I am slowly discovering the absurdities in Psychosurgery …, Freeman, Watts and Hunt’s book of 1942. One picture in it is a photograph of a patient’s belly. The author wonders why doctors have given her so many abdominal surgeries when what she really needs is a frontal lobotomy. This is my painting of the belly after a day’s work.
I wanted to begin adding more red to my paintings to express the anger I feel when I read about injustices, and inhumanity. Tomorrow I pick up the book Psychosurgery; intelligence, emotion and social behavior following prefrontal lobotomy for mental disorders by Freeman, Watts, and Hunt. I have also been seeking more information about the authors and found that GWU has their papers: so much more to learn and be angry about.
This painting is of a man who looks like anyone I may come across in the course of a day. I wish it were possible to know the physiognomy of evil, but despite that pseudoscience’s best efforts, no such characteristics have been defined with any accuracy. This portrait is from a photograph I came across while searching the stacks at my local public library. The book it was found in is Hooded Americanism; the first century of the Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1965 by David Mark Chalmers, 1st edition, published by Doubleday in 1965. One can read more about Hiram Wesley Evans at the Texas State Historical Association site.