A Cadaver‐Based Anatomy Course for Advanced Art Students

Abstract

The history of modern anatomy, from the Renaissance on, is closely linked to changes that art was undergoing at the same time. A number of artists, such as Da Vinci and Michelangelo, personally performed dissections and applied their understanding of form and function to their creative work. From then through the late 19th century collaborations between scientists and artists were common, such as those between Vesalius and the studio of Titian, resulting in the plates of De Humani Corporis Fabrica, and research on anatomy and locomotion by Eakins and Muybridge. Before the 20th century studies in cadaver anatomy were present in the curricula of nearly all art academies. Now, however, the direct and intensive study of the cadaver has all but vanished from artistic courses of study. The Drexel University College of Medicine and the Fleisher Art Memorial jointly offer “Advanced Artistic Anatomy,” a course of 13 full days, that gives advanced art students the opportunity to directly study the cadavers dissected by medical students. This unique course (to our knowledge, no course of this level exists anywhere else) focuses on the practical application of anatomical knowledge to drawing, painting and sculpture. It combines demonstrations and drawing in the anatomy lab with life drawing, where anatomical understanding is used to improve the students' considerations of form and function, informing their approaches to art making.