Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6783

Date

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Art History

Concentration

General Art History

Committee Member

Rebecca Marie Howard

Committee Member

William Carlisle McKeown

Committee Member

Patricia Victoria Podzorski

Abstract

This study has emerged through a combination of art and science, visually and contextually analyzing anatomy lesson paintings as commemorations of physicians, artists, and medical and anatomical advancements. This study focuses on the works of five major artists through the Dutch Baroque and American Realist periods: Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins, Albert Sands Southworth, and Josiah Johnson Hawes. Chapter One begins with Andreas Vesalius, laying the groundwork for the depictions and spread of information for medical advances in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Chapters Two and Three respectively consider depictions of Baroque and then Realist advances in the medical field. The anatomy lessons examined are considered in relation to medical knowledge at the times of their completions, the varying ways that artists handled the subject matter, and the shift from dissections for anatomical knowledge to surgeries meant to improve the lives of living patients.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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