Contemplation Before Surgery Green

Contemplation Before Surgery Green

“The relationship of the surgeon to the patient is intimate, one on one,” says Wilder’s fellow surgeon C. Everett Koop. “The surgeon knows that he is responsible to the patient and also to the family, his colleagues, the hospital where he works, the profession he represents, the community of the patient, society in general.” And, Koop adds, there is a “spiritual responsibility as well. The patient’s soul, this patient’s spirit, inhabits a body which now I am attempting to invade, to improve, and to avoid violating. The intimacy the surgeon enjoys with a patient,” he admits, “has its drawbacks. When I was a young surgeon there was a time before every operation when I would have to come to grips with that relationship and try to diffuse my emotional attachment to the patient.”Art critic Kuspit picks up on the same dichotomy when he observes that in this series of paintings, “the lower part of the surgeons’ faces are hidden behind an impressive mask, making them seem remote and inhuman— scientific and detached. But their haunted eyes betray their intense feelings and profound sympathy . . . [their] peculiarly vulnerable awareness of the human condition.”

 

Giclée available in the following sizes     24″ x 36″ ,   36″ x 54″ , 40″ x 66″

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