Arsts &
Anatomists
Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, PhD
Burton and Deedee McMurtry Curator and Director of the Curatorial Fellowship Program
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Introducon
Aer the sixteenth century, the processes by which European arsts
gained knowledge of human anatomy increasingly informed images
ranging from the documentary to the fantascal. Instead of learning
anatomy and proporon exclusively by copying old master works
of art, arsts sought new and direct opportunies to understand
the mechanics of the body. They studied live models and aended
anatomical demonstraons held at academies and studios—or sought
out work with medical men with access to corpses. Anatomists also
hired drasmen and printmakers to create visual records of their
research, an experience oering exceponal access and insight.
Whether created to represent an empirical or imagined encounter,
these representaons of the body oen reveal society’s conicted
feelings about anatomical study being research toward a greater
good, or a perverse and sacrilegious violaon.
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1. Jan Stephan van Calcar’s woodcut tle page to
the 1543 text The Epitome (Of Human Corporal Anatomy)
by physician and anatomist Andreas Vesalius (Flanders,
1514–1564) depicts students and onlookers gathered around
Vesalius while he teaches from a female corpse. Meant to
evoke the anatomy theater at the University of Padua where
Vesalius was a professor, the image blends fact with dramac
ourishes of con. It presents an idealized imagining of
Vesalius direcng the empirical study of a body in a space that
resembles a church or theatrical stage. A skeleton holding an
instructor’s sta is seated on a railing just above the corpse,
as if to preside over the lesson, and above it hovers a placard
with the book’s tle.
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2. Giorgio Ghisi’s image of resurrecon is populated
with animated skeletons and bodies with esh, all in dierent
states of completeness. These may have been drawn from
anatomical specimens or inspired by the animated skeletons
and bodies in the landmark anatomical atlas that had been
published in 1543 by Andreas Vesalius (Flanders, 1514–1564).
Ghisi worked in Rome in the 1540s, at which me he studied
monuments from anquity and may have studied with painter
Giulio Romano (Italy, 1499–1546).
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1. Jan Steven van Calcar, Italy, b. Germany, c. 1499–c. 1546. Title Page to The Epitome (Of Human Corporal Anatomy) / Epitome, Von des Menschen Cörpers Anatomey, 1543. Woodcut. 17 x 10-1/4 in.
(sheet) 43.2 x 24 cm (sheet). Robert E. and Mary B. P. Gross Fund, 2012.591.a-b
2. Giorgio Ghisi, Italy, 1520–1582. The Vision of Ezekiel, 1554. Engraving. 16 1/8 x 26 7/8 in 41 x 68.3 cm. Lent by Kirk Edward Long, L.15.352.2007
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3. This print by William Hogarth also was inspired in part by
the tle page image to the 1543 anatomical text by Andreas Vesalius
(Flanders, 1514–1564) in the Cantor collecon. It presents the
end of character Tom Nero, who had been executed by hanging for
murdering his pregnant girlfriend. England’s Murder Act of 1751
mandated that criminals executed for murder could not be buried.
Furthermore, anatomists could take any bodies not claimed by family.
The print’s tle suggests that the dissecon, witnessed by students
and indierent onlookers who paid admission, is the criminal’s true
punishment. Hogarth aended dissecons and, when he ran a
drawings studio, engaged surgeon William Hunter (1718–1783) to
instruct his students.
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4. Samuel Ireland’s unaering sare may depict the Scosh
brothers John (1728–1793) and William Hunter (1718–1783), who
counted among the most inuenal surgeons and anatomists of their
day. The image expresses eighteenth-century Britain’s conicted
ideas about anatomical study. Its physicians enjoyed an internaonal
reputaon for pioneering research based on the latest philosophical
approaches and technologies informed by empirical study. At the
same me, public opinion of anatomists was tainted by associaons
with grave-robbing, which provided fodder for sarists.
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5. In the late 1960s, African American painter Jacob Lawrence
generated a series of drawings reacng the work of anatomist
Andreas Vesalius (Flanders, 1514–1564). The drawings depict the
raw architecture of man, here surrounded with representaons
of construcon work, including saws, hammers, chisels, awls,
nails, and a plumb line that dangles from the ayed man’s hands.
As with Lawrence’s many images of builders, the tools reference
the centuries of unacknowledged contribuon made by Africans
and Black Americans labor to the industry and infrastructure in
the United States. But here, the body is stripped of its skin—and
its outward racial identy—to reveal the interplay of muscles and
tendons; this imagery expresses broader ideas about what, literally,
makes the man.
