Is There a Doctor in the Met?

So, today's NYTimes has an article about medical school students who are required to take an art-history class. The idea behind this, as explained by a Yale medical professor, is that "With heightened observational skills . . . physicians can often ask the questions necessary to make correct diagnoses without relying too much on costly blood tests and X-rays."

GREAT. Just what we need. Doctors who've looked at a portrait of Dora Maar and now can tell something's wrong with a patient who has two eyes on one side of her face. Jesus.

The article follows the students on a short tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What did they look at? Well, one piece was Giacometti's Three Men Walking II (1949).

"This is very interesting," said Max Berenbaum, "because anorexia is rare in men, but the rise of men's fashion magazines and the emphasis on looks in gay male culture has led to a spike in cases of anorexia nervosa among males."

There was much discussion of Gerhard ter Borch's Young Woman at Her Toilet with a Maid (ca. 1650-51).

"Is the weak chin a result of severe inbreeding?" asked Priya Pradhnarapoor. "Or a form of Mongoloidism?"

About Bouguereau's The Proposal, however, the diagnosis was unanimous:

"The moustache has got to go."

Not discussed in the Times but shown in the background of an accompanying photograph--

-- is Balthus's Thérèse Rêvant (1938).

This painting was examined solely by those students specializing in OB-GYN.