the dark side of the moon: Human Anatomy : The Medical Theatre

Hombre de Vitruvio, de Leonardo da Vinci.

Históricamente se tiene constancia de que la anatomía era enseñada por Hipócrates en el siglo IV antes de Cristo. Se atribuye a Aristóteles el uso por primera vez de la palabra griega ἀνατομία (‘anatomía’) derivada del verbo ἀνατέμνειν anatémnein es decir cortar (témnein) de abajo a arriba(ána) con el significado de diseccionar (separando las partes cortadas). El descubrimiento de la anatomía humana está íntimamente ligado a la anatomía artística. Se puede concretar más aún y afirmar que los conocimientos de la anatomía humana y la artística discurren paralelos a la historia del desnudo en el arte y en la vida cotidiana.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer - Pieter van Mierevelt (1596-1623)

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp - Rembrandt van Rijn

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deyman - Rembrandt van Rijn

The Gross Clinic - Thomas Eakins

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Frederick Ruysch - Jan van Neck

Two dissected heads, on sacking. 1748
Jacques Fabian Gautier d'Agoty

Juan Valverde de Amusco, Anatomie del corpo humano, 1559

Witches in a Cellar , 1604 - Jacques de Gheyn

Dissection of a pregnant woman at full term - William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774)

The Reward of Cruelty, 1751 - William Hogarth

The text at the bottom -

"Behold, the Villain's dire disgrace,
Not Death itself can end;
He finds no peaceful Burial Place,
His breathless corpse—no friend.

"Torn form the Root that wicked Tongue,
Which daily swore and curst;
Those Eyeballs from thier Sockets wrung,
That glow'd with lawless Lust.

"His Hear exposed to prying Eyes,
To Pity had no Claim;
But dreadful ! from his Bones shall rise
His Monument of Shame."

Visceral figure from Andreas Vesalius, On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543)

The Anatomical Theatre at Leiden University , 1610

De Humani Corporis Fabrica
Andreas Vesalius
(1514-1564)
[anatomist]
Stephen van Calcar and the Workshop of Titian
[artists]

Vesalius dissects a cadaver in the center of a crowded anatomical theater, while Death hovers over the scene. Before De Fabrica, depictions of dissection had the anatomist presiding at some distance from the cadaver, while lower ranking barber-surgeons did the dirty work of dissecting.

Anatomische Tafeln, 1656
Giulio Casserio(1552-1616)
[anatomist]

This clumsy frontispiece features five notable anatomists posed around a cadaver. In the center of the picture, the image of the Earth, with the continent of "America" visible, signifies that the anatomized body is a "New World," and dissection a voyage of discovery

Tabulae anatomical ligamentorum corporus humani, 1803
Floriano Caldani(1772-1836)
[anatomist]
Cajetano Bosa
[artist]

The dissection of a body in an arcadian or classical setting, sometimes attended by muses or iconic medical figures such as Hippocrates, was a favorite subject for the anatomical frontispieces in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The dissection of a young, beautiful woman
Paul Ronard, 1864

F Hanfstaengl, after a painting by GCR von Max, 1869

This is a print recording a lost painting by Gabriel von Max of 1869, painted in Munich. An anatomist meditates, chin in hand, on the body of a young, beautiful woman, pulling back the cloth that covers her body in order to gaze upon her. On the desk beside him are open books, a lamp, and human and animal skulls. As well as being tools of study, they function as symbols of death, as does the moth that has alighted next to the cadaver.

The picture could be regarded as bordering on necrophilia, and would no doubt have been condemned by the British art experts of the day, but the enormous popularity of such morbid pictures as Arnold Böcklin's 'Island of the dead' (1880) attest to the interest in pictures of such themes, however unhealthy they may be considered.

Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty

The Extraction of the Stone of Madness or The Cure of Folly, c, 1494
Hieronymus Bosch

The Surgeon. c. 1550
Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500 – c. 1566)

State University Medical Department Toland Hall dissecting room, 1870's

The interior of a dissecting room.1900

Trepanning operationTaken from 'Le chirvrgie françoise recueillie des antiens médecins et chirurgien Avec plvsievrs figvres des instrumens necesseres pour l'opération manuelle', Paris, 1594

Cutting Out the Stone of Madness or an Operation on the Head, 1568
Pieter the Elder Bruegel

Une fin à l’école pratique, 1902
Camille Félix Bellanger

Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams (Anatomia Humani Corporis )
Amsterdam, 1690. Copperplate engraving with etching. National Library of Medicine.
Govard Bidloo, anatomist
(1649-1713)
Gérard de Lairesse, artist
(1640-1711)