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Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It - or, better, she - was conceived of as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts revealing, at the final remove, a beatific foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general public...
For centuries, humankind has sought to know itself through an understanding of the body, in sickness and in health, inside and out. This fascination left in its wake a rich body of artworks that demonstrate not only the facts of the human body, but also the ways in which our ideas about the body and its proper representation have changed over time. At times both beautiful and repulsive, illustrated anatomy continues to hold our interest today, and is frequently referenced in popular culture. Anatomica brings together some of the most striking, fascinating and bizarre artworks from the 16th through to the 20th century, exploring human anatomy in one beautiful volume.
Walter Potter (1835-1918), a country taxidermist of no great expertise, became famous as an icon of Victorian whimsy. His tiny museum in Bramber, Sussex, was crammed full of multi-legged kittens, two-headed lambs and a bewildering assortment of curios. Closed in the '70s, the museum was variously re-established before being auctioned off in 2003. It was reported that a £1M bid by Damien Hirst to keep the collection intact was refused, but in 2010 many of Potter's key pieces were exhibited by the artist Sir Peter Blake at London's 'Museum of Everything', attracting over 30,000 visitors in 6 weeks. The subsequent dispersal of Potter's works has meant the loss of a truly unique Victorian legacy. Here, perhaps for the last time, the collection is preserved and celebrated with new photographs of Potter's best-loved works.
A transformative guide to embrace your own mortality and live a more fulfilling life Talking about death has been deemed morbid, taboo, or even pathological. But in order to fully embrace life, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders all agree—contemplating death is the key to living a life with meaning. This life-changing book will give you a 12 week program to befriend death in your own way, creating your own personal, daily meditation on what it means to be mortal. Through personal anecdotes, historical examples, meditations, exercises, journal prompts, and reflections, you will learn to both come to terms with what death means and to live alongside it without fear. In doing so, you will see your own life in a new light and discover what makes life worth living. After all, there’s no better motivation to seize the day than a regular reminder that your days are numbered. Whether you're struggling with anxiety, grieving a loved one, or seeking a greater sense of purpose, Memento Mori is an invaluable guide to living a life of greater meaning and joy.
The ultimate death compendium, featuring the world’s most extraordinary artistic objects concerned with mortality, together with text by expert contributors Death is an inevitable fact of life. Throughout the centuries, humanity has sought to understand this sobering thought through art and ritual. The theme of memento mori informs medieval Danse Macabre, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Renaissance paintings of dissected corpses and “anatomical Eves,” Gothic literature, funeral effigies, Halloween, and paintings of the Last Judgment. Deceased ancestors are celebrated in the Mexican Day of the Dead, while the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead to secure their afterlife. A volume of un...
Presents a eclectic collection of essays on death and the intersection of anatomy and medicine, including pieces on such topics as post-mortem photography, books bound in human skin, eroticized anatomical wax models, and taxidermied humans.
At head of title: Morbid Anatomy Museum.
A lavishly illustrated guide to the magnum opus of the great seventeenth-century anatomist, master embalmer, artist, and collector of specimens. Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731) was a celebrated Dutch anatomist, master embalmer, and museologist. He is best remembered today for strange tableaux, crafted from fetal skeletons and other human remains, that flicker provocatively at the edges of science, art, and memento mori. Ruysch exhibited these pieces, along with hundreds of other artful specimens, in his home museum and catalogued them in his lavishly illustrated Thesaurus Anatomicus. This book offers the first English translation of Ruysch's guide to his collection, along with all the illustrati...
Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It - or, better, she - was conceived as a means to teach human anatomy without the need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts revealing, at the final remove, a tranquil foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general publi...
"Illustrated and with essays by Martin Kemp, Spectacular Bodies reveals a new way of seeing ourselves."--BOOK JACKET.