Category: 09. April 15

Last week Dr. Carin Berkowitz spoke about the anatomy and its relation to art, two topics which rarely are addressed in the same talk. During the lecture she focused on Charles Bell’s works which paired anatomy with art. Through his illustrations he was able to both capture the harsh scientific details of human anatomy while simultaneously bringing life and emotionality into the human body. These depictions of the human body are fascinating due the images that we currently associate with the study of anatomy and human bodies that are in your average textbook today.

Dr. Berkowitz moved on to compare the works of Charles Bell to the work of Henry Gray in Gray’s Anatomy. There is a stark contrast between the ways in which these two artists depict the human body, the greatest difference being the emotionality and life that is conveyed in each. In comparison to Bell’s scientifically accurate but emotionally charged images, Grays work is completely dehumanizing and is simply about the cold hard science without any attention to what makes a human: life and emotion. The texts that students currently use to study are much closer to the works of Gray and show little respect for the life of a human, suggesting that the bodies depicted in those books are specifically for scientific research and nothing else. This is a common theme that we see in a larger sense in schooling systems. There is much more emphasis on the study of the hard sciences than on more artistic disciplines and it is very important to strike a balance in order to receive a comprehensive education.

I think this is possibly one of the most important lessons that we have been exposed to during this talk series. We students are lucky to attend a college that encourages studying a variety of different disciplines and we have the flexibility to incorporate some of both the hard sciences and more artistic and creative disciplines. However, many students who attend more traditional one-track colleges do not have that opportunity and that can lead to a single way of thinking. In one of the previous lectures another professor spoke about the STEAM group at Yale University and how that group is helping others to understand climate change. STEAM as opposed to the more traditional STEM adds art along with the studies of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This is an example of how a multidisciplinary approach to understanding something can help to expand the ways in which we view a particular topic.

Regarding the question from an audience about ethics of how the bodies were obtained before people were able to donate them to science, I thought this was a horrifying example of how the study of the human body has become a field without emotion. In line with this, doctors and all medical staff are taught and encouraged to remove the emotion from what they do in order to adequately and professionally do their jobs. Is there any way to bring emotion back into medicine without creating more difficulty for the people who are treating the patients?

Carin Berkowitz gave an intriguing talk about Charles Bell, a British anatomist living and working in 19th century England, and his practice of linking science and art. Bell was a renowned anatomist at the time who opened his own anatomy school in London. His teaching styles consisted of utilizing many different mediums to illustrate the human body in addition to practicing surgery. His figures were created with artistry and craft that was unusual for this type of art. It was through these sculptures, paintings, and drawings that Bell highlighted the large intersection between art and science, and how they so explicitly rely on each other.

Bell and his artwork embody one of the few intersections between once seemingly polar opposite fields. He links science and art in a way that is both functional and beautiful. Bell linking these subjects attests to how connected our world is, he was just an early example of intersectionality. This connectedness erases the boxes that we once set for our society. This interest in science and art is not uncommon. Leonardo da Vinci blended art and science to create his masterpiece “Mona Lisa”, and the field of architecture is a blend of physics and sculpture.

Bell’s work is an anatomically correct version of human anatomy. It is interesting to see how this vision of art portraying humans has changed into present day. Idealized forms of the human body are common among pieces of art and lately, it seems that mass media propagates a very specific unachievable human form. Even in Bell’s illustrations, he depicts the insides of muscular, thin, physically fit humans. Here, we see the roots of or modern beauty standards that we see play out in media today.

Art is a way to communicate scientific understanding in accessible ways. During science fairs in middle school, I was always instructed to make a poster that communicates my findings. On a larger scale, nature documentaries like Planet Earth and Chasing Ice blend beautiful and sometimes troubling images about nature to advocate for climate change that is based on evidence found by scientific journals.

Berkowitz’s lecture made me realize just how similar art and science really are. Both disciplines attempt to depict or describe the world around us. Science uses formulas and diagrams, while art uses prose and paintings. All of these attempt to understand the unknown, and share knowledge that is acquired in the process of creating a scientific or artistic work. Before the rigidity that once prevailed in our society, we see people like Bell and da Vinci, who naturally bridged the gap between science and art, and explored them both. Today, we are returning to that mindset which opens doors to our new innovations, like 3D printers that utilize computer code to create physical objects or understanding how pixels can create visually stunning digital images.

In this past week’s lecture by Dr. Carin Berkowitz, she spoke on two disciplines that commonly do not come into conversation with one and other: art and anatomy. While many might be familiar with some type of anatomical illustration at the very least, there often seems to be a disconnect when looking to understand the importance of the relationship for people on either side of the equation. Given the nature of this lecture series, I have been unfamiliar with many of the topics going into the lectures, however this one hit much closer to home. As an art history major, not only am I more familiar with the visual arts, but I have specific experience from being in a class called Medicine in Visual Culture, in which we studied in depth the works of Charles Bell (whom Berkowitz centralizes her lecture around).

The idea of the visual arts in conversation with medicine has been one that developed in anything but linear form. Once looked upon as disgusting, the beauty that artists such as Charles Bell brought to the table helped to legitimize this intertwining of art and medical culture. Despite the ability of Bell to make this connection stronger, Berkowitz noted that there is still a disconnect present when considering the meddling of these two fields. She argued that simplicity must be avoided in the representation of these forms, as this only serves as a barrier to true understanding of the body.

While we think about the works of Bell as fully representative of the intricacies of the human body, it is important to identify these barriers to realism that Berkowitz touched on and have also been identified by art historians. Due to the general lack of understanding surrounding the human body and its processes at the time of Bell’s works, they were mostly done in an exploratory fashion, focused on the interconnectedness of the body’s inner workings. This led to what some found to be grotesque images of the body, however it was an important step not only in understanding human anatomy but also in the medical field as a whole.

Although much of the lecture hit on elements of art historical anatomical drawings that I was familiar with due to my enrollment in Medicine in Visual Culture, I found it interesting to consider how the theme of the course fit into these works. Thinking specifically about the conversation about sourcing of bodies for these purposes (as has been mentioned by other students in the class), I found direct ties to some of the greater themes we have seen in this lecture series. While glorifying the affect these works had on the medical field, it is easy to forget that their arrival on the coroners table came often not by their own choice. This exploitation of the body continues to bring an ugly moral and ethical conversation into the picture when considering how these works should best be shown and viewed. This led to an interesting and thought-provoking end to the lecture, in which Berkowitz questioned how society should best deal with this issue of exploitation. While there is no easy answer, we can remain hopeful that there is a way in which these works can still be respected so long as there is greater consideration of the negative pretenses under which they were produced.

Professor Carin Berkowitz lecture, “Anatomists and the Stolen Statues: Stories of Science, Art, and Religion” provided me with interesting insights into how all of these fields intertwine. I personally never would’ve thought about how interconnected the field of Anatomy and Art were until after this lecture. Using the research and practices of Charles Bell a renowned Anatomist in the early 1800s, Professor Carin Berkowitz explored the fundamental relationship between Art and Science. She also argues that that same relationship has transcended time and is still present in both fields till this day and will remain present in the future of both fields as well.

Charles Bell was a teacher of anatomy before formal medical education became an official practice. His work primarily focused on displaying the body through visual displays. These visual displays include dissections, wax models, preservations, watercolors, and sketches. One of Charles Bell’s philosophy of learning was that the hand was an extension of the eye. Through that process, we can express our internal will through creation. That is why many of Bell’s sketches were extremely detailed and human-like. Instead of just drawing broken up body parts, Bell’s illustrations included the faces of the subject and the even the linens covering their body. For the rest of my reflection, I will be exploring Bell’s affinity for realism and how Bell’s contributions still permeate through society today.

Using the work of Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” I better understand why Charles Bell depicted his illustrations in such a way. According to Bazin, paintings are more eternal than photographs but are limited. Photography allowed artists to embalm time and produce an image that is a reality of nature. Although Bell’s work happened way before the realism movement, I would like to say there was a trend in depicting things as they were in real life and that inspired Bell to do his drawings with such human-like characteristics.

During the questions and answers part of the discussion, an audience member asked Professor Carin Berkowitz about the range of particularity and individuality in Bell’s work and the role of race and sex in the way Bell represented individuality. The lecturer response was that it was rare to see Black men in depictions because many were just body parts. She also added that some people argued that assigning race to anatomical structures was controversial because it should just be representative. Lastly, she said that for a body to take place in the classroom, the victim must not have been able to afford to protect their remains. That last point resonated with me because it just calls to question the ethics of Bell’s work. The corpses he used may have contributed to a large body of research but if the bodies were obtained using unethical practices why is his work so highly celebrated. I also wondered if that was why Bell was so focused on depicting them so realistic as if it was his way of giving the stolen corpses the human dignity they deserved.

Bell’s work in teaching anatomy through artful visual depictions was a very effective way of teaching in the early 19th century. That same utilization of art and visual models are still being used in medicine today through the use of simulations and computer modeling. Anatomy would not be what it is today without the use of visual aids and Charles Bell is in part to thank for that.

In this lecture, Dr. Carin Berkowitz, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, spoke about why anatomists would ever be asked to analyze statues. Her talk had many aspects, one of which focused on Charles Bell’s school of anatomy. I found it compelling that Berkowitz’s talk had a similar overall theme of bridging the gap between science and the humanities. We’ve seen this theme is almost every single lecture given in the series- something I personally enjoy. With myself being a psychology major with a concentration in neuroscience I have been on the line between science and the humanities for years. I have the opportunity to take both types of classes and I find it unfortunate that people often think they are “science people” or “humanities people.” It’s interesting that these two platforms are just coming together now to potentially solve real world problems.

Continue reading “Art is just art?”

Dr. Carin Berokwitz explored the connections between art, science, and religion. I enjoyed her effort to present the material in a clear, interesting, and accessible fashion through storytelling coupled with her research. Much of her research and talk focused on the anatomist Sir Charles Bell during the early 1800s in London. Bell taught anatomy before medical education was formally standardized. He placed a particular emphasis on showing the body through dissections, wax models, and sketches. Many of Bells sketches were beautiful and exceedingly intricate. Additionally, Bell believed there was a deep connection between eye and hand. Since Bell’s time, medical training evolved to include a comprehensive curriculum and systematic teaching method. Additionally, Gray’s Anatomy, THE anatomical textbook for students, was first published in 1858. It featured numerous illustrations with labels imbed in the images. This made it one of the most efficient teaching tools. For my response paper, I will focus on the effects of Bell’s work in the present day.

During the Q & A session, an audience member asked whether or not Dr. Berokwitz expected to see more realistic illustrations (like Bell’s) in future textbooks. Dr. Berokwitz responded that she did not expect to see a return to intricate illustrations. In part, she attributed her response to an education system that begins teaching simplified versions of science very early on. At each level of education, there is an increase in understanding. But, the early stages of understanding are too simplified while the later stages of understanding are often too complex to be fully represented with an image. I think it’s very interesting that today we view intricate anatomical drawings more as art than science. The precision and detail of artistic forms that Bell created are viewed as superfluous. However, one question I have about this is the effect of computer modeling. Given that we are able to create very accurate AND precise models of human functions, will these fill part of the role that Bell’s drawing filled in the early 19th century? Will we use such intricate computer simulations and models in lieu of drawings? Are these models art in their own right? Is their artistic value limited by their functionality?

Despite the increasing obsolescence of Bell’s detailed drawings, his approach to science seems to affect medical education today. Dr. Berokwitz explained that many major medical schools including Yale introduced a visual arts component to their educational requirements. This speaks to Bell’s early influence in the medical field. It also highlights the importance of presenting information through clear and understandable mediums. While the medical field is heavily based in “hard science”, conveying treatment to patients and other doctors can be dramatically improved through effective communication- whether that be through an image or a computer model.

In conclusion, Sir Charles Bell’s creation of artistic drawings and wax preservations proved to be an effective teaching tool in the early 19th century. Today, some of those elements are incorporated through computer modeling and simulations. To some extent, they are also incorporated in medical education and textbooks.