Brain Imprintations

 

                                        This is a painting of the founding doctor where I work.  Him and the doctor who lured him to La Crosse were really the first doctors in the area with bonafide medical degrees.  There were lots of docs running around then who were really just quacks.  Anyways this guy when he took charge of the newly built hospital had an instance where a quack doctor put a scalpel through a patient's eye.  This pissed him off and prompted him to take lengths to ban unqualified doctors from his hospital.  The quacks came after him with lawsuits, like around 100 lawsuits. They used to have a book with all of the original court documents in the main lobby.  He won every single case.  Later when the Great Depression hit the hospital was struggling to stay open, so he put what would be the equivalent of one million dollars today of his own money into it to keep it going.  He also had fantastic taste in artists.  Unfortunately it is not known who painted it.  This painting is fascinating to me because it tends to illicit strong reactions from people, and it comes off differently to different people.  Some of the other cleaning ladies are scared of it.  In their defense he was also a strict if he caught workers talking it was automatic termination.  One floor guy Richard thinks he looks like a condescending prick.  Although it should maybe be noted Richard hates it there and views the hospital as being like the Twilight Zone.  My Dad, who has never been an employee there, thought he looked benevolent.  I fall in between if it is a slow day and I am being a lazy cleaning lady he looks majorly pissed off to me, but if I am having a hectic one break have to stay late kind of day he looks sympathetic to me.  I am sure a lot of this is in my head, but I think there are some artistic tricks here as well.  I think it is kind of like implied line where the artist doesn't fully draw things in because human brains will fill it in.  Only I think this is imprinted emotion.  Because really the doctor's face in the painting is neutral, so I think that our monkey brains imprint whatever emotional biases or whatever onto the painting. In contrast to this painting there used to be another of a different doctor with a very big smile.  That one didn't have quite the same effect because that one the expression was definite.  I think part of the mystique surrounding the Mona Lisa is due to her fairly neutral facial expression, and people imprinting onto her.