At the bedside of the sick

Luigi Nono's 'At the Bedside of the Sick' (1885) belongs to his paintings of women in emotional situations — here in a caregiving role beside an ill person. The sickroom subject was a Victorian-era genre that engaged the domestic dimensions of women's lives: caring for the ill, managing the household through crisis, maintaining the family through hardship. Nono's treatment brings his characteristic technical polish to a subject of genuine emotional weight, the sickroom's quiet drama different from the picturesque sentiment of his lighter subjects.

Nono renders the sickroom with careful attention to the quality of interior light — the muted illumination of a room where a sick person lies, the careful management of light so as not to disturb the patient creating the distinctive visual atmosphere of the sickroom. His figure of the attending woman is placed with the stillness and attention of caregiving, her posture conveying the watchful, sustained attention that nursing required.