Images of nursing in professional and cultural contexts

Images of Nursing

1897 Pablo Picasso

1856 Jerry Barrett

As we have noted, there are numerous images that are effective in establishing the image and role of nursing to the general public. Two prime examples are a surprisingly poetic "Science and Charity," an 1897 work by 17-year-old Pablo Picasso, and a work from 1856, "Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari -- or The Mission of Mercy," by Jerry Barrett.

"Science and Charity" is oil on canvass and was one of the very few "realistic" paintings done by Pablo Picasso. This academic painting shows a woman on her deathbed, a doctor on her right and a nun on her left. The doctor looks away from the patient as he takes her pulse and goes about his science. The religious sister holds the woman's soon-to-be-orphaned child, offering a glass toward the woman. Both the nun and the doctor wear the same colors of black and white, and appear as two sides of a scale. But the balance is tipped slightly toward the sister as the light shines on her while the doctor is cast in shadow. At the moment of death his science is useless, but the charitable care of the sister seems to offer comfort. It is clear that the image of care is not focused upon the doctor, but rather on the active role the nurse/nun is playing not only with the child, but also with the offer of a drink (tea, medicine, water?).

"Florence Nightingale," also an oil on canvass was almost never completed. Jerry Barrett, a famous portrait painter of the time, traveled from England to Scutari (in modern Turkey) after so much of Nightingale's work was exposed in the newspapers. Again, this is a case in which art mimics life -- Nightingale was too focused on her duties as a nurse to worry about posing for a painting. And, in the painting, her calm dedication is certainly revealed along with her charity.

Both works are in the style of portraiture, but in different modes. "Florence" is depicting an historical event -- one that would provide positive propaganda once revealed. "Science," on the other hand, is a young man's experiment using an older format (Picasso's father and teacher was the model for the doctor) that was cynical enough to transfer the power from the doctor to the nurse based on Picasso's likely impressions of the way caregivers were seen by society.

Both paintings overflow with the emotions of calmness, duty, and quiet authority, and both have a semblance of religious symbolism that transcends their format. In "Science," even the nurse/nun is being practical and multitasking, we know there is religion at work because of her costume. There is likely an icon of some type above the bed, but the pallor and demeanor of the patient make it quite clear that this is a deathbed. Yet, in "Florence," there is almost a prayerful reverence at the center of the painting -- the tending of the wounded becomes almost a religious offering.