Art Analysis: The Doctor

Commissioned by Henry Tate, and first exhibited in 1981 in the Royal Academy, “The Doctor” painting was instantly popular. Especially in the medical community and for many others “The Doctor” shows an ideal of 19th century medicine, and retains much of its popularity because of this (Kernahan). This image has even appeared on postage stamps in the United States and Britain. It is one of the fifty-seven original pictures in Tate Britain’s new site donated by Henry Tate.

Fildes paints a young boy lying across two chairs, his face illuminated by the glass lamp on the table. The doctor, dressed in a tailored suit, sits beside the makeshift bed looking down at his patient anxiously. The shade of a lamp is tilted so as to bestow light on the two central figures: the doctor, and the child. Although the majority of the light comes from the lamp, a bit of light also enters from the recessed window near the mother. This is daybreak beginning to come in through the windows. The physician faces away from the bottled medicine and cup on the table and directs his gaze fully on the child. The extent of the youth’s illness can be seen by the half empty medicine bottle on the table, and the bowl and jug, used to relieve the boy’s temperature, on the bench. The bits of paper on the floor could be prescriptions made out by the doctor for medicine now already taken. The boy’s parents are shown in the background. They are placed in such deep shadows that it is frequently difficult to make out these figures in reproductions. The boy’s father, standing in the far back with his hand on the shoulder of his wife whose hands are clasped as if in prayer, looks in to the grave face of the doctor. The mother sits at a table and hides her face in her clasped h...

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...nstein could have also influenced the fictional and romanticized painting of Fildes tragic scene (Kernahan). There is not any standard equipment, nor are there any new technologies within the image, giving it a timeless feeling (Kernahan)..

In 1949 and 1952 “The Doctor” was used by the American Medical Association in a campaign against a proposal for nationalized medical care put forth by Harry S Truman. It was printed on posters and pamphlets along with the slogan “Keep politics out of this picture,” playing on the idealization and romance of the image. The image is also debated still on how accurate it is to the time it was painted and medicine as it was. It is still incredibly popular. After it’s first exhibition, nearly 1 million engraving copies were sold in the United States alone, and is one of the firsts to make the working class a popular subject matter.