c

Goya’s self portrait with Dr Arrieta

28th November 2010 by Judith Harvey

Doctors don’t feature much in art. True, the walls of royal colleges record changing fashions in portraiture, and wealthy society doctors like to commission pictures of themselves. Satirists like Hogarth have lampooned the quacks and moody Scandinavians included them as bit players in deathbed scenes.  But only rarely does a picture featuring a doctor command our attention.

In his seventies, deaf and widowed, Francisco Goya was living at Quinta del Sordo (the Deaf Man’s Farmhouse) near Madrid and covering its walls with his nightmare visions. Now known now as the black paintings, they hang today in the Prado in Madrid. He fell ill and was attended by his friend Dr Eugenio García Arrieta. He recovered, and the next year painted ‘Goya curado por el doctor Arrieta’ (‘Goya cured by Doctor Arrieta’) as a thank-you for his friend.

Goya’s self-portrait shows how ill he was. His skin is grey, his eyes sunken, his jaw slack. He plucks at the sheets. Behind the two men other faces are faintly visible; perhaps Goya is hallucinating. He has no strength. Arrieta, his arm round the painter, props him up and urges him to drink. The liquid in the glass is brownish. Is it medicine, or perhaps wine which may well have been a safer fluid to take than water? The doctor’s expression is intense; he has his eyes on the glass as he lifts it to Goya’s lips. At this moment he is not permitting himself to yield to sorrow.

Read more

No credit card details needed – it takes two minutes.

Join free trial

Login

Already a member? Login to view this content.

Login

"We have used LocumDeck for a number of months now and find it really useful when booking locums. You can see the availability of GPs, their documents are all loaded on the site and you can book instantly – it takes minutes to do. There are also no expensive locum agency fees to pay – just the GP’s actual payment. It's quick and hassle-free."

Lesley Munro-Faure, Managing Partner, Unity Health, Buckinghamshire

See the full list of features within our NASGP membership plans

Membership