35 - the Scientist
21 maart 2006
Rembrandt - the Anatomy Lecture of dr. Nicolaes Tulp
1632
Oil on canvas, 169,5 x 216,5 cm
Mauritshuis, The Hague
extract from an article by A.C. MASQUELET :
..."In the 17th century, Amsterdam and the United Provinces were among Europe’s foremost scientific centres. The quest for knowledge, and for anatomical knowledge in particular, was not seen to be in conflict with religion. At the same time, in Italy, Galileo was standing trial for his views.
In Leiden, Descartes had sought refuge in search of freedom of thought and freedom of movement; it was there that he published his famous Discourse, in French. In the Protestant countries, there was no argument about the position of the sun.... Even so, the dissection of a human body was not seen as a natural act. Dissection was not to become an established practice until the 18th century. Before then, permission was granted only sparingly, and only to well-known members of the universities, who would be allowed to perform dissections for teaching purposes or as public demonstrations. The anatomists would comment what they were doing; they would check their findings against the Fabrica, Vesalius’ masterly textbook, whose second edition ushered in the age of modern, observational and descriptive anatomy, and marked the final break with Galen’s, and ultimately Aristotle’s, speculative theory of final cause.
So, are we actually looking at an anatomy lesson? Is Tulp showing something new to his amazed audience?
Is the painting simply about Tulp “exposing with his forceps the object of his demonstration, viz. the muscles of the fingers and their blood supply, emphasizing the point that he is making with the movement of his left hand”2?
Allow me to suggest how I read Rembrandt’s painting. My analysis is based upon several clues:
(1) This is not an anatomy lesson in the 17th-century sense of the term: the body has not been “cut up” (which is the actual meaning of “anatomy” - from Greek ana- meaning up and temnein, to cut).
Anatomy lessons always started with a study of the abdominal viscera, followed by that of the chest contents. This was done for a practical reason, since the viscera were the most perishable parts of the body. Rembrandt, incidentally, painted another anatomy lesson, commissioned by Tulp’s successor at the Guild of Surgeons; in this painting, the anatomist is shown examining the brain of a cadaver that has been eviscerated. In the Anatomy Lesson of Professor Tulp, however, the body is intact. Only the left forearm has been cut open. Thus, Tulp wanted to show a phenomenon of particular interest to him, without going through all the usual stages of a teaching dissection.
(2) In his right hand, Professor Tulp is holding a forceps lifting up a muscle belly; from its superficial position, its division into several tendons, and its insertion on the middle phalanges of the fingers, the muscle is readily identifiable as the flexor digitorum superficialis. Normally, an anatomist trying to demonstrate an anatomical structure to his students would use a pointer (the instrument used by Dr. Egbertsz in de Keyzer’s painting). The way the muscle has been picked up with forceps suggests that Tulp is not merely showing a structure.
(3) Tulp is holding his left hand in an odd way. Some commentators have thought that he is emphasizing a point. However, on closer scrutiny, the movement is quite complex: the wrist is in extension, the metacarpophalangeal joints are straight, while the proximal interphalangeal joints are flexed. The result is an unnatural position of the hand and the fingers. I think that Tulp’s left hand holds the key to the meaning of the anatomy lesson: Tulp is deliberately holding his hand like this, in order to show that pulling on the muscle that he is holding with the forceps will cause the same movement of flexion in the proximal interphalangeal joints of the cadaver. In other words, Tulp is demonstrating the action of the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle by combining a voluntary movement of his hand and a demonstration of the muscle action in the cadaver. However, it may be objected, if that is so, why did Rembrandt not show the cadaver’s fingers flexed?
This obviously would have made the lesson clearer. However, it would also have deprived the painting of that mark of Rembrandt’s genius, the suggestion of movement.
Having both actions occurring at the same time would have spoilt the dynamics of the scene. As the picture stands, one can imagine that Tulp is showing the phenomenon of interphalangeal joint flexion with his left hand, while preparing to pull on the muscle in the cadaver to explain how the voluntary movement is caused. There are other clues to support this hypothesis. Let us look at the two characters in the front row, the ones that seem to take the greatest interest in Professor Tulp’s lesson, and who may well be the two physicians known to have been in the audience. The one on the left, whose face is shown almost in profile, is looking intently at the forearm of the cadaver; the one on the right is gazing straight at Tulp’s left hand. The way these two observers are looking at two different objects signals what is going to happen just after the moment that has been caught, and fixed in time, by Rembrandt’s painting: the cadaver’s fingers are going to move as the muscle is being pulled by the forceps. Thus, by making two people look in different directions, Rembrandt suggests something that is not just a point in time, but which occupies a certain period of time. As a final clue, the man looking at Tulp is clutching his chest with his fingers flexed, as if mirroring the gesture of Tulp’s left hand. With this reading, the picture assumes a different dimension: this is not a static, descriptive anatomy lesson, but a lesson in physiology and functional anatomy. It also displays one of the essential qualities of Rembrandt’s genius: the depiction of movement.
The movement of the group, strongly suggested by the composition of the painting and the arrangement of the sitters, could be summed up as one of wonder at what is being demonstrated by the anatomist - the action of the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle on the proximal interphalangeal joints.
The message should be clear:
Far from not understanding the point of Professor Tulp’s anatomy lesson, Rembrandt has grasped its very essence. His painting, produced at a time of great historical, artistic, sociological, and epistemological developments, epitomizes the spirit of 17th-century Holland. Indeed, the artist’s concern with movement makes this painting the epitome of 17th-century European thinking: movement was central to the ideas of Descartes, Gassendi, Galileo, Leibniz, Newton - and Rembrandt.
In 1632, Rembrandt was only 26 years old. He may not even have known just what a masterpiece he was creating.
But is it not the hallmark of genius that the artist should be creating works of genius without being aware of it?"
1 P Descargues. Rembrandt. J.C. lattès 1990. p 71.
2 ibid. p 71.
read the whole story on the internet:
http://www.maitrise-orthop.com/corpusmaitri/orthopaedic/86_masquelet/masqueletus.shtml
Posted by willy at 08:48 am to 35 - the Scientist | the Professions | Comments (0)