EN-GENDERING EXEMPLARITY IN EARLY MODERN ANATOMICAL ILLUSTRATION AND THE FINE ARTS: DIS- AND DYS-IDENTIFICATIONS OF THE ANATOMICAL/PICTORIAL MODEL
EN-GENDERING EXEMPLARITY IN EARLY MODERN ANATOMICAL ILLUSTRATION AND THE FINE ARTS: DIS- AND DYS-IDENTIFICATIONS OF THE ANATOMICAL/PICTORIAL MODEL

Summary/Abstract: Early modern anatomy books document their authors’ belief in the scientific salience of the physician’s direct engagement with dissection (‘anatomy’) as the true grounding of medical knowledge of the human body. This paper addresses the ideological underside of the early modern anatomical project so as to unravel the intertwined ‘en-gendering’ (in Teresa de Lauretis’s terms) of anatomical universality and heroism/exemplarity as male. A comparison with cognate representations in the fine arts suggests the silencing of alternative, female, models of exemplarity lest the patriarchal grounding of anatomical science be shaken, a silencing whose ideological ramifications extend to the present.

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