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Queer Anatomies

Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900

Michael Sappol author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:17th Oct '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Queer Anatomies cover

Explores the possibilities of concealed eroticism in anatomical drawings of the 18th and 19th centuries. Includes detailed analysis of text and images and explores the lives of the men who drew these illustrations, and those who used and collected them.

In centuries past, sexual body-parts and same-sex desire were un­men­­tionables de­barred from polite conver­sa­tion and printed discourse. Yet one scientific discipline—ana­to­my—had license to rep­re­sent and nar­rate the in­timate details of the human body—anus and genitals in­clud­ed. Figured with­in the frame of an anatomical plate, pre­sen­ta­tions of dissected bo­dies and body-parts were often soberly tech­ni­cal. But just as often mon­strous, provoca­tive, flirtatious, theatri­cal, beau­tiful, and even sensual. Queer Anatomies explores overlooked examples of erotic expression within 18th and 19th-century anatomical imagery. It uncovers the subtle eroticism of certain anatomical illustrations, and the queerness of the men who made, used and collected them.

As a foundational subject for physicians, surgeons and artists in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, anatomy was a privileged, male-dominated domain. Artistic and medical compe­tence depended on a deep knowledge of anatomy and offered cultural legitimacy, healing authority, and aesthetic discernment to those who practiced it. The anatomical image could serve as a virtual queer space, a private or shared closet, or a men’s club. Serious anatomical subjects were charged with erotic, often homoerotic, undertones.

Taking brilliant works by Gautier Dagoty, William Cheselden, and Joseph Maclise, and many others, Queer Anatomies assembles a lost archive of queer expression—115 illustra­tions, in full-colour reproduction—that range from images of nudes, dissected bodies, penises, vaginas, rectums, hands, faces, and skin, to scenes of male viewers gazing upon works of art governed by anatomical principles. Yet the men who produced and savored illustrated anatomies were reticent, closeted. Diving into these textual and represen­ta­tional spaces via essayistic reflection, Queer Anatomies decodes their words and images, even their silences. With a range of close readings and com­par­ison of key images, this book unearths the connections between medical history, connoisseur­ship, queer studies, and art history and the understudied relationship between anatomy and desire.

Queer Anatomies upends all that we know and assume about the dissected body, the male gaze, and the interior life of early anatomists. Michael Sappol is erudite and learned, clever and brash, always surprising, and consistently brilliant. * Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2004) *
Rethinking ‘queerness’ through the historical lens of artistic anatomy, Michael Sappol opens the closet on the lushly erotic, macabre—queer—pleasures in exquisite prints of dissected bodies. Wearing its erudition lightly, Sappol’s witty take in Queer Anatomies informs, delights and challenges in equal measure. * Anthea Callen, Professor of Art, Australian National University, Australia *
Lavish, provocative, and richly revealing, this is a visually dazzling and intellectually playful meditation on the transgressive culture of 18th- and 19th-century anatomical illustrations and the men who created, scrutinized, and collected them. * John Warner, Professor of History, American Studies, and History of Science and Medicine, Yale University, USA *
Michael Sappol looks at what others ignore, teasing out the places where scholarship and sexuality, medicine and pleasure meet. This exquisitely researched, beautifully written and illustrated book will provoke, fascinate, and delight. * Joanna Ebenstein, Founder of Morbid Anatomy, author of Anatomica: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy (2020) *

ISBN: 9781350400863

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

280 pages