In Professor
Vesna’s Lecture, she said that anatomy and dissection are at the intersection
of art and science. I have always thought that medicine is completely unrelated
to art, it is just science. Drawings of skeletons and bones were critical for
dealing with and understanding the human body. Humans have been going through
great lengths to dissect corpses and preserve the human body. In Ancient
Egyptian times, they would completely mummify the body. This mummification
ensures that the afterlife is just as beautiful as life.
(Mummification)
Interestingly
enough, medicine was always considered art and technology wasn’t used. It
wasn’t until the beginning of the twentieth century that technology began to be
incorporated into hospitals. First, Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, a German physicist,
produced x-rays. Then, Raymond Vahan Damadian was the inventor of the first
MRI, and he was his own first patient. These are both examples of how
technology moved into non-invasive ways of looking at human anatomy.
(Ramadan with the first MRI machine)
Plastic surgery
advanced in our culture originally in India. This then moved to Europe then
North America. In North America the first procedure was on a cleft palette, and
then during World War 1 it became much more common due to electric and chemical
injuries to the face and body. Orlan is a French artist who performed
procedures on herself in order to look like many famous people and paintings.
She modelled her look after Diana, Venus, Mona Lisa, and a few others.
(Organ's plastic surgery)
Virgil Wong is
an artist that uses the human body for his artwork. He has paintings and
portraits of skeletons, x-ray like images, and many more. Many artists like him
find human anatomy fascinating. Similarly, artists in Hollywood find human
anatomy fascinating enough to make many TV shows about this. For example, Nip and
Tuck, House, and Greys Anatomy.
(Virgil Wong's Artwork) (Nip and Tuck)
Works Cited
Wong, Virgil. “Art Exhibited in
Galleries and Museums around the World.” Art. N.p., 2012. Web. 26
Oct. 2012.
Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine pt 2.”
Uconlineprogram. Youtube. 21 Apr 2012. Web. 19 Apr 2016.
Vesna, Victoria.
“Medicine pt1.” Uconlineprogram. Youtube. 21 Apr 2012. Web. 19 Apr 2016.
Rymer, Eric.
“Introduction to Egyptian Mummification.” Historylink101.com. History Source
LLC. N.d. Web. 19 Apr 2016.
Pescarmona,
Denee. “English114EM: Women Writers, 1650-1760 – Who is Orlan.” USCB English
Dept. n.d. Web. 19 Apr 2016.
The author showed a thorough understanding in the history of plastic surgery and human anatomy imaging. The explanation is very detailed and informative. Multiple examples are used to illustrate the link between medicine and art, ranging from tv shows to prints. The pictures accompanying the article are appropriate and helpful in expressing the author's point of view. This is an overall well written and insightful article.
ReplyDeleteThis blog post was good overview of lecture and a good read. It would be nice to hear more on the author's opinion on some of the ideas regarding how the artists interpret the body as art. Both the Egyptians and ORLAN thought that the body was a gateway to a spiritual place.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was an excellent blog post. Your ideas were expressed very thoroughly for such a concise post. I always enjoy reading your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI like how you talked about the relation of art and science historically, saying that drawings of skeletons and bones were critical in furthering scientific research and developments. I also thought it was interesting how you brought up that we had medicine, hospitals, etc. long before we had technology. This would associate health and medicine of the past as more of an art then a scientific technology.
ReplyDelete