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	Book Reviews

The Anatomy of Gender:
Arts of the Body in Early Modern Europe

January 3 - March 12, 2006

Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art
Northwestern University
40 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
tel. 847-491-4000
hours: Tue 10a-5p, Wed-Fri 10a-8p,
Sat-Sun 12p-5p, Closed Mondays
http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/

The Anatomy of Gender: Arts of the Body in Early Modern Europe traces the evolution of anatomical illustration from 1540 to the mid-1800s, with particular attention to interpreting attitudes and conceptions gender of implicit in the portrayal of male and female bodies. Modest in size at twenty-one works, it nevertheless incorporates several of the most influential texts of early modern anatomy, including Andreas Vesalius's groundbreaking De humana corporis fabrica (1568), Bernard Albinus's great folio-sized Tabula sceleti (1747), and William Hunter's detailed obstetrical text, Anatomia uteri humani (1774). These rare illustrated volumes are complemented by anatomical models in bronze, ivory and wax, providing a survey that ranges from the Classical conventions of the Renaissance to the uncompromising reality of the 18th century Edinburgh obstetricians. There is much of richness here. Yet with all that it has to offer, the subtly aggrieved, at times almost aggressive gender perspectives applied to the exhibition's assessments of sex and science all but eclipse the value of these remarkable engravings and woodcuts for the casual viewer.

In and of themselves, irrespective of any study which may be applied to them, the selection of works on exhibition make The Anatomy of Gender well worth a special trip, incorporating several rare works considered anatomical classics in their own right. The Vesalius and Albinus books alone are considered the two most influential works of the genre, and any chance to view them, particularly the Albinus with its striking large-scale folio engravings by Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759), may be considered a special opportunity.

Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) is credited with being the founder of the modern empirical method, insisting upon hands-on dissection and personal observation as the primary tools for probing the mysteries of the human body, the first major departure from the rote memorization and traditionally accepted knowledge which had characterized the study of medicine since Medieval times: actual practice, in other words, over theory. These earliest systems of observation promoted by Vesalius and others of his generation were to develop into science and medicine as we know them today. On exhibition is a copy of Vesalius's first major work, De humana corporis fabrica (Venice: 1568) (often known simply as the Fabrica), initially published in 1543 (the copy on exhibition is a later printing). The drawings which served as the foundation for the illustrative work, done in woodcut, are attributed to Flemish artist Jan Stephen van Calcar (d. 1546). The frontispiece of the Fabrica depicts the author as both center of attention, and as embodiment of his own principles of hands-on study: a crowded operating theatre, all eyes on Vesalius as he probes the very secrets of human origin in the female subject before him. Though accurately based on observation and dissection, Vesalius's actual anatomical illustrations employed the engaging Renaissance convention of hosting the écorché (dissected model) in a Classical landscape, lively and almost frolicking as he exhibits his progressively more dissected self to the viewer.

The Tabula sceleti et musculorum corporis humani (Leiden: 1747) of German physician Bernard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770) shows both the striking large scale of the work (26-3/4 x 20 in.) as well as the attention to atmosphere in the detailed, elegantly presented engraving on display. Working in close collaboration with artist Jan Wandelaar, himself gifted with a detailed knowledge of anatomical illustration, Albinus produced a work which became widely sought after by both anatomists and artists due to the neoclassical ideals of physical perfection it embodied, and is a particularly fine specimen of art in service to anatomy. Albinus's male écorché, gracefully posed in a wild romantic landscape of tumbled rocks, foliage and an ancient tomb, is less a corpse than an elegant ambassador of the body's internal perfection, far removed from the world of the dissecting table.

