Anatomical Venuses

Suzanne Valadon's The Blue Room (1923) is instantly transfixing. A woman lounges on a bed in a camisole and striped slacks. Her gaze does not acknowledge the audience, but fixates elsewhere, perhaps authentically lost in thought, perhaps in performative absorption. Valadon was one of the few women artists who emerged during the Fauve period of modern French painting. Her depictions of the female nude were groundbreaking for their so-called female perspective. While the woman in The Blue Room is a non-nude, her pose is evocative of Titian's Venus and Cupid with the Organ Player and, by association, with Manet's Olympia. In contrast to these representations, who portray women in some type of performative role, Valadon's "Blue Room Venus" seems to be decontextualized from her role as social being. Symbolic details such as a stack of books in the corner and kanji-like swirls abstractly floating in the background seem suggestive of an inner life-a being unconcerned with performing femininity while still acknowledging her womanhood through Valadon's gaze. In this paper, it is argued that Valadon's model challenges Renaissance ideals of femininity, typically allegorized through the mythical Venus, embracing primitive values of authenticity. Thus, artistic context and cloisonnist style suggest that the "Venus" in Valadon's The Blue Room is more prehistoric than mythical. To assess this view, a visual analysis of Valadon's work was completed within a compare-contrast model based on the Venus of Brassempouy, a prehistoric effigy discovered near Aquitaine, France, during the Fin de Siè cle. An analysis of the Brassempouy effigy as presented by Dixson and Dixson (2011) supports the idea of Valadon's "Blue Room Venus" as similar in body type to the Brassempouy effigy, perhaps alluding to similar themes.

The Venus de Medici is in a critical state of conservation, its manipulation involves a high risk, so it is considered essential the digitization of the model and its reproduction to have an exact copy to project the different treatment options. The total of photographs exceeds 900, of which 289 are of the Venus de Medici, in eight rings; 152 of the case, in six rings; And 482 of the abdomen and the breasts. The process of creating the models consists first in a phase of orientation of photographs, which concludes with a first "Cloud of points". This generated points are the parameters that make coincide all the photographs at the same point. Then, the "dense point cloud" is elaborated for greater precision. The third step and one of the most important is the "Polygonal mesh" because it joins all the points through lines creating the volume of the sculpture. Finally a texture map is made that overlaps the net generated. Given the high production of polygons in the net that exceeds in each piece the 2,000,000 vertices, we have done a "Retopology" of the net in order to reduce the polygons and be able to handle and treat the piece, in addition to be able to upload them to different platforms, unthinkable in first place given the high weight that these models carry. The "retopology" of the net has been reduced from 2,100,254 to 300,000 vertices without modifying the volume or texture of the model. Once the model is obtained, the range of possibilities for study, diagnosis, hypotheses and intervention strategies is vast. Conclusions Obtaining different models through photogrammetry and its subsequent treatment with different software, allows the restorer a range of possibilities to project solutions without having to manipulate the piece and, consequently, contributing to minimize additional risks and contributing to taking decisions to made in the work; it is ,without question, a very useful tool within the decision-making model. The extensive documentation generated in this three-dimensional way, has surpassed the traditional two-dimensional documentation, offering much more complete data of the object / work of art to be preserved.

Es frecuente que encontremos fotografías con diversos estados de deterioro. Una de las acciones a emprender sin la intervención de un conservador especializado es la limpieza superficial. Las indicaciones que se dan aquí son aplicables en todo tipo de impresión fotográfica sobre papel. Es necesario usar guantes de algodón para manipular cualquier tipo de material fotográfico, tanto para evitar el depósito de grasa que afecta las sustancias fotográficas, como una posible contaminación al que lo manipula.

Inmerso en un plan de gestión de riesgos integral para acervos documentales se plantea el estudio vinculado al control ambiental efectuado en la Colección Patrimonial Alfredo Wormald Cruz [CPWC] y el Archivo Histórico Vicente Dagnino [AHVD]. Se discute acerca de las directrices ambientales aconsejadas para depósitos documentales y gracias al empleo de Sistemas de Información Geográfica [SIG] se perfila una metodología de trabajo capaz de cuantificar integralmente diferentes agentes de deterioro implicados en el proceso de alteración de colecciones y fondos. Los resultados así obtenidos, expresados mediante un índice de alterabilidad, permiten identificar puntos -espaciales y de uso- de mayor riesgo para la conservación de materiales documentales resguardados en depósito.

