Some may well be inaccurate compared to today’s anatomy, but hence many have their own unique charms. What we look at is the human body pictorially dissected from the end of the 15th, to the mid-18th century. Sebastian’s arrow wounds evoked pest scars, which were then believed to cure the pest.įollowing the perspective of art and religion, this chapter exhibits the western body through the eye of science. Stephan who had his head crushed by stones was solicited upon to cure headaches, while St. However, these Saints were not solely object to devout feelings. In The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea Sanctorum), a collection of the saints’ lives, the scenes of the Saints persecuted for their faith are seen in various illustrations. The aesthetic of Christ’s body was also passed on to his followers. All are unembellished woodprints that are carefully hand painted, bringing the owners’ faith in mind. On the contrary, the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan depicts countless people gathering to form a huge politic body, or so to say, a nation.Īnother ideal that we could not leave out when speaking of western bodily images is that of Jesus Christ, the body which was tortured and crucified upon atonement for the sin of Adam and Eve.Ī scene of Christ’s Passion, the Arma Christi (instruments of Passion) placed around a blood shedding Christ, the instruments arranged inside a heart, and an infant Christ holding a whip… the depictions stretch to numerous variations. Seen from its inscription on the bottom, The Farnese Hercules carved by Hendrik Goltzius can also be taken as an expression of Netherlands’ enhanced national prestige. ![]() The shift of power from ‘a hero’ to ‘troops,’ is reflected on the imagery of regimes as well. We can see how the analyzation and explanation of ideal bodily motions reproduced in prints, enabled anyone to practice the same moves. The 16th century was also a period when swordery and combat techniques passed along in manuscripts, were then widely spread through printing technology. This concurs with the focus of war, shifting from the power of individuals like knights to the power of loads, of organized troops. On the other hand, mercenaries and militias would start to appear in drawings of the 16th century. Sure to be an icon of these masculine figures, the legend of Hercules and his great heroic acts were stories that men in power fancied, and as for artists, was the ideal model to draw a strong body and its grand movements it was capable of. It is the 16th to 17th century, an era when the dictatorial structure centering on the feudal system changes, as the Middle Ages ends. Next, we exhibit the expressions of ‘energy’, in masculinity and bodies in motion, along with the ‘power’ of armies and regimes. From the copperplate prints Nemesis to Adam and Eve, and from the series of The Engraved Passion to the theoretical Four Books on Human Proportion (Hierin sind begriffen vier bücher von menschlicher Proportion), Dürer continuously explored the ideal figure of the human body. These words were illustrated and diagrammed by Leonardo da Vinci, and numerous others to come.Īlso greatly studying from these sculptures and theories was Albrecht Dürer, who further built his own theory of depicting the human body through practice. Vitruvius, an architect of ancient Rome wrote that the circumference of an outstretched human body fits perfectly in a square. One of the artists who absorbed the ancient norm into his flesh and blood, was Michelangelo. ![]() In the center stood Italy, where many ruins remained. Scoping in the late 15th to 16th century, it was an era flourishing with the revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture, the coming of the so called ‘the Renaissance.’Īncient sculptures and carvings were excavated in this era, which were set as models for the artists of the time. In this section, ‘Beauty’ revolves around the balance and ideal of the body’s proportion. ![]() We first pick up on how the human body has been depicted in the western civilization. Chapter 1-1 Ideal Bodies: Beauty / Proportion
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