Review of “The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture” by Jonathan Sawday. The “The Body Emblazoned” is a deep dive into the motivations and implications of dissection in the Renaissance. Written by Jonathan Sawday, a cultural historian, this book anatomizes the Renaissance using various prevalent sources and perspectives. Sawday is a multidisciplinary historian with a focus on literature, science, and technology research. The Renaissance, often termed a period of “rebirth”, was a fervent source of political, artistic, and scientific progress. Sawday uses his multifaceted background to dissect the dark eroticism of the Renaissance anatomy theaters and their intrusive effect on society. He argues that these theaters …show more content…
In 8 chapters, with around 270 pages and 30 black-and-white images of dissection, Sawday provides many interesting facts and impressions that detail how the Western view of the internal body facilitated these anatomy theaters. He “anatomizes” these chapters into sections surrounding specific lines of reasoning and how they proliferated throughout European society. In addition, Sawday operates through an extended analogy of the Medusa myth to guide his audience through the unknown of anatomization. Through taxonomy—the classification and labeling of parts—the author shows how the discipline of anatomy evolved throughout time from, in his comparison, a voyage of discovery to a sort of colonization and oppression. We witness a radical shift in knowledge when the dominant archetype of the internal body—from a complex microcosm to an unfeeling mechanism—is presented. Along the way, we discover the intriguing social composition of anatomy theaters, and the exhaustive levels of immorality reached in the scavenging of cadavers for dissection. Sawday uses his experience in many literary sectors to detail how dissection overwhelmed the political, social, and …show more content…
He later describes the dark and violent methods of the Renaissance from which these emotions, more than likely, originated. Sawday elaborates on the myth of Medusa and Perseus as an analogy for the culture of dissection in the Renaissance. Here, Medusa serves as the body interior and Perseus as the surgeons and physicians. Sawday writes that “...attributes of the Medusa – [her] blood, head, and skin – are emblematic of a fragmented and dispersed body-interior – a profoundly ambivalent region – whose power can be somehow harnessed for good or ill” (Sawday 18). In this way, by conquering the body-interior in the same way Perseus conquered Medusa, there is a potential for good or ill. The use of dissection for good is very obvious in that we now have a greater understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human body. However, the potential for illness, as acknowledged by Sawday, is no less great and will be discussed later in the review. Sawday’s use of the harnessing of the power of Medusa, and its potential for good or ill, allows the audience to draw the line of their own morals about
The Beauty of Bodysnatching written by Burch Druin is a fascinating biography of Astley Cooper, an English Surgeon, and Anatomist, who gained worldwide fame in support of his contribution to Vascular Surgery and a further area of expertise. The extract gives a reflective insight into Cooper’s contribution to study of Anatomy and medicine. Cooper enjoyed the job of body snatching, which helped him to conduct a series of discoveries that were important for the future study and understanding of Physiology. In the Romantic era, when prettiness or horror was a sensitive matter and extensive concern at that time many physicians discouraged surgery, but Cooper passionately practiced it.
By most accounts, the year 1500 was in the midst of the height of the Italian Renaissance. In that year, Flemmish artist Jean Hey, known as the “Master of Moulins,” painted “The Annunciation” to adorn a section of an alter piece for his royal French patrons. The painting tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to deliver the news that she will give birth to the son of God. As the story goes, Mary, an unwed woman, was initially terrified about the prospects of pregnancy, but eventually accepts her fate as God’s servant. “The Annunciation” is an oil painting on a modest canvas, three feet tall and half as wide. The setting of the painting is a study, Mary sitting at a desk in the bottom right hand corner reading, and the angel Gabriel behind her holding a golden scepter, perhaps floating and slightly off the canvas’s center to the left. Both figures are making distinct hand gestures, and a single white dove, in a glowing sphere of gold, floats directly above Mary’s head. The rest of the study is artistic but uncluttered: a tiled floor, a bed with red sheets, and Italian-style architecture. “The Annunciation” was painted at a momentous time, at what is now considered the end of the Early Renaissance (the majority of the 15th Century) and the beginning of the High Renaissance (roughly, 1495 – 1520). Because of its appropriate placement in the Renaissance’s timeline and its distinctly High Renaissance characteristics, Jean Hey’s “Annunciation” represents the culmination of the transition from the trial-and-error process of the Early Renaissance, to the technical perfection that embodied the High Renaissance. Specifically, “Annunciation” demonstrates technical advancements in the portrayal of the huma...
Galen, . (n.d.). On the Usefulness of the Body. (M. Tallmadge May, Trans.). N.p.: Cornell University Press. Retrieved March 25, 2014
“Surgery.” Brought to Life Exploring the History of Medicine. Science Museum, London, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
Ruskin, John. “Grotesque Renaissance.” The Stones of Venice: The Fall. 1853. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. 112-65. Rpt. in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1989. 21-2.
Johnson, Geraldine A. Renaissance Art, A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
In this paper I'm focusing mainly on Renaissance art work, since that was the assignment, but I feel it's important to also mention the other important parts of the Renaissance, architecture, science, politics and religion.
The masculine and idealized form of the human body is an ever-present characteristic of Michelangelo’s sculpture. Many people over the years have speculated why this may be, but there has never been a definitive answer, and probably never will be. Through all of his sculpture there is a distinct classical influence, with both his subject matter and his inclination to artistically create something beautiful. In most cases, for Michelangelo, this means the idealized human figure, seeping with contraposto. This revival of classical influences is common for a Renaissance artisan, but the new, exaggerated form of the human body is new and unique to Michelangelo’s artistic style.
Andreas Vesalius was well known for his dissections in the 1500’s. Growing up in Brussels he was captivated by the anatomy of animals. Throughout his childhood Andreas dissected many small animals trying to uncover life’s mystery. This curiosity regarding anatomy came very naturally, due to the fact that he was born into a family of physicians. Vesalius started his formal education at the University of Louvain; then traveled to Paris to continue his studies in medicine. During his life time, Vesalius was an accomplished physician, and professor of anatomy. He also received his degree as a doctor of medicine at the age of twenty-two. Vesalius writings and teachings set the foundation of anatomy we know today, hence why he received the title; founder of modern anatomy.
Rembrandt was known for his expressive use of light and shadow in his paintings. His painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is an important example of medical progression. It is a group portrait of surgeons who are participating in a public dissection of a cadavers left arm being examined. The Netherlands in the 17th century was largely Protestant and art was no longer created for the Church. Artist look to merchants and professionals for patronage. During the Renaissance, artists explore the human body and then in Baroque era they begin somewhat a scientific exploration of the human body. Like Michelangelo, he dissected corpses in private so he can have a better understanding of the human
Murray, Peter, and Linda Murray. The art of the Renaissance. New York: Praeger, 1963. Print.
This idea of the primary importance of the human form as a measure of all proportions is basic to the Renaissance. Much of these classical features remained popular in the period to follow, the Baroque period; however, the difference between the two periods has a lot to do...
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.
5) Discuss one of the following ideas in Renaissance writing, with particular reference to one or two texts: excess; idleness; plain-speaking; spirituality. Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) explores a Renaissance world that has spun on its axis and turned upside-down by the weight of corporeal excess, particularly the amassed fragments of the anatomised body. The text originates from an England gripped by the extremes of socio-political, religious and literal epidemic. The seismic change of the sixteenth-century witnessed Reformation schisms in the unified church, the decay of feudalistic social hierarchy, and the ideological contagion of radical Protestant malcontent.
Smith, R. “Eternal objects of desire. Art Review- Art and love in Renaissance Italy” in New York Times Art and Design, November 20, (2008)