Histoire des sciences médicales
-
Historical Article
[The disfigured men represented by the great painters (O. Dix - G. Grosz - R. Freida.) Disfiguration in the history of art].
Sophie Delaporte's book, Philippe Paillard's, Chantal Roussels's novels and Dupeyron's movie underline the difficulties of repairing physical and moral sufferings of the "disfigured men" wounded during the Great War. Beside medical and technical didactic aimed drawings the exhibition of wasted, mutilated or out of repair faces remains little known. In France, Germany or Great Britain there are many artists who took part in war. ⋯ The sight of ruined faces inspired such horror that the artists depicted it only exceptionally and with discretion, before 1914. Without doubt it is the fear of touching the privacy of the face which is a part of the human identity. There are no "disfigured men" in the countless religious paintings of torture, neither in the Disasters of Warfrom painters or engravers like Goya or Jacques Callot.