Anatomy Lessons: from the Eternal Body to the Body’s Eternity

The paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) in which the Dutch artist portrays anatomy lessons in 1632 and 1656 reveal the limitations that the interpretation of a work of art can impose on the contemporary outlook if we stick only to the realm of our own subjectivity, ignoring the historical context of creation of such representations. Based on this apparently obvious remark, the present work intends to point out the classic parameters that determined the long tradition of anatomical practices and some of its contemporary developments, focusing specially on works of the controversial artist, or should we say German physician and anatomist Gunther Von Hagens. As in Aby Warburg’s Atlas Mnemosyne , the association of images represents the axis of reflection.

Anatomy; Dissection; Body; Classic; Contemporary