The image I chose is an oil painting of a child birthing scene by a French painter, which depicts a very detailed picture of a woman in the 1800 giving birth.
In this painting, the woman giving birth has a very pale, distressed facial expression and it seems as though she has lost a lot of hair on the crown of her head which is a symptom of pregnancy. She is also undressed from the stomach down but is still wearing socks with a blue band to prevent the sock from falling. The man behind her might be her husband holding her up. He seems more excited and happy rather then sharing the distress the woman is in because of the position of his hand on the side. There are two other woman that seem to be helping the woman with the child birth. One of them is obviously much older than anyone in the entire painting kneeling down, calmly and professionally wrapping the pregnant woman’s leg while holding the body of the infant. The other woman is standing behind the whole scene pouring water on a pan for the infant to lie on to bathe him/her. From the furniture and utensils in the painting, the family doesn’t seem to be very wealthy and the room seems fairly empty with not much furniture or objects.
What is so striking about this painting to me is that the painter chose to show the full frontal view of what giving birth was like at that time including the blood and half of the infant’s body sticking out of the woman’s vaginal region. The entire vaginal area is very much blatantly displayed with blood dripping from the cloth to the floor. Compared to the images seen in class, this painting is sending a more positive vibe. Child birth may seem very painful and bloody but it’s actually a very happy event to give life.
V0017247 A birth-scene. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, Åbo, Sw
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
A birth-scene. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, Åbo, Sweden (later Turku, Finland), 1800.
1800 Published: –
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
