Health Care  
Religious Play Performed by American Peasants
(9 1/2 ft x 12 ft, oil on linen)

ART IS LONG. LIFE IS SHORT. THE MOMENT IS BRIEF. THE EXPENSE IS GREAT.

Health care evokes the genre of a German morality play. It portrays an American peasant. Led by Sickness or Death, the peasant comes before a panel of doctors, and insurance adjustors. The Death figure looks frightening like the hazardous materials workers of the twenty first century. although when the artist painted this in 1978, those figures were not known to us. 

The high priests of our society are the doctors. The doctors sit, in their priestly robes looking more like priests or judges. It is they who decide the peasant's fate. The hems of their garments are laced, like those of priests. Several defining symbols assure us of their profession, including the golf club, the AMA medallion, the shield of the medical profession and of the insurance profession, a staff, a stethoscope, a cross held by s character with reds and blues on his collar, and a jester hat on his head. Their hats tell another story, those of doctors. priests, and jester.

"When I panted this in 1978, I thought that its message would be dated and its relevance would soon be lost as time went by. Yet it perhaps one of the most relevant commentaries of contemporary issues facing us in our personal lives; health care and the Doctors, and their relationship to those who insure the care. 

Despite the comical farce, the play is deadly serious. The quote, the subtitle of the painting, is a part of the painting itself - the words appear subtly along the bottom edge of the drama in the painting. "ART IS LONG. LIFE IS SHORT. THE MOMENT IS BRIEF. THE EXPENSE IS GREAT."

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