How did advancements in modern medicine influence artists at the turn of the 20th century? How, in turn, did visuality come to dominate health culture?

The human body has perennially been a focus of the visual arts, yet the idea of the 'perfect' body is a largely modern one. This book explores the ways in which visual culture shaped, as well as reflected, public perceptions of health at the turn of the 20th century. In Germany, Austria and Norway, images of idealized or diseased bodies proliferated in illustrated media and visual art, and anxieties over good health dominated popular culture. Newly independent, these countries viewed health and well-being as an issue of national importance; a means of creating social cohesion and strength of identity. Moreover, the drive to enhance medical literacy gave impetus to new forms of medical illustration and narration as well as a burgeoning interest among artists in the medicalized body.

This book presents ten case studies in how modernity manifested in the visual narration and public display of bodies, exploring contexts as diverse as early Swiss sanatoriums, Germany's Freikörperkultur movement, Edvard Munch's vegetarianism, and changing reproductive rights, among others. Together, they reveal the vital role of visual culture in our understanding of what constitutes 'good health'; an ideological construct where health, technology, nationhood, gender, and race are at play. Novel artistic approaches, from interactive pop-up books to over-exposed nude photography, celluloid “stitching” to Oscar Kokoschka's intimate letters to a tuberculosis sufferer, show how modern art offered new understandings of the human body and humans' position in the world. Combining original research and unpublished documents, Picturing Health and Illness in Northern Europe reveals how preconceptions around health and body-image can be traced to a defining moment in modern European history.

Patricia G. Berman is the Feldberg Professor of Art at Wellesley College. Also serving as Professor II at the University of Oslo, she facilitated a multi-year project entitled “Munch, Modernism, and Modernity.” Her books and exhibition catalogues include Munch: Inner Fire (Munch Museum and Palazzo Reale, 2025); Munch|Warhol, and the Multiple Print (2013, American-Scandinavian Foundation); A Fine Regard: Essays in Honor of Kirk Varnedoe (Ashgate, 2008); James Ensor: Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, (Getty Museum Studies on Art, 2002); and Edvard Munch and Women: Image and Myth (Art Services International, 1995).

Marsha Morton is Professor of Art History at Pratt Institute, USA. A specialist in German and Austrian cultural history with a focus on interdisciplinary topics of art, anthropology, science, and music, her books include Max Klinger and Wilhelmine Culture (2014) and the co-edited anthology The Arts Entwined (2000). She is also a co-editor and contributing author to Visual Culture and Pandemic Disease Since 1750: Capturing Contagion (2023).