On art in its relation to anatomy / by William Anderson.

  • Anderson, William.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On art in its relation to anatomy / by William Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and the still more recent works of Testut, Poirier, and others. Photographic illustrations from dissections have been em- ployed in a few anatomical works, with results that are dis- tinctly unpleasant to the eye, and not very profitable to the mind, but it is certain that before long the numerous modifi- cations of photographic reproduction of drawings are likely to displace the wood block altogether, on account both of their cheapness and their unerring though unselective exact- ness. Glyptic Art in Anatomy. Glyptic art as applied to artistic anatomy probably dates from the time when Michael Angelo modelled the muscular forms of figures which he proposed to execute in marble. Becerra, the painter who illustrated Valverde’s book on anatomy, is said to have made the first anatomical figure in plaster for the use of artists. Fischer, a Professor of Anatomy to the Academy of Sculpture in Vienna near the end of the last century, was the author of a striking model constructed for the same purpose; and several other more recent examples which may be seen in most of our schools of art have been provided as a guide for students of drawing. Lami, in the present century, was the designer of a well-known figure, to which he published an atlas of plates, and casts have been taken from actual dissections—one, to be seen in the Royal Academy schools, of a corpse in the position of crucifixion, but, as might be expected, the effect is repulsive, and unredeemed by useful qualities of any kind. The best and most accurate examples are, perhaps, those of the small figure known as “AjaxDefying the Gods,” and the equine model of Auguste Bonheur. Sculpture as adapted to the illustration of medical anatomy is of greater antiquity. The figure found in Rome in the villa of Antonius Musa, the physician to the Emperor Augustus, is perhaps the earliest example in existence, but wood carvings of a similar nature have long been employed both in China and Japan. The more serious specimens, how- ever, are of recent date. One of these, still in use, is a com- plicated life-size model in papier mach£, made in Paris, which can be taken to pieces in such a manner as to demonstrate more or less correctly the form and relations of nearly every part of the body, but the idea has been brought into service in a far more scientific manner by Professor His, who by taking casts of organs that have been hardened in situ has given us a means of studying the topography of the viscera that is far superior to anything before at our disposal. Models in wax, a la Tussaud, have been in use for many years, and much artistic talent has been employed in confer- ring upon them a realistic character, which has sometimes been greatly abused in the interest of the proprietors of quack “ museums.” For purposes of anatomical teaching they have fallen into disuse, although they still supply a want in pathological reproduction. Finally, a word must be said for the votive offerings of models of affected parts of the body made to the gods in the days of ancient Rome, to accompany a prayer to the gods for aid in sickness or thanks for a recovery accomplished. An interesting account of these from the pen of Dr. Sambon has recently appeared in the British Medical Journal.