Morbid anatomy
The space where medicine and art intersects is often ... well, weird. And fascinating.
Morbid anatomy
The space where medicine and art intersects is often ... well, weird. And fascinating. That realization is explored in the Morbid Anatomy Blog, written by Joanna Ebenstein, a graphic designer and photographer in Brooklyn, N.Y. One goal, Ebenstein says, is "to bring the art and history of medical museums to the awareness of a wider audience and to frame their artifacts as artistic and cultural objects with as much to say about their makers and the culture their makers inhabited as about medical knowledge." Ebenstein, who has traveled the world capturing images from museum exhibits, also runs the Morbid Anatomy Library, a research library and private collection of photographs, books and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art and the history of medicine. "Medical museum artifacts can be diff icult for some contemporary viewers to understand; in fact, many people find these images morbid or grotesque," Ebenstein says. [Portrait of Ebenstein by Eric Harvey Brown]
Morbid anatomy
The poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world are explored in a photographic collection, "The Secret Museum Exhibition." In the days before MRIs, or even x-rays, "medical museums functioned as a sort of 3-D visual library intended to teach students about the human body in its normal or ‘anatomical’ state and in its abnormal, or 'pathological' state," Ebenstein says. This spectacular display of comparative anatomy circa 1898 features a life-size human écorché -- a figure showing the muscles of the body without skin -- leading a grand skeletal evolutionary parade. The display, which remains virtually untouched since the 19th century, can be seen at the Galeries de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée at the Muséum national d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
Morbid anatomy
Another photograph from "Secret Museum" captures a breathing wax model, called "Venus Endormie," from the Spitzner collection, Musée Orfila, Paris, courtesy of Université Paris Descartes. The model was first shown in an itinerant popular medical museum called the Musée Spitzner. With the flick of a switch, this life-size wax model -- uncannily lifelike -- would appear to breathe with a very subtle rise and fall of her chest. "This model and the entire Spitzner collection is now a part of one of my very favorite medical museums, the Musée Orfila," Ebenstein said. "For years it has been very difficult to get into, and now has been packed into boxes and is no longer on view to the public at all; its future is unsure, which is a real tragedy, as it is one of the finest collections of its kind. Very special. Like time travel."
Morbid anatomy
The image of this fetus, about 5 months old, is part of the "Anatomical Theatre,v collection, which documents artifacts collected by and exhibited in medical museums throughout Europe and the United States. The title of this traveling exhibition refers to an era when doctors performed surgery or dissections in an amphitheatre before an audience of students or the curious public. Most of the photos are of models used to teach anatomy or the pathology of disease. Some are of actual human remains. Objects like these "have a great deal more to teach us than simply how the lymph node system functions or how to diagnose syphilis," Ebenstein says. "They function also as cultural/historical artifacts, revealing the worldviews of their eras and cultures." The 19th-century anatomical preparation is from the Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Morbid anatomy
Other pieces from "Anatomical Theatre" portray an assortment of 18th-century anatomical waxworks, including "Anatomical Venuses," life-sized wax models augmented with real human hair and jewelry and displayed in rosewood and venetian glass cases. These Venuses were created in the 1780s at the Florence, Italy-based La Specola workshop led by Clemente Susini, and are on display at the Josephinum in Vienna.
Morbid anatomy
This collection -- commissioned by Joseph II of Vienna to better train army surgeons -- includes about 1,000 anatomical models that were transported across the Alps on the back of mules in 1785. "Originally intended to communicate new understandings of the human body to a larger public and to teach medical students about the body’s internal structures without having to resort to the dissection of cadavers," Ebenstein says, "these Venuses are now appreciated as much for their artistic and cultural content as for the accuracy of their anatomical instruction." The models were photographed for the "Anatomical Theatre" exhibition.
Morbid anatomy
Images from "Secret Museum" include those of plaster models from the Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. The models all come from the personal collection of Ludwik Bierkowski (1801-1860), a Polish doctor and professor of medicine. "In order to immortalize their dissections and disseminate knowledge further, and as an attempt to reduce their reliance on precious cadavers, doctors, often working with artists, developed a variety of techniques to preserve or memorialize their dissections," Ebenstein says. Medical models were sometimes made of plaster, as seen here, but also could be created with wax, terra-cotta, ivory, porcelain, wood and other media.
Morbid anatomy
Wax models of the eye and related structures were photographed for the "Anatomical Theatre" exhibition. These are believed to have been created by Clemente Susini in the late 18th or early 19th century, and are on display at the Museo delle Cere Anatomiche "Luigi Cattaneo" in Bologna, Italy. "Susini’s work is considered to be the pinnacle of 3-D artistic anatomy," Ebenstein says. "He headed the famed La Specola studios in Florence where, under his leadership, it produced its finest work: a full set of spectacular, life-sized anatomical waxes, many of them adorned with real hair, glass eyes, and sometimes even pearls, entombed in beautiful rosewood and venetian glass cases and reclining on silk cushions."
Morbid anatomy
Wax moulages, probably created in the early 20th century by Carl Henning (1860-1917) or Theodor Henning (1897-1946), a father-son team who specialized in pathological moulage, are part of the "Anatomical Theatre" exhibit. "There is much more to be learned from these objects then simply how to diagnose disease or recognize bodily structures," Ebenstein says. "These objects also embody the worldview of their makers, changing metaphors for understanding the human body and soul, notions of disease, gender and death. Moulages such as these -- created by taking a cast of a diseased person’s body -- function as unintentional portraits that can be as poignant, sensitive and revealing as other sorts of more intentional portraiture." These moulages are on display at the Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum in Vienna. The museum is located in the so-called Madhouse Tower (Narrenturm), featured as the residence of the composer Antonio Salieri in the movie "Amadeus."
Morbid anatomy
Assorted pathological models reside in a backroom drawer at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Models such as these "were cutting-edge technology at the time of their creation," Ebenstein says. "They have now been supplanted by new technologies and ways of imaging the body that have changed the way we understand the body and diagnose illness, and which make the artifacts in medical museums less immediately pertinent. These collections are still sometimes used by medical students, though they are now, perhaps, just as often visited by artists and curious tourists interested in art history, museological history, the history of medicine, or the uncanny and fantastic." This photo is also part of the “Anatomical Theatre” exhibit.
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Posted with the July 5, 2010 issue
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