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Beautiful bodies, yes. But sexy?
The human form at Pennsylvania Academy

If you've ever envied art students spending their days looking at nubile nudes, think again. It's not quite that easy to paint or sculpt the human body.
In fact, Thomas Eakins advised his students to take home an arm or leg from the dissection lab in order to strip, dissect and study every facet of it. He wanted them to memorize the nervous system, veins and arteries, joints and bones so that they'd know how to render it in paint. You can't fake it.
The current exhibitions in Hamilton Hall clarify how it all began in Philadelphia and how it continues to this day. The body is, was and always will be beautiful. It makes me wonder why in this country we've had such puritan hang-ups about it. Newspapers can print images of dead bodies strewn all over the street but recoil on bare breasts and genitalia. Fortunately, artists and physicians seek reality. At least I hope so.
When doctors worked with artists
"Anatomy/Academy," organized by Pennsylvania Academy curators Robert Cozzolino, Anna O. Marley and Julien Robson, illustrates the close interaction between art and science that occurred in Philadelphia since the Academy's founding in 1805. Philadelphia was then a center of medical institutions, and, physicians cooperated with this first American art academy/museum.
They conducted classes in anatomy, illustrating with models and dissections how the body worked. In Philadelphia, artists didn't have to sneak into the city morgue at night to dissect and diagram what lay under the skin, as Leonardo da Vinci had to.
The exhibition begins with a painting by Washington Allston, Head of St. Peter (1814-15), a study for The Angel Releasing St. Peter from Prison. It's a beautiful, detailed definition of a head, eyes open wide and almost bulging from their sockets.
Don't miss Samuel Murray's plaster cast of Thomas Eakins's right hand (C.1894). Models of various anatomical parts made of painted wood, wax, papier-mâché, plaster and leather accompany drawings of skeletons and figure studies indicating how the muscles, tendons, bones and joints work under different positions and activities. Apparently it was deemed permissible to include faces of the male nudes, but females had to be masked to protect their identity.
Dr. Gross's scalpel
A central feature of the exhibition is Eakins's famous
In fact, Thomas Eakins advised his students to take home an arm or leg from the dissection lab in order to strip, dissect and study every facet of it. He wanted them to memorize the nervous system, veins and arteries, joints and bones so that they'd know how to render it in paint. You can't fake it.
The current exhibitions in Hamilton Hall clarify how it all began in Philadelphia and how it continues to this day. The body is, was and always will be beautiful. It makes me wonder why in this country we've had such puritan hang-ups about it. Newspapers can print images of dead bodies strewn all over the street but recoil on bare breasts and genitalia. Fortunately, artists and physicians seek reality. At least I hope so.
When doctors worked with artists
"Anatomy/Academy," organized by Pennsylvania Academy curators Robert Cozzolino, Anna O. Marley and Julien Robson, illustrates the close interaction between art and science that occurred in Philadelphia since the Academy's founding in 1805. Philadelphia was then a center of medical institutions, and, physicians cooperated with this first American art academy/museum.
They conducted classes in anatomy, illustrating with models and dissections how the body worked. In Philadelphia, artists didn't have to sneak into the city morgue at night to dissect and diagram what lay under the skin, as Leonardo da Vinci had to.
The exhibition begins with a painting by Washington Allston, Head of St. Peter (1814-15), a study for The Angel Releasing St. Peter from Prison. It's a beautiful, detailed definition of a head, eyes open wide and almost bulging from their sockets.
Don't miss Samuel Murray's plaster cast of Thomas Eakins's right hand (C.1894). Models of various anatomical parts made of painted wood, wax, papier-mâché, plaster and leather accompany drawings of skeletons and figure studies indicating how the muscles, tendons, bones and joints work under different positions and activities. Apparently it was deemed permissible to include faces of the male nudes, but females had to be masked to protect their identity.
Dr. Gross's scalpel
A central feature of the exhibition is Eakins's famous
What, When, Where
“Anatomy/Academy.†Through April 17, 2011 at Fisher Brooks Gallery, Hamilton Hall, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 128 N. Broad St. (at Cherry). (215) 972-7600 or www.pafa.org.
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