Biraj Dutta
Von Uhl
FIQWS 10108
September 5th, 2019
Charcot, “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière”
Someone once said, “what we see depends mainly on what we look for”. Pictures have
and still, are being used for a visual representation of what took place or how something would
look like. A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière is such a controversial painting because it holds
such a sentimental value to women’s equality and which left with different types of feelings.
Like many, I’ve my own view of this painting. After, observing the picture for a while, I started
to develop different types of emotion towards it. Also, we have to understand what prompted this
painting.
This painting holds more value in this society, then it did 80 years ago. This painting
portrays a lady being held captive by one male, who was holding her in a room full of the gender
of opposing sex. In this painting as it seems her arm is flexed, she still has consciousness. due to
trauma. As it seems the room is full of people, it almost looks like they were using her as an
exhibit for perhaps research? I’ve noticed that these people were paying a close to the woman.
It’s something that doesn’t happen every day, due to its nature it really made an impact on the
society and emotions. Adding on as the women looked helped less, no one was curious about her
wellbeing, which made me bit uncomfortable about the things that took place.
Emotions
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Emotion. What is emotion? Emotion is a characteristic intuitive perspective getting from one’s
conditions, state of mind, or associations with others.
Emotions play a vital role when something is related to our lifestyle or when we explain
the fundamentals of what’s taking place. To understand what emotion the viewer felt by
observing this painting could be related to what I’ve felt. At first glance, I didn’t feel any emotion
towards this painting, but more I looked at it, It gave a sense of curiosity. For many, the observer
of the painting felt heathered by looking at the painting. As I was disturbed by the scene.
I felt this way because when I make a connection to old ages, where women
weren’t treated fairly. They held no value to society. They had no power in this
society, where they weren’t treated as a human being. Most of the women were
housewives.
CONCLUSION
The painting by Charcot, “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière” has more depth than as it
shows to have. For starters the way I believe the artists presented this painting in a form, where it
has more to. To fully understand this painting emotion can’t determine what exactly happened. It
is true feeling of discussed, hatred, and curiosity that wants me to learn about this more. The
painting can be broken down into different stages to have some idea to feel, what might have
been taken place. Only time will tell, hope this never happens in the future, even tho there’s a
famous phase, History repeats it’s self.
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Works Cited
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication license.
