Image with Commentary
May 2012
While the colors of skin, muscle, blood, bone and bile remain the same, the colors and styles of surgical clothing change. Likewise, the artists' palette of colors changes depending on the techniques in vogue at the time. The formal attire of Thomas Eakins' "Gross Clinic" (1875) evolved into the white grocer's apron of Ernst von Bergmann (1886). The white gowns of Jacob Lawrence's "Harlem Hospital" (1953) change into the green and blue gowns worn in today's hospitals. The somber palette of Thomas Eakins' browns and black has been replaced by realistic tricolor photographs. Digital photography extends these possibilities further, rendering the operating room in dreamlike saturated high dynamic range (HDR) colors.
This panoramic image is a composite of six images overlaid and stitched together by computer software. A complex blend of shapes and colors emerges from a darkened operating room where the surgical team performs a laparoscopic robotic surgical procedure. (2012)