In contrast, later illustrations, particularly those of the Edinburgh physicians, become heavily weighted in realism: unequivocally dead flesh, sprawled on the table, weighted with mortal passing. Scottish anatomists William Smellie (1697-1763) and William Hunter (1718-1783) were part of the rise of interest in obstetrics toward the end of the 18th century which drew it from the province of midwifery into the domain of medical science. Both collaborated with artist Jan van Rymsdyk (ca. 1750-1789), Smellie producing A sett of anatomical tables, with explanations, and an abridgement, of the practice of midwifery (London: 1754), Hunter producing Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata (Birmingham: 1774). The images on exhibition in Smellie's and Hunter's atlases are unremittingly realistic, tightly focused on the genital area and dissections of the gravid (pregnant) uterus. Their subjects are clearly devoid of life, and their presentation is, even, somewhat disquieting in light of their subject and the combination of ultra-realistic detail with dispassionate observation.

Print rarities and three-dimensional curiosities round out The Anatomy of Gender, including a rare flap anatomy; a page from nearly the only color foray into anatomical texts, Jacques Fabien Gautier D'Agoty's mezzotint Exposition anatomique (Paris: 1773); portable ivory anatomical models possibly used by doctors or midwives to instruct pregnant women; a bronze anatomical statue; and a large-scale color photograph showing a female figure from the life-size collection of 18th century wax anatomical models located in the Museo di Storia Naturale in Venice. The flap anatomies, in which layered flaps could be lifted to reveal successive depths of male or female bodily structure, were often intended for a curious public; as they consisted of many tiny paper layers each hinged only by its own fold, they rarely survived intact due to their delicate nature. Here, in addition to a fine specimen of both male and female by German anatomist Johann Remmelin (1583-1632) from his Catoptrum microcosmicum (Ulm: 1619), is an uncut printer's proof of the same, showing all the elements of the flap anatomy as printed on a single page prior to assembly.

Most evident in these examples, from woodcut to bronze écorché, is that the primary body used as an exemplum of the human figure was the male. Where the female body appeared, it was generally in the specialized context of highlighting the organs and functions most different from the male, particularly her genital area, uterus, and ability to carry a child. Traditions, preconceptions, and social influences had a strong influence, and despite the new focus on empirical observation, female genitalia were often vaguely or inaccurately depicted in drawing, while inaccurate ideas, such as the theory, posited by Greek physician Galen (Claudius Galen, c.130-c.200, whose theories formed much of the basis of medical lore during the Medieval era), that the female uterus was homologous with the male member, persisted even through Vesalius's time. Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring (German, 1755-1830) was among the first to explore the differences between male and female at the skeletal level in his Tabula sceleti feminini juncta descriptione (Frankfurt: 1797), whose engravings include specifically female skeletons. The Renaissance vagueness toward female anatomy was later to be replaced by the hyper-accuracy of texts such as those by Smellie and Hunter.

Also noted in the exhibition, both Christian and Classical illustrative conventions also influenced the portrayal of the male and female bodies in their translation into anatomical images. Christian references incorporated symbology of Adam, Eve and original sin, a repertoire of Christian gesture, and for women, illustration of Eve as temptress, as a derivative or inferior version of the male body, or as symbolic of sin or mortality, as in Remmelin's flap anatomy in which the frontispiece for the set conceals the female's genital area with a devil's head. In conjunction with these, the newly awakened interest in Classical antiquity provided conventions based on Greek and Roman sculptural examples. Juan Valverde de Amusco (Spanish, ca. 1525-1587; other sources also refer to him as 'Valverde' or 'Hamusco') references both when he portrays a male torso in Roman armor, and a female in the pose of Venus pudica, one hand shielding her breasts, the other her genitals. French artist Charles Estienne's (ca. 1504-1564) direct crib from a series of erotic 16th century engravings shows a further layer of subcontent, the collusion of anatomy and eroticism; as in classical art, the anatomical subject was often used as an excuse to illustrate a sensual nude, at times with disturbing connotations of sexuality and death.