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3. William Hogarth England, 1697–1764. The Reward of Cruelty, 1751. Etching with engraving. 50.6 x 42.3 cm
(sheet) 19-15/16 x 16-5/8 in. (sheet). Gi of H. E. Pearson, 1989.126
4. Samuel Ireland, England, c. 1760–1800. Doctors Dissecng, 1785. Etching. 9-7/8 x 11-15/16 in. 25.1 x 30.3 cm.
Commiee for Art Acquisions Fund, 1986.23
5. Jacob Lawrence, U.S.A., 1917–2000. Human Figure aer Vesalius, 1968. Graphite on paper. 23-7/8 x 18 in. 60.6
x 45.7 cm. Gi of Dr. Herbert J. Kayden and Family in memory of Dr. Gabrielle H. Reem, 2013.101
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6. Cornelis Cort engraved this image aer a drawing by Stradanus
(Flanders, 1523–1605), a member of the Accademia del Disegno in
Florence, which had been founded in 1563. The image represents the
experience of formal art instrucon by depicng students praccing
painng, sculpture, engraving, architectural design, and drawing in
an imaginary gallery space. In the le foreground, students draw
directly from a skeleton. A man wearing spectacles raises a knife
to a suspended corpse in order to remove the skin and reveal the
muscles. This prominent depicon of anatomical study emphasizes the
importance given to direct study of the body.
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7. By the sixteenth century, Padua was Europe’s center for
anatomical study. In addion, Italian arsts were known for dissecng
corpses on their own in order to study them closely and, ulmately, to
beer depict bodies in history painngs. In Pietro Francesco Alber’s
imagining of an art academy, students draw from a skeleton and, in
the background at right, men gather around a body being opened at
the chest. A painng of the Crucixion hangs above the anatomizaon
table. The arms of the corpse extend in a pose similar to that of Christ,
and the male gures in the painng seem to react to both.
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8. An instructor and three youths stand at the bases
of elevated statues of Hercules, Apollo, and Venus in the
upper le quarter of this imaginave depicon of an art
academy. The instructor directs the students toward a
cast of an ecorché, a corpse with the skin removed, rather
than the classical sculptures. The teacher’s acons stress
the Enlightenment belief that the arst must study nature
directly in addion to the more tradional and stylized
interpretaons of the body.
6. Cornelis Cort, the Netherlands, 1533–before 1578. The Pracce of the Visual Arts, 1578.
Engraving. 17 3/16 in. x 11 3/4 in. (plate) 18 x 12 5/8 in. (sheet) 43.7 x 29.9 cm. Lent by Kirk
Edward Long, L.15.234.2007
7. Pier Francesco Alber, Italy, 1584–1638. The Academy of Painters (Academia d’Pitori), c. 1610.
Etching. 20-3/4 x 16-1/8 in. 52.7 x 41 cm. Commiee for Art Acquisions Fund, 1975.4
8. Nicolas Dorigny, France, 1658–1746. To Youthful Students of Design, 1728. Engraving. 16-5/16
x 11-1/4 in. 41.5 x 28.5 cm. Robert E. and Mary B. P. Gross Fund, 2007.3
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9. Juan Conchillos Falcó trained at the Royal Academy in Valencia and worked as a court painter in
Madrid. Now he is remembered primarily for his ne drasmanship. The male gure is naturalisc and closely
observed; most likely he was drawn by lamplight, which accounts for the dramac, ickering highlights
rendered in white chalk. Vigorously drawn lines in black chalk arculate the shadowy contours of the model’s
musculature, parcularly in his legs, and his dynamic pose.
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10. Professional and amateur arsts consulted manuals when learning to draw, and Denis Diderot’s
(France, 1713–1784) Encyclopédie featured a signicant explanaon of the art and science that informs
drawing. This illustraon presents the musculature of the lower leg and a guide to the proporons of the feet,
which speaks to the Enlightenmen impulse to observe, document, and disseminate standards for measuring
and interpreng nature.
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11. Printmaker Beth Van Hoesen aended Stanford University in the mid-1940s and produced this
drawing while studying with painter and muralist Victor Arnauto (1890–1979), who taught from 1938
to 1962. By assigning students to draw a full-length study of a skeleton, Arnauto pushed them to closely
observe and develop familiarity with the essenal structure and proporons of the body. Van Hoesen
arculated physical mass and shadow by applying ink washes to represent the curves and hollows of the
bones. She went well beyond the assignment by implying movement and sassy individuality through the
skeleton’s jaunty pose and direct engagement of the viewer.
9. Juan Conchillos Falcó, Spain, 1641–1711. Male Nude, 1702. Charcoal with blue and white chalk on paper. 16-5/16 x 11-1/4 in. 41.5 x 28.5 cm. Mormer C. Leventri Fund, 1976.95
10. Robert Bénard, France, b. 1734. Drawing, Legs and Feet. (Dessein, Jambes et Pieds.), 1762–1777. Engraving. Gi of Dr. and Mrs. Jud R. Scholtz, 1978.118.19
11. Beth Van Hoesen, U.S.A., 1926–2010. Stanford (Arnauto Class), 1945. Graphite and ink on paper. 29-3/4 x 19-1/4 in. 75.6 x 48.9 cm. Gi of the Estate of Beth Van Hoesen,
2011.62
