Andrew Graciano - Visualizing the Body in Art, Anatomy, and Medicine Since 1800: Models and Modeling

Pondering and writing about An Academy by Lamplight (1769) by the famed artist, Joseph Wright of Derby (17341797), in 2012, sparked my interest in the intersection of art pedagogy and anatomical study. Around the same time, I accompanied a colleagues life-drawing class on a visit to the University of South Carolina School of Medicines Gross Anatomy Laboratory, where medical students dissect and study cadavers gifted to the school. To witness the students sketching open and desiccated corpses, and to listen to the dialogue among art and medical students, was an inspiration that compelled me to develop a course about the role of art in anatomy and medicine and vice versa. Researching the materials for the course led me to consider the breadth and depth of scholarship on the subject, in multiple disciplines. In 2015, I was awarded a Provosts Humanities Grant from my institution to fund a two-day symposium, Art, Anatomy, and Medicine since 1700, which was held at the Columbia Museum of Art in 2016. The symposium brought together a dozen scholars from North America and Europe, as well as over 200 engaged audience members. Many thanks are owed to the speakers, whose scholarly participation made the event a great pleasure for all. I would also like to thank the University of South Carolinas Provosts Office for funding my symposium idea so generously; the Columbia Museum of Art and its staff, especially the Deputy Director, Joelle Ryan-Cook, and Event Planning Intern, Caroline Negus, for hosting and promoting the event so effectively; Dr. Erika Blanck at the School of Medicine for allowing access to the Anatomy Lab; Ruth Riley, Director of Library Services at the School of Medicine; and Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, who published my piece on Wrights academy painting.

The symposium, of course, led directly to this book project, which includes five symposium speakers among the eleven contributors. The contributing authors have been an amazing group with which to work and I am forever grateful for their cooperation and patience, intellectual inspiration, and professional support. For reading and discussing with me much of the recent scholarship, including several chapter drafts for the present volume, I thank the undergraduate and graduate students in the several seminars devoted to the topic since 2015. There are too many to list, but each influenced the outcome of the book in their own way and I am grateful for their contribution to the improvement of significant portions of the text.

Many thanks are also due to Isabella Vitti, at Routledge, and Barbara Larson, series editor for Science and the Arts since 1750, for their feedback and advice, for their professionalism and courtesy, and for guiding this book to publication.

Finally, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my wife and children. Without their support, patience, and encouragement, none of the above would have been possible.

Antoine Gallay is a doctoral candidate at the University of Geneva and the University Paris-Nanterre. He is currently investigating the relationship between art and science in Louis XIVs reign, especially in the work of the engraver Sbastien Le Clerc. His larger research interests include artistic and scientific practices from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the history of optics, perspective and visual apparatuses, and the history of scientific illustration.