Governed by the mysteries of the body, inextricable from theories of the time concerning sex, morality, and gender roles, anatomical illustration united art and anatomy in a rich nexus. Male and female bodies became Adam or Apollo, Eve or Venus respectively: symbolic of life and death, the secrets of generation, the hidden workings of the flesh. There are fascinating conclusions to be drawn here, not least because the material touches on such charged areas. But the interpretive choices made in The Anatomy of Gender (primarily in the wall text) host a thinly-veiled undertone of feminine grievance: less sex and science than sexism and science. Choice of phrase, conclusions, and editorial decisions on what to highlight and what to exclude, all contribute to a subtle but definite impression of a subtext of aggrieved plaint against the 'male-dominated' world. The interpretive deck seems stacked against anything male, be it illustrative subject, or artist. Amusco's internal organs framed by Roman armor, for example, are purported to show the "invincibility and strength of the male figure", while the his female figure, posed as Venus pudica, is described as having her hand position "coyly contradicting" her open womb. These are rather free associations for the Classical conventions, but most of all, they assign a modern intent to the artist, one derived from 20th-century psychological concerns. At other times, the interpretive text comes up with unexpectedly vituperative phrasing. In discussing William Smellie's atlas, a paragraph of factual information is closed by noting: "Smellie's practice and his atlas contributed to the usurpation of the midwife's authority by a primarily male medical establishment in the 18th century." The vitriolic coda with its heavily charged language -- 'usurpation' -- presents the atlas as an object of grievance, rather than an evolution of medical illustration.

At other times, certain omissions seem to leave out rather factual explanations for the way things were. It is true to say that the male body was more often illustrated. The interpretive texts attribute this preference as due to the fact that "the male figure [was considered] as the normative or standard form of the human body". Dr. Mimi Cazort in an exhibition similar to The Anatomy of Gender, the 1997 exhibition The Ingenious Machine of Nature (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario) admits of this fact, and also admits that men focused mainly on the male body because the were the primary anatomists and illustrators. But prior to this, Cazort notes another quite simple reason for selecting the male body as the primary source of anatomical study -- one with which any man or woman who has tried to tone up in the gym is familiar: "In terms of the subjects for dissection, the early literature states clearly that the female body did not lend itself to being anatomized because her thicker layer of subcutaneous fat impeded the dissection. Her musculature was also less developed than the man's."

The Anatomy of Gender seems too strenuously to apply a modern perspective -- apparently a feminist perspective -- to pre-Enlightenment materials. Tempting as it is to apply a modern interpretation, the world in which these anatomical texts were produced was of a cut and a facet completely different from today's society. In the end, the exhibition's strong gender stance denies its subject material the very empiricism it complains it is lacking. The subtly, at times overtly loaded text seems to offer up feminine aggravation at the gender inequalities of medical illustration from the 16th to the 18th centuries; it is satisfed with neither the former's inaccuracies nor the latter's hyper-accuracies.

That such new science did not immediately level the playing field of gender equality is no surprise. The new attention to observation and empirical picturing was, and would continue to be, inseparable from complexities of social, cultural, traditional and religious assumptions and preconceptions about the bodies and roles of males and females. To accept this as fact is to understand more about the ways in which society, medicine, art and gender intersect, then and now. In the meantime, this collection of rare illustrated anatomical texts incorporates several of the historically important works of the genre, rare volumes by Vesalius, Albinus, Amusco, Soemmerring, and Hunter among them. The twenty-one items on exhibition, from anatomical books to models in ivory, bronze and wax, serve as particularly fine examples of the genre, as well as illustrating the variety of issues and contentions affecting the ways in which males and females were illustrated in these early anatomical studies.

A detailed web site accompanies this exhibition. It includes images from the materials on display and features four scholarly essays by exhibition curator Lyle Massey and others. The web site may be found at http://anatomyofgender.northwestern.edu/.

--Katherine R. Lieber

Katherine R. Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.

Editorial Note: Dr. Mimi Cazort is quoted from The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four Centuries of Art and Anatomy (National Gallery of Canada: March 1997). The Ingenious Machine of Nature, and other books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews, may be purchased through this site's Amazon.com link or by clicking on the link above.