Art Embodied: Ancient Egypt

I have spent this last week reading medical papyrus scrolls and scouring the Ancient Egyptian section of the Louvre. I hope to gain insight into what  the Ancient Egyptians understood about human anatomy and how they depicted the human figure in their art. This is part of my independent study project I am conducting through Brown University while I am here studying abroad in Paris. For a detailed description of the project, check out the January post titled 'Art Embodied: Project Proposal'. First, a few pages from my sketchbook!

This week I have been blown away by the depth of Egyptian anatomical knowledge, as well as the accuracy and realism of their human figures in art. My expectation going into this week of study was that the Ancient Egyptians would pay little attention to accurate anatomy and focus instead on  representing the human figure in a symbolic, yet inaccurate way. Have I been proven wrong or what. 

The photo above shows a painting that was completed on the wall of a tomb. While the figures' broad shoulders and slender waists may be slight demonstrations of hyperbole, the figures are relatively realistic. The figures lack depth, mostly due to the planar depiction of the legs, yet retain anatomical accuracy and are much more than just a symbol of a human form. The figures depicted below similarly demonstrate the artist's attention to anatomical detail, from the careful iteration of the leg muscles to the well-proportioned arms, hands and feet.

 The extraordinary modeling on the legs of this Ancient Egyptian statue caught my eye. It seems the artist paid keen attention to the muscles of the legs, perhaps belying a more-than-superficial understanding of human anatomy. Based on my observation, accurate and realistic depiction of the human figure was a goal of many Ancient Egyptian artists.

While Ancient Egyptian art signals that the Egyptians knew their way around the block when it came to anatomy, ancient medical papyrus scrolls provide a more detailed roadmap of the breadth and depth of this knowledge.

 One of the most prominent Egyptian medical scrolls is the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. Written around 3000 B.C., this medial treatise is comprised of a series of well-documented medical cases. Each case has a title, a description of the examination, a diagnosis, and a treatment. The case’s outlook is categorized as either “favorable”, “uncertain” or “unfavorable”.  The papyrus documents head wounds, nineteen cases of facial wounds, neck, collar-bone and arm injuries, as well as seven cases of chest pain. The Edwin Smith papyrus marks the first time the word ‘brain’ was written in any language, when it refers to “the membrane enveloping the brain.”

The original papyrus was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, but was acquired translated by American antiquity dealer Edwin Smith in 1862. Here's an excerpt from Case 10 of the papyrus:

Instructions concerning a wound above his eyebrow.

Examination: If thou examinest a man having a wound above his eyebrow, penetrating to the bone, shouldst palpate his wound, (and) draw together for him the gash with stitching..
Diagnosis: Thou shouldst say concerning him: "One having a wound above his eyebrow. An aliment which I will treat."
Treatment: Now after thou hast stitched it, thou shouldst bind fresh meat upon it the first day . If thou findest that the stitching of this wound is loose, thou shouldst draw (it) together for him with two strips (of plaster), and thou shouldst treat it with grease and honey every day until he recovers.
Gloss: "Two strips of linen," it means two bands of linen, which one applies to two lips of the gaping wound, in order to cause one (lip) be joined to the other.”

Preserved bodies found in Egyptian tombs are one window into the extent of medical knowledge and care in Ancient Egypt. At the tombs of Gizeh, archaeologists have found bodies with broken arms that have been set, a body of a man who lived fourteen years following a leg amputation, and another body of someone who lived for two years post-brain surgery. I had no idea the Egyptians were performing these types of operations!

The Ebers papyrus is an equally fascinating medical papyrus. It details topics such as diseases of the stomach and digestive system, skin diseases, and treatments for burns, migraines, and traumatic injuries.  The gynecological system and dentistry are also covered. Another section describes relaxing and strengthening the metu, a word that may refer to the muscles. The Ebers papyrus even identifies organs such as the spleen, heart and lungs. One paragraph describes the link between the heart and the pulse. To give you an idea of the level of detail in this ancient document, here's an excerpt from the Ebers:

“46 vessels go from the heart to every limb, if a doctor places his hand or fingers on the back of the head, hands, stomach, arms or feet then he hears the heart. The heart speaks out of every limb…there are 4 vessles to his nostrils, 2 give mucus and 2 give blood; there are 4 vessels in the forehead, there are 6 vessels that lead to the arms; there are 6 vessels that lead to the feet; there are 2 vessels to his testicles, it is they which give semen; there are 2 vessels to the buttocks.” 

