I thought Carin Berkowitz’s lecture of “Anatomists and the Stolen Statues: Stories of Science, Art, and Religion” was very interesting and discussed two areas of study that I always separate into very different categories: art and science. When growing up, I was always told there were “sciency” people and “creative” people, and usually people stuck with that category. Obviously I knew there were exceptions to this, but still today you see most scientists sticking with math and numbers and most artists sticking with photography, drawing, painting, etc. This lecture was very interesting because in the history of anatomy, there was no division between the two fields. Both art and science were combined in everyday learning which is something I thought was particularly intriguing about this whole presentation.
I thought the Philosophy of Learning section Carin Berkowitz discussed was most interesting because she went into detail about how Bell would show his students the human body with visual displays and then have the students prepare their own learning. I question if this practice was beneficial, since I would imagine that not all people who were studying to be a doctor had artistic skills. It is clear that Bell was an incredible artist and was an incredible doctor, but what if his students weren’t as gifted? Did this type of learning deter students from entering the medical field? If students were only artistic or only interested in science did they then not enter the medical field because they didn’t have both aspects? That is something that I found very confusing, for I know that it is hard to be both incredible at art OR science let alone art AND science.
I always find that I learn better by actually participating in the work I am doing and learning via experience rather than just listening to a lecture. I agreed with Bell’s idea that there should be hands on learning spaces and hospital schools for students to understand the human body. I can’t imagine that the doctors knew what they were doing at all before this idea came to place, since it is very hard to transfer book knowledge into practical knowledge.
It is incredible that some of his artwork is still preserved today since it is not only accurate but truly a beautiful piece of art. Of course now our medical students learn off diagrams and photos, but this was the beginning of that creation. It is very unique that Bell didn’t have an artist creating these pieces for him but rather created them himself, replicating the exact features of the human body. It is also nice how instead of giving up with the idea of understanding the human body because it was difficult to get an actual anatomy to work with, he figured out a way to understand it in a different light. I thought this lecture was very relevant to the Presence of the Past lecture series because it provided an understanding of the past and how it effects our future, in the medical world and in the artistic world. It is important to preserve this knowledge and memory for our current society as well as our future societies.
