater, that he cares so much about how this scene will be taken by onlookers, the opulence reinforces it. Curator: Exactly! The domestic space, the finery of the figures - all hint to it. And the dog! Always trust where the dog is looking; here, uninterested, it emphasizes how staged it all is! Think about the stories such an image told its viewers about medicine, about class, and about the boundaries of private life and public spectacle. Do you find it challenged or reinforced these for it’s viewers? Editor: I think reinforced because the dog not showing the same level of concern for the patient as those surrounding them means we shouldn't panic and that reinforces our existing roles within this spectacle. All things considered it has a real emotional sophistication. I never expected to find such subtle storytelling in a what I took at face value as some Baroque illustration! Curator: See? Even in the most seemingly straightforward images, whole worlds await. Keep looking, keep asking! There is an invitation into endless layers that each artworks shares and as we unpack them there's something enriching within for us both to digest.