Style and non‐style in anatomical illustration: From Renaissance Humanism to Henry Gray

Abstract

Style is a familiar category for the analysis of art. It is less so in the history of anatomical illustration. The great Renaissance and Baroque picture books of anatomy illustrated with stylish woodcuts and engravings, such as those by Charles Estienne, Andreas Vesalius and Govard Bidloo, showed figures in dramatic action in keeping with philosophical and theological ideas about human nature. Parallels can be found in paintings of the period, such as those by Titian, Michelangelo and Hans Baldung Grien. The anatomists also claimed to portray the body in an objective manner, and showed themselves as heroes of the discovery of human knowledge. Rembrandt's painting of Dr Nicholas Tulp is the best-known image of the anatomist as hero. The British empirical tradition in the 18th century saw William Cheselden and William Hunter working with techniques of representation that were intended to guarantee detailed realism. The ambition to portray forms life-size led to massive volumes, such as those by Antonio Mascagni. John Bell, the Scottish anatomist, criticized the size and pretensions of the earlier books and argued for a plain style adapted to the needs of teaching and surgery. Henry Gray's famous Anatomy of 1858, illustrated by Henry Vandyke Carter, aspired to a simple descriptive mode of functional representation that avoided stylishness, resulting in a style of its own. Successive editions of Gray progressively saw the replacement of Gray's method and of all his illustrations. The 150th anniversary edition, edited by Susan Standring, radically re-thinks the role of Gray's book within the teaching of medicine.

Evolution of illustrations in anatomy: A study from the classical period in Europe to modern times

“…The book contained anatomic illustrations of incomparable artistic quality prepared by Stefan van Calcar (1499–1546), who himself was a pupil of one of the most versatile Italian painters of Renaissance period, Tiziano Vecellio (1490–1576), also known as Titian (Benini and Bonar, ). The woodcut illustrations used in De Humani Corporis Fabrica exhibits specifically northern European influence (as Vesalius and Calcar, who was German by birth, were both northerners working in Italy) alongside the humanist grandeur of the figures, which is characteristic of ancient Graeco‐Roman sculpture (Kemp, ). In other words, the illustrations used in Vesalius' work were an exquisite fusion of Italianate and Gothic art.…”

“…The illustrations used in his work like most of the anatomical artwork of the Renaissance period depicted “active limbs” combined with “ragged muscles, naked bones and dissected bowels” (Estienne, ). However the salient feature of the illustrations in Estienne's text was the apparent contrast between the anatomical content (at times limited to a smallish insert) in the woodcuts and the elaborate figures posturing in fancy settings within which the anatomical details were highlighted (Kemp, ). Such illustrative representations were completely different from his views in which Estienne had elaborated that visual images were more powerful than words in bringing the anatomical structures before our eyes (Estienne, ).…”

“…There were no attempts to place figures in graceful poses or against unrealistic/whimsical backgrounds. The use of imposing, enlarged views of the human body was consciously avoided and even a complete skeleton was not depicted anywhere in the book (Kemp, ). Carter's illustrations were aimed at scientific description of the anatomical parts (Gray, ) and the real strength of these wood engravings was the diagrammatic clarity which was considerably atypical with respect to that period.…”

Art, antiquarianism and early anatomy

“…As Martin Kemp noted, early anatomy was concerned with aesthetics and theology as well as with medical illustration 5 6. I shall focus on distinctions between antiquarian and academic modes in Renaissance anatomical art, by antiquarian, meaning the study of classical antiquities as a model or example and by academic, signifying institutional study within art academies, starting with Accademia delle arti del disegno, founded in Florence in 1563 under the influence of Vasari.…”

“…ed. 1568) and of Michelangelo as artist-anatomist have overshadowed the rich contribution of antiquarianism which illuminates the complexities of Vesalius' illustrations, executed by unknown artists, attributed to Jan Stephan van Calcar and linked to the workshop of Titian 6 7. Space limits discussion to select cases (Vesalius, Estienne, Valverde and Casserius) and precludes treatment of illustrations which lie beyond antiquarian and figural-academic modes, such as the Tabulae pictae , the remarkable coloured oil sketches amassed by Fabricius ab Aquapendente around 1600.…”