Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic
    The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic
    The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic
    Ebook223 pages24 hours

    The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic

    By Joanna Ebenstein

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Of all the artifacts from the history of medicine, the Anatomical Venuswith its heady mixture of beauty, eroticism and deathis the most seductive. These life-sized dissectible wax women reclining on moth-eaten velvet cushionswith glass eyes, strings of pearls, and golden tiaras crowning their real human hairwere created in eighteenth-century Florence as the centerpiece of the first truly public science museum. Conceived as a means to teach human anatomy, the Venus also tacitly communicated the relationship between the human body and a divinely created cosmos; between art and science, nature and mankind. Today, she both intrigues and confounds, troubling our neat categorical divides between life and death, body and soul, effigy and pedagogy, entertainment and education, kitsch and art. The first book of its kind, The Anatomical Venus, by Morbid Anatomy Museum cofounder Joanna Ebenstein, features over 250 imagesmany never before publishedgathered by its author from around the world. Its extensively researched text explores the Anatomical Venus within her historical and cultural context in order to reveal the shifting attitudes toward death and the body that today render such spectacles strange. It reflects on connections between death and wax, the tradition of life-sized simulacra and preserved beautiful women, the phenomenon of women in glass boxes in fairground displays, and ideas of the ecstatic, the sublime and the uncanny.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDistributed Art Publishers
    Release dateJan 3, 2017
    ISBN9781942884118
    The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic

    Related to The Anatomical Venus

    Related ebooks

    Art For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      On Body Horror And The Monstrosity Of Women

      Oct 18, 2019

      A woman becoming something else—a tree, a freak, a monster—reduces the risk of harm. It may even allow you to cause harm in return. The post On Body Horror and the Monstrosity of Women appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tale As Old As Time: The Dark Appeal of 'Beauty And The Beast'

      Mar 26, 2017

      Disney's new live-action extravaganza is just the latest retelling of this classic fairy tale. But why do Beauty and her Beast have such a hold on us? And why are there so many versions of their tale?

      4 min read

    • Article

      Caveman For Hire

      Nov 23, 2021

      Caveman For Hire
      6 min read

    • Article

      Suicide Blonde at Twenty-Five

      Jun 7, 2017

      Suicide Blonde at Twenty-Five
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Burning House

      Jul 2, 2018

      The Burning House
      14 min read

    • Article

      The Brief, Mystical Reign of the Wax Cadaver: Early medical models of human anatomy shrouded death in feminine beauty.

      Sep 1, 2016

      Toward the end of the 18th century, in a wax workshop in Florence, a life-sized, anatomically correct, dissectible goddess of colored wax was created. Artist Clemente Susini took the idealized feminine beauty for which Italian artists had long been r

      7 min read

    • Article

      Reducing Dharma to Exotic Art

      May 7, 2019

      Reducing Dharma to Exotic Art
      7 min read

    • Article

      Spellbound

      Nov 2, 2022

      Spellbound
      7 min read

    • Article

      Spellbound

      Nov 4, 2022

      Spellbound
      7 min read

    • Article

      I, You, Us

      May 1, 2018

      BELGRADE/SHANGHAI The research-driven, multimedia works of Belgrade- and Shanghai-based Hu Yun remind us that we are all active agents in the writing of history. Trained at the China Academy of Art, the artist examines the power dynamics that shape o

      4 min read

    • Article

      Seeing Art in Medical Archives

      Jun 27, 2018

      Seeing Art in Medical Archives
      8 min read

    • Article

      Uneasy Anatomical Art

      Jun 15, 2023

      ed. Joanna Ebenstein MIT Press 2022 Hb, 253pp, £32, ISBN 9780262046039 Even in an age when acquiring a “Cabinet of Curiosities” was the aim for every learned European (male) with the means to do so, the collections of the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruy

      2 min read

    • Article

      YOUNG & EMERGING

      May 1, 2018

      YOUNG & EMERGING
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Details Make The Design

      Feb 8, 2024

      The Year of the Dragon is named for the fifth animal and the only mythical creature of the Chinese zodiac. A host of creatives have seized the opportunity to ring in the year with their interpretations of the mythical creature through the language of

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Companion to Curation

      Nov 4, 2020

      If there was ever a book that should be top of the bibliographic list for students studying art institutions and curatorial practice(s) of the past, present and future, this is it – A Companion to Curation edited by well-known Australian artist acade

      6 min read

    • Article

      Secrets Of Gothic Sculpture

      Sep 9, 2021

      Where and when did Gothic sculpture first appear? The designation ‘Gothic’ is a modern concept; it’s helpful to art historians, who want to distinguish this kind of imagery from Classical, Romanesque, and Renaissance art. Those who commissioned, crea

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Making of Genius

      Nov 27, 2017

      The Making of Genius
      9 min read

    • Article

      Subversive Spirituality

      Nov 1, 2020

      Subversive Spirituality
      5 min read

    • Article

      Material Metaphors

      Mar 3, 2021

      Material Metaphors
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Anatomical Venus

    4.5/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is a beautifully illustrated book that gives a history of female anatomical sculptures. The text raises numerous philosophical issues related to the works, and one only wishes that the author had pursued her meditations in greater depth. As it stands, with its lavish and provocative illustrations, the book becomes a springboard for thought on these objects which exist at an uncanny nexus of art, science, and the erotic.

    Book preview

    The Anatomical Venus - Joanna Ebenstein

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1