Why pay attention to the artist?

A major part of the focus for this year’s Association for Medical Humanities conference in Truro (10–12 July) will be to examine the perspective of the artist within medical humanities. In part, this is being raised because it is felt that individual artists can become invisible in our field; it is their work that is displayed, discussed, made example of, often without attribution. One of us recently (and rightly) came under fire from an artist at a seminar for showing a work commissioned for a hospital and not mentioning the artist’s name. The problem is that in using the arts for their instrumental value1 it is easy to forget their creators. However, what more do we gain by taking the artist’s perspective into account? Is it more than just polite regard for the genius at work, which enables us to take our understanding of medicine and healthcare in new and exciting directions?

A distinction has to be made here between the role of the artist in arts in health and their role in medical humanities; and between our response to the arts and our consideration and response to the humanities. Looking at this second distinction first, it could be rendered very crudely as follows. When we consider a work of art – a painting, sculpture, a poem, a live performance of a play or music – we respond experientially. We are involved in the art-work with a certain immediacy, and our emotions (even passions) are engaged. When we consider a work of the humanities – history, philosophy, literature, anthropology – the response called from us is discursive, reflective and primarily cognitive. This is, of course, a simplistic distinction …