УМК по внедрению учебного проекта для обучающихся 1 курса учебной дисциплины ОУД.03. Иностранный язык Специальность 34.02.01 Сестринское дело Tuberculosis and the Ideals of Beauty in Painting and Literature.
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             Tuberculosis and the Ideals of Beauty in Painting and Literature.

Tuberculosis is one of the diseases that was described in the literature.  

The women's beauty has been almost one of the strongest sources of inspiration for people of art.

Tuberculosis had reached the  epidemic levels in Europe   by the middle of the 18th century.

The disease is very contagious; it affects the lungs and damages other organs.

The victims of Tuberculosis    gradually became weak and pale and then died.

It seems strange, but the Victorians romanticized the disease. The pale skin was considered as the main girlish appeal.  It was   the result of weight loss and lack of appetite caused by the disease.

To achieve a thin waist the women wore corsets. As a result, the volume of lungs has  decreased, the ribs found one on the other, the internal organs were deformed  (why pregnancy and childbirth were extremely dangerous!).

The Middle-and upper-class women also used cosmetics to emphasize the pallor of the skin.

However, the process of retraction was quite comical. To achieve the desired 40 cm waist, required a second pair of hands, and often feet.

The pale skin and languid glance were symbols of beauty.   Some women drank vinegar. The eyes of a true lady were large and wet, so ladies dropped the drops of belladonna  in their  eyes

It expanded pupils and forced eyes to shine unnaturally, and those who often repeated it, had the vision problems and even total blindness.

Sandro Boticelli, Vasily Polenov, Vasily Perov, Ivan Kramskoi, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Amedeo Modiliani, Rossetti Dante Gabriel – this is not a complete list of names of great artists who had  the images of people suffering from tuberculosis.

The most known  canvas  was   painted by V. L. Borovikovsky (1797), which depicted Maria Lopukhina

These poetic lines of Polonsky are devoted to the beautiful model and the brilliant artist:                        

 Она давно прошла, и нет уже тех глаз

 И той улыбки нет, что молча выражали

Страданье тень любви, и мысли тень печали,

Но красоту ее Боровиковский спас.

Так часть души ее от нас не улетела,

 И будет этот взгляд и эта прелесть тела

К ней равнодушное потомство привлекать,

Уча его любить, страдать, прощать, молчать.

Borovikovsky  created a "standard" of portrait painting. Of course, we know that Lopukhinа  was ill with tuberculosis and died  after writing a portrait

Russian artist Vasily Polenov in 1873   wrote  another  famous painting

He met Elizabeth Boguslavskaya in Rome, she was a student who came abroad to study, she was seriously ill and died of pulmonary tuberculosis. Lisa became a model for the picture.

Many artists suffered from tuberculosis themselves

Vasily  Perov (1834-1882) –  is a famous Russian painter

In 1874, the artist learnt that he was sick with tuberculosis, which at that time was almost impossible to cure.

In 1882, after a severe painful illness, the painter died.

Gradually the fashion for thinness left and the next era came.

Tuberculosis is one of the diseases which were described in the literature.

According to the novels whose heroes suffered from TB you can study the symptoms of disease.

Personal experiences of authors who were sick themselves or they had sick relatives, helped in depicting true characters in their works.

The writers so openly mentioned in their novels the creations of this disease  and  they often described   the suffering of TB patients.

Let us turn to the works of art of the last two centuries.  The writers of the 19th century considered tuberculosis as a «noble" disease and "infected" their heroes in order to emphasize the tragedy of their lives. For a long time it was believed that tuberculosis is developed in people who were sad and suffered from personal dramas.

Alexandre Dumas     1824 – 1895

Alexander’s childhood was not happy. He was an illegitimate. His mother, Catherine Labe, was a simple seamstress and his stepmother, Ida Ferrier, who married Dumas father, disliked her stepson.  He had only one- a pension.

In 1831 his father legally recognized him and the young Dumas received the best education. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother. At boarding schools, he was constantly taunted by his classmates because of his family situation. These issues profoundly influenced his thoughts, behaviour, and writing. The real love the younger Dumas met in 1844.

It was a beautiful courtesan. Her name was  Marie Duplessis and  she was the most elegant woman in the capital. But his poverty and her careless attitude to money led to parting in a year. She fell ill with TB.

Alexander Dumas-son  became a wealthy man and a famous classic. In his works he touched upon important social problems .He was married twice. He died in 1895. He was buried in Montmartre cemetery in Paris, a hundred meters from Marie Duplessis, the only woman he loved. He remembered her all his life and repented cruelly in his first marriage. He wrote  the novel  “The Lady of the Camellias” This history was  taken  from his  life,   and  those,  who in the novel  was called Marguerite, in the life  was  - Marie Duplessis.