The paper, either today or yesterday, had a little 50 word snip-it about a Raphael’s portrait of a lady. They theory now is that this picture portrays a woman with breast cancer. Pointing to the lump that she seems to have.
This theory has also been used to explain the strange shape for the breasts in Michelangelo’s Night from the Medici tomb.
The strange shapes had previously been explained away by saying that artists used male models and simply added breasts to create female subject matter; therefore the breasts, having not been drawn from life, were lacking in naturalism. While it may be the case that in many times in history men were used as models for women, there seems to be something a bit different with these two pieces.
Doctors have carefully studied the “lumps” and have even “diagnosed” which stage of breast cancer these women are in.
I wonder why breast cancer has shown up in these two works from the great masters of art. Was breast cancer simply prevelant at this time, perhaps looked on as a new kind of beauty?