At the Singapore Science Centre in 2010, I went to Body Worlds, an exhibit set up by the Institute for Plastination, founded by Gunther von Hagens. As I later learned, he pioneered plastination—the art, science, and technique of preserving entire bodies and body parts for use in medical and anatomical research, exhibition, or both. A few months after, I made the decision to donate my body after death to the Institute under arrangements similar to that of a Living Will. In my visits to two other Body World exhibits in Germany and the Netherlands, I have seen organs perfectly preserved and had thoughts occur to me that one day, I may well be an exhibit specimen instead of an exhibit attendee. By establishing a connection with existing pilgrimage literature; and using a combination of thick description and pragmatic analyses; this paper puts forward the proposition that visits to these; and other similar; exhibits constitute a pilgrimage of and to the self. The paper also discusses the...

1 Médico Cirujano, profesor instructor, Departamento de Morfología Humana, Programa de Medicina, Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales U.D.C.A, e-mail: edperalta@udca.edu.co; 2 Médico Cirujano, Profesor titular, Departamento de Morfología Humana, Programa de Medicina, Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales U.D.C.A, Bogotá, D.C. Colombia, calle 222 No. 54-37. *Autor para correspondencia: e-mail: globdimorf@udca.edu.co

El estudio anatómico del sistema ventricular encefálico en humanos se ha desarrollado a través de componentes teó- ricos y de premisas ilustrativas. El difícil acceso a las cavidades y la poca disponibilidad de piezas encefálicas en las facultades de Medicina, hacen que el contacto a priori con su arquitectura anatómica y estructura tridimensional, sea deficiente, en los cursos de primer y segundo año, de medicina humana. Las cavidades anatómicas, se replican a partir de moldes realizados con resina poliéster. Se implementa como técnica de estudio de algunas estructuras anatómicas complejas, como el sistema ventricular, ya que su descripción anatómica presenta dificultad en la comprensión de las neurociencias. Actualmente, se han utilizado resinas, como polímero neutro, en la creación de réplicas anatómicas, ya que exponen una serie de características especiales, como maleabilidad, conservación de estructura, durabilidad, bajo costo, escasa toxicidad y el soporte de forma, cuando se...

Como su título describe, el artículo hace referencia al proyecto realizado en el IAPH para el diseño y construcción de un contenedor para el montaje expositivo de la bandera de la batalla de las Navas de Tolosa del Ayuntamiento de Vilches, expuesta en la iglesia parroquial de San Miguel Arcángel. Un inadecuado sistema de exposición había sido el origen de las deformaciones que motivaron la necesidad de intervención, llevada a cabo también en el Taller de Tejido del IAPH durante año y medio. Tras la intervención efectuada en el IAPH, se ideó un proyecto expositivo que respetase las características técnicas, físicas y conservativas de esta pieza para su presentación al público. Este artículo describe las características de este sistema expositivo con la ayuda

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar la labor dirigida y coordinada por el IAPH en relación con el "Tríptico del Gran Capitán", obra de principios del S.XVI perteneciente a los fondos del Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada. La estancia de esta obra en un contenedor inadecuado durante años provocó la aparición de alteraciones que requirieron, a instancias de la dirección del Museo de Granada, la intervención del IAPH en forma de asesoramiento técnico, cuyo resultado fue el proyecto de vitrina que se expone en este artículo. Su autor describe el proceso de construcción de un contenedor que mantiene condiciones climáticas adecuadas y constantes para la presentación pública de esta obra teniendo en cuenta sus características

Este artículo analiza desde una perspectiva histórica y museológica
la construcción de una fábrica de imágenes patológicas: el Museo de
Reproducciones Plásticas creado por la Facultad de Medicina de la
Universidad Nacional en los años treinta del siglo pasado, el cual estaba
destinado a la enseñanza clínica de los estudiantes en el Hospital San
Juan de Dios de Bogotá. La mayoría de las ceras, obtenidas directamente de los pacientes en La Hortúa, fueron realizadas por el artista Lisandro Moreno Parra, quien luego creó su propio museo de cera ambulante. El origen de la colección de ceras está relacionado con la hegemonía de la medicina francesa en Colombia en la primera mitad del siglo xx y fue usada para la enseñanza en la Clínica Dermatológica y Sifilográfica del hospital, a cargo de los dermatólogos formados en París José Ignacio Uribe y Manuel José Silva. Por otro lado, en los años cincuenta, la fotografía a color reemplazó la ceroplástica, lo que coincidió con el avance de la medicina norteamericana en nuestro país. En los años noventa, el Museo de Reproducciones Plásticas pasó a ser parte del Centro de Historia de la Facultad de Medicina y, actualmente, es custodiado en el acervo de colecciones universitarias de la Universidad Nacional ubicado en el centro histórico de Bogotá.

En este trabajo se presenta la composición de tres ceras, relativamente económicas y de gran disponibilidad, que exhiben condiciones adecuadas para utilizarse en el proceso de MICROFUNDICION. Para definirlas se estudió la influencia de los modelos de cera en cada una de las etapas del proceso y se planteó una serie de experimentos que evaluaron las características ypropiedades más importantes, como punto de fusión, punto de ablandamiento, curva de enfriamiento, curva de flujo, expansión volumétrica, contracción lineal, resistencia, contenido de cenizas y penetración, entre otras. 26 Ingenierla e Investigación OBTENCION DE CERAS PARA EL PROCESO DE FUNDICION A LA CERA PERDIDA INTRODUCION Dentro de la línea de investigación de Biomecánica, que se lleva a cabo en el área de Diseño del Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica de la Facultad de Ingeniería de la Universidad

En la presente investigación se exponen los distintos análisis, tanto químicos como reológicos, realizados a las pastas de cal con diferentes tiempos de añejamiento, y se evalúa el efecto que tiene el tiempo en su composición estructural y en su comportamiento físico.

The three-dimensional models of wax belonging to the scientific heritage of the Complutense University of Madrid are a rare and extraordinary material that deserves to be preserved because it has great relevance to understand how surgeons and anatomists found formulas of visual construction that made possible the diffusion of his knowledge about the human body. In the present investigation, an anatomical wax model of the 18th century, with a remarkable degree of structural deterioration and weakness, has been restored, testing a new volumetric loss reconstruction methodology based on photogrammetric digitization of the sculpture, 3D modelling of the lost pieces and 3D printing of their moulds to obtain from them the final copies in waxy material. Due to this methodology, it has been possible to reduce the handling of the figure during the restoration process and the risk of accidental deterioration has been minimized.

This is an article written by Carles Cols, journalist and reporter of El Periodico de Catalunya. He makes an interesting relationship between the characters and the medical technologies in the TVSeries "The Knick" and the Barcelona case of the 1900s. We have helped him to understand this from the Medical History Museum in Barcelona with materials and ideas.

Introduction: The collection of artificial wax mod-els in "Javier Puerta" Museum of Anatomy in the cabinet of the Royal College of Surgery of San Carlos in Madrid were created for educational pur-poses. In this collection stand out a model of a fe-male figure with a natural size body similar to the typical grecolatina Venus. Known as the Venus de Medici, it was created by Ignacio Lacaba between 1786-1787, just after his return from the Court of Paris. The Venus wax model is considered the only model which can be dismantled. Objective: From the point of view of the delicate state of the Venus preservation, now that im-portant deteriorations affect the model stability and the model has damages derived from previous and not respectful interventions, it has been considered appropriate to include advanced digitization with 3D techniques that made possible an exhaustive study of the sculpture. The main objective has been to obtain a virtual replica of the model to be able to propose different restoration options, avoid-ing the direct manipulation and the risks derived from it. Materials and methods: First it has been made a photographic record. Then the photogrammetry technique has been used to obtain the final result, the three-dimensional model. To design prototypes and guarantee the correct stability of the sculpture have been used software’s depending on the state of the process. Likewise, virtual reconstructions of the damaged areas have been made to show how Abstracts 260 the final result would be if the real intervention was carried out on the model: cleaning of pollutants, removal of non-original materials (varnishes, adhe-sives, wax pastes...), and volumetric reconstruc-tion of the gaps and treatment of chromatic re-touching with pigments. Conclusions: With these tools, the restorer has a virtual replica of the model to study different solu-tions, choosing and taking into account the charac-teristics of the original model.

From the 1850s an enduring anxiety developed around the respectability of the anatomical museum. Closely associated with and used as a demonstration of the professionalization of medicine, anatomical museums and the bodies they displayed were embroiled in controversies from body-snatching to quackery, motivating a need to differentiate the bodies on show in museums from those in freak shows and dubious commercial enterprises. Claims that museums might be sites of titillation were not entirely unfounded; visitors to La Specola in Florence were apt to touch the wax genitalia of the anatomical Venus, while Kahn’s Museum peddled quack cures to visitors’ sexual diseases. To legitimize the display of these seemingly salacious bodies, John Fawcett of Guy’s Hospital Museum, London, suggested that specimens should be ‘accompanied, wherever possible, by a short clinical account’; pioneering the use of other media such as panel interpretation and catalogues, or what is now termed ‘anatomical intermediality’. As Samuel Alberti notes, ‘with the proper documentation the specimen was no longer a sensational exhibit, but rather a serious clinical and educational tool’.

Wilkie Collins’s The Law and the Lady (1875) plays with the issues surrounding the anatomical museum. Collins’s engagement with medical and museum culture shapes his novel, in which characters are simultaneously represented as specimens and curators, and through which clues are collected from ‘curious’ cabinets and house-museums, worryingly instable pathology, classical statuary akin to the wax Venus, and book-body hybrids. Working with nineteenth-century anxieties about the differences between respectable and contentious displays of anatomy, Collins’s textualised and substitute bodies allow for the revelation of secrets and negotiate the tensions of the anatomy museum. This paper intends to read the representations of the Anatomical Venus and other problematic specimens in catalogues, guidebooks and museums alongside the object-bodies of The Law and the Lady to consider how knowledge is hermeneutically constructed, legitimizing anatomical intermediality and the museum project.

Human remains have been exhibited in non-medical contexts for as long as museums have been in existence - in fact, even before then, in the form of religious relics and other sacred objects. Yet ever since 2004, the way in which the general public has been permitted to view and interact with the remains of the deceased changed for the first time in many years in Britain. The modification resulted from the introduction of the Human Tissue Act, a set of regulations formulated by the Human Tissue Authority (hereafter HTA): a licensing body which emerged in 2005. The uses of human remains and tissues or, as they are defined by the HTA, ‘relevant materials’ were to be primarily regulated in a medical context; therefore public display is inconsistent with the rest of the governed usage. In this essay I will attempt to evaluate the complex reasons why medical usage or, as it is defined by the HTA, ‘scheduled purposes’ of human remains became intertwined with their display to the public and the effect it subsequently had on their exhibition. My intention is not to furnish the reader with an exhaustive history of the HTA’s formation, however it is important to outline much of it in order to contextualise this essay more broadly, and include a historiographical element to the analysis: interestingly the change in dynamics of display during the inauguration of the HTA echoed events which prompted the closure of Victorian public anatomy museums over 100 years earlier, which has been discussed by medical historians. The basis for this topic is essentially the result of my personal experience and career so it is somewhat subjective - therefore I will utilise both the Pathology Museum at Queen Mary University London and Bristol Museum and Art Gallery as my main case studies with regards to the HTA, and discuss the Victorian closures which preceded it.
What factors caused these small groups of people to dictate new legislation on the exhibition of the bodies of the deceased, or representations thereof? How has this affected attempts to display human remains in new exhibitions or regenerate old collections?
This paper seeks to answer the above questions and draw a conclusion about the effect of the Human Tissue Act (2004) on human remains in British museums.

La escultura digital es hoy en día una de las disciplinas de mayor proyección dentro del ámbito de la creación artística digital. Desde que Pixologic revolucionara en 2002 las técnicas de modelado 3D desarrollando el concepto de escultura digital o sculpting, muchos son los artistas interesados en esta disciplina y muchas son las plataformas que han adoptado este nuevo paradigma de construcción tridimensional. En este artículo analizamos Blender, la herramienta libre de creación 3D, en su faceta de plataforma de escultura, describimos sus herramientas de sculpting y mostramos su aplicación con un caso práctico.

Las colecciones pueden contener cientos o miles de documentos que pueden agobiar cualquier sistema de conservación. Puede haber gabinetes atiborrados de recortes de periódicos, mapas y fotografías; repisas con libros rotos y deformados, y cajones con dibujos y grabados dañados. Uno pensaría que perfeccionando la técnica de almacenaje ayudaría a preservar estas colecciones. Pero eso no es suficiente, es más importante la existencia de una política de conservación amplia que contemple la preservación de los documentos existentes y de los que se generarán en el futuro.

Dispuestas sobre blandos cojines de seda y encerradas en cofres de cristal, las venus anatómicas de Clemente Susini se sitúan en el umbral en el que convergen la sensualidad y la muerte, la exactitud científica y la fascinación por la belleza.

El principal objetivo de este estudio de dos estatuas de madera de tamaño natural fue determinar si es que en el momento de la evaluación, el agrietamiento original se encontraba estable después de 15 años de exposición. Se utilizaron medidas manuales y fotográficas simples junto con datos de monitoreo ambiental interno e información meteorológica externa. Sorprendentemente, y a pesar de los resultados que esperaríamos según nuestro entrenamiento, las estatuas se encontraban estables incluso bajo grandes fluctuaciones ambientales.