Below are some Ancient Egyptian beads I found in the Louvre, shaped like anatomical human hearts!

The process of embalmment may have played a role in energizing the Ancient Egyptian's studies in anatomy. During this process, embalmers drew the dead body's brain out of the nostrils and made a small incision in the flank or abdomen to remove the organs. This process undoubtedly gave the dissectors deeper insight into what comprised the human body. 

Despite the Egyptian's familiarity with the basic geography of the human form, the assumption that the study of anatomy and the embalming process were closely linked is incorrect.  Firstly, religious law would have banned the embalmers from studying the body in a methodical, scientific way. Secondly, embalmers and physicians occupied separate spheres of Egyptian society. Indeed, while the Egyptians seem knowledgeable of the general layout of the brian, their understanding of deeper functions was slightly convoluted. For example, the heart, not the brain, was considered the source of thoughts. 

The anatomical dexterity of the Ancient Egyptians, coupled with their focus on accurately depicting the human form, has astounded me. The physical body may have been considered a mere vessel for the transient spirit in Ancient Egyptian culture. Yet anatomically accurate forms and detailed medical scrolls signal that the body was a vessel to be keenly studied and loyally depicted.

Observation 5: the ninety degree angle occupies a special place in the french aesthetic

Observation 4: tourists are not hard to spot

Observation 3: the sky is never blue here

Paris, eternally grayscale. Out comes the charcoal, back into the suitcase goes the pack of chalk pastels.

 

Art Embodied: project proposal

The impetus for creating this blog is a Global Independent Study Project (GLISP) I designed through Brown University. The project is a course I designed, titled "Art Embodied: Anatomy from an Arts Historical Perspective," sponsored by Brown's Visual Arts Department Chair Leslie Bostrom. The 'study' section of this blog will provide updates on the project and will serve as a space to share what I have learned. To learn more about the project itself, check out my proposal below:

Project Proposal: Art Embodied

In “Art Embodied: Anatomy from an Arts Historical Perspective,” I will focus on historical anatomical understanding and how it has influenced depictions of the human figure throughout art history. Each two-week time period will be themed around a distinct era in art history. The course will involve weekly site visits to art museums in Paris, as well as readings related to a specific historical era. Course readings will feature subjects such as anatomical understanding of the time and how artists of the era represented the human figure, with particular emphasis on anatomy.

Creation of artwork in response to readings and site visits will be the cornerstone of this course. A high-quality sketchbook, which I will bring to all of my site visits, will serve as a visual and written record of my interactions with artwork in the museums. At the end of each two weeks of study, I will create a final drawing inspired by the artworks I engaged in that timeframe. The culmination of each two-week’s work will be a blog post. Posts will feature: a reflection on the readings and information about select artworks from the site visits, select photographs of my sketchbook pages, a photograph of my final anatomical drawing, and an artists statement detailing how my final drawing is linked to anatomical representations created by artists during the featured era.

The academic legitimacy of this project stems from its emphasis on critical thinking. Each week I will conduct research and observation, but will also be challenged to internalize this information and respond to it creatively. The course will challenge me to engage with large amounts of visual and written input, search for threads of commonality across artworks to pick out broad themes, and creatively engage with these themes on a weekly basis.

My educational experience at Brown thus far has prepared me to explore the intersection of anatomy and art. As a premedical student and a visual arts concentrator, my coursework has spanned the arts and sciences. I am constantly grasping for ways to bring together the fields of art and medicine — two fields I argue are not as disparate as they may seem. This fall semester I passionately immersed myself in two courses bridging art and science explicitly.  ‘Communicating Science’, an animation course in the visual arts department taught by a RISD animation professor and a Brown neuroscience professor, explored how to visually depict and describe scientific concepts. ‘Artists and Scientists as Partners,’ examined the potential of art forms such as dance to improve the lives of individuals with Autism or Parkinson’s disease.  Both courses stressed discovering innovative ways to unite two very different modes of thinking— the linear versus the nonlinear, the logical versus the expressive. In regards to my coursework more broadly, my science courses provide me with the data synthesis and research skills to conduct this project, while my art courses have encouraged creative problem solving and strengthened my drawing skills. With a background that is both analytical and expressive, I feel prepared to conduct this GLISP, which draws broadly from skill sets in both the arts and sciences.

I am excited to continue my exploration of the intersection of art and medicine through ‘Art Embodied’, an academic exploration that will allow me to continue to search for platforms on which art and medicine can find common ground.  The GLISP will also allow me to approach the scientific field of anatomy from a visual, context-rich perspective distinct from the approach taken in my hard sciences classes at Brown.  In addition, the end results of this GLISP will include a body of work — a series of anatomical drawings — that will serve as a launching point for my visual arts honors thesis when I return to Brown fall of my senior year.

With its rich array of art museums, Paris offers the unique opportunity to conduct live observation of a vast collection of historical paintings. This course will take full advantage of the diverse of array of art museums in Paris, with site visits to the Louvre, the Cluny National Museum of the Middle Ages, the Museum of the Romantics, the National Museum of Eugene Delacroix, the Petit Palais Fine Arts Museum of Paris, the Rodin Museum, Musee D’Orsay, Musee de l’Orangerie,  the Pompidou Museum, the Picasso Museum and the Paris Museum of Modern Art.  Weekly site visits to such a comprehensive group of art collections would not be feasible in Providence.  Live sketching and direct observation of historical artworks in these eleven institutions will enrich and energize the project.

While much work has been done in narrating the history of anatomy, and much previous research has examined depictions of the human figure across eras of art history, this GLISP takes a unique perspective. I will examine the link between anatomical understanding and depictions of the human body in art, how this relationship has changed overtime, and how it is manifested in the art hanging from Parisian gallery walls today.

Observation 2: time to eat? the french sit down.

No Starbucks venti lattes to go, no snarfing down a slice of pizza as you zip from work to the subway, no munching on skittles as you stroll around Luxembourg Garden. Food is essential, a source of joy, a thing to be savored, not engulfed!

This I learned one morning when I boarded the metro with my small coffee in a to go cup. The doors slammed shut, and twenty pairs of critical eyes darted to my mug. I tried to cover the little sippy place in the lid with my finger, thinking maybe it was just the aromatic vapors of my super dark espresso that were eliciting such hostility. Nope, still staring.

I decided not to take a sip — maybe I could play the role of servantile intern fetching a coffee for her Devil-Wears-Prada-diva-boss. I had about eight metro stops to go, and over the next five minutes judgement hung so thick in the air that it fogged up the windows. When I finally reached my station, I bolted from the metro. Twenty paris of french eyes watched my back as I chucked my expresso in a nearby trash and vowed never again to dine and dash a même temps.

Art Girl Sees Water Lilies, Bursts into Tears

So that happened.

Let's just say, it has been quite a week here in Paris. Finding an apartment was no easy task — after visiting ten different apartments dispersed throughout Paris, alternatively conversing and clashing with various landlords, becoming hopelessly lost on the subway, hopelessly lost on the streets and hopelessly lost in the grocery store — I've been teetering on the emotional fringe.

It's been an incredibly eye-opening (and frustrating) experience to realize that I can't express myself to the fullest extent. Sometimes in conversation, my ideas feel trapped in my head. I think of a joke or a thought I'd like to voice, and merde (that's shit in Parisian), I can't! I can eeeu and uum or even attempt charades, but sometimes I truly just cannot communicate clearly.

A little of that is ok. But it builds up. And today was my first day of class at the Sorbonne. Operating on five hours of sleep, I took the metro into town. Google Maps estimated 15 minutes of travel time. I used the mathematical operation I've developed to calculate how long it will take me to get from point A to point B here:

(estimated GoogleMaps travel time) x 4 = (Phoebe tries to navigate paris travel time)

My calculations regurgitated the number 60. So I left the apartment at 8 o clock for my first class — 'History of Patrimony' from 9 to 10:30. Turns out not even my extraordinarily generous time estimation formula wasn't generous enough this time around. Finally found the bloody class at 10:25, in a building a full eight blocks away from where I thought I was going to school. Loving this monday morning thing. 

I think I could have held it together if the rest of the day had been filled with croissants and Mona Lisas and long romantