anatomy | niki's oca student blog

Look for historic and contemporary artists whose work involves the underlying structure of the body.

Body Worlds

The most impressionable art works that I have come across in terms of anatomical structural art was when I visited Body Worlds exhibition in Brick Lane in 2002.

Anatomy comp body worlds 1

These astonishing works of art are created by Gunther von Hagens (born Gunther Gerhard Liebchen on 10 January 1945) who was an anatomist who invented in 1977 a method of preserving biological tissue which he called plastination. He worked at the University in the Institutes of Anatomy and Pathology as a lecturer for 22 years and founded the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993.

Anatomy comp body worlds 2

For the first 20 years the process was used to preserve small specimens, however in the 1990’s new equipment was developed that made it possible to plastinate a whole body, each specimen taking approximately 1500 man hours to complete. His first exhibition was held in 1995 in Japan, and has subsequently provoked fascination and controversy in over 50 destinations world wide, some religious orders objecting to the display of human remains.

The final plastinated specimen is dry, odorless and equal to the weight of the original body. The specimens are invaluable as educational and instructional tools for medical professionals as well as the broader public.

The first stage is fixation; Formaldehyde or other preservation solutions are pumped through the arteries to kill all bacteria, this prevents decomposition and takes about 3-4 hours. Then follows dissection and the removal of any skin, fatty and connective tissues extraneous to the final piece were removed in a lengthy process taking between 500-1000 hours.

Next water and soluble fats are dissolved in a bath of acetone. This process of plastination begins as all the water is drawn from the cells and replaced with the acetone solution.

Anatomy comp body worlds 3

Forced impregnation is the next step in the process; the subject is placed in a bath of liquid polymer such as silicone rubber, polyester or epoxy resin. Within a vacuum acetone boils at a low temperature and as it vaporizes it leaves the cells to be replaced by the polymer. This process takes 2-5 weeks.

After impregnation, the body is still malleable and can be positioned painstakingly into the desired position, often using various forms of supports, this stage can take months.

When the final desired position has been created , the specimen must be hardened, depending on the type of polymer used, light, heat or gas can be used. This whole process protects the tissue from any form of decay and can take about a year in total to complete.

Historical use of Anatomical illustrations

Having recently been working at the Wellcome Trust in Euston I have had the privilege to view some of the works within their collection. They have many images that depict historical views of how we thought the anatomy of the human body worked.

Anatomy comp Wellcome collection 1

Their collection covers works from all over the world that do not just depict the structure of the human body, but ailments, illnesses, malady, woulds and operational processes. These ware not only useful in their time, but provide a comprehensive medical historical record.

Anatomy comp Wellcome collection 2

Detailed drawings of anatomical parts of the body have undoubtedly been a vital resource for the furthering of our understanding of all aspects of the human and animal body resulting in the amazing technical achievements that doctors, surgeons and researchers perform today.

Anatomy comp Historical anatomy

The earliest known people to perform autopsy were Greek physicians Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Chios who performed human dissections in Alexandria, Egypt. Later, Roman law prohibited dissection and autopsy of the human body. No new dissection studies were done until the early 14th Century.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in Italy in 1452. He is universally known as a universal genius or renaissance man. He famously would hire grave robbers to bring him human corpses, later a hospital director. He would dissect the bodies and draw what he saw. It was completely illegal for him to do this as the only people allowed to perform autopsy or dissection were physicians, of which Leonardo was not.

Anatomy comp leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo is considered to be one ofthe most diversley talented individuals to have ever lived. He was not only and esquisit artist, but his insatiable curiosity and enquiring mind drew him into the worlds of anatomy, music, invention, civil engineering, geology, optics, modelling and hydrodynamics. He died in 1519 having left a body of work that is revered to this day.

Some additional examples of historical anatomical works

Anatomy comp renaissance anatomy

Andreas Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius 31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564 is often considered to be the father of anatomy, a Belgian born anatomist and physician born into a family of Physicians he is most famous for his influential book De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body).

Anatomy comp Andreas Vesalius 1

He was born in Brussels, became professor at the University of Pauda and later became Imperial physician at the court of Emperor Charles V. He produced many detailed illustrations, some in the form of woodcut posters which students would copy, and many books. Most teachings to date had been from that of Galen whose work, mainly derived form studying the dissection of animals, was considered unquestionable at the time.

Anatomy comp Andreas Vesalius 2

Juan Gatti

Anatomy comp jaun Gatti

Looking at some contemporary artists I came across Argentinean illustrator Juan Gatti who uses a combination of collage of images found in nature with anatomical studies. He has produced a series of 25 pieces as a part of a series ‘The Natural Sciences’ which were used in a film by Pedro Almodovar called ‘The Skin I Live in’.

Other artists

Anatomy comp anatomical art

Portugese photographer Pedro Sousa produced a series of works entitled ‘Muscled Skin’ in which he super-imposed muscles from the human anatomical structure onto the surface of the skin.

Vanessa Ruiz

Vanessa Ruiz founded ‘Street Anatomy’ in 2007, she is an acomplished medical illustrator and art director and has given many lectures for TED.

The other images in the above samples show examples of creative alternative mechanical anatomical depictions and an anamatronic example of the mechanics of the birthing of a child.

Enkel Dika

Anatomy comp Enkel-Dika

Enkel Dika is an illustrator based in Struga, Macedonia, he uses a mixture of pop art, abstract art and modern art to create really interesting image combinations often with messages about society that he then prints onto T-shirts, a very cultural medium on which to convey his art.

Anatomy comp skulls

Finally I wanted to take a brief look at our enduring fascination that many artists have had with the human skull and all that it symbolises. Painted here by Cezanne, these skulls are arranged and painted in the still life representation of the curio, very much the fascination of the Victorian collector. I have set this against the modern representation of the skull in popular culture that has trancended the representation of death into something that we are so familiar with that the image of the skull is now a favourite in many forms, from the Mexican day of the dead to pop art to the art of the tattoo.

Anatomy comp tattoo

Reference sources

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Tag / anatomy

Research; Artists using the underlying structure of the body

Body Worlds

Historical use of Anatomical illustrations

Leonardo Da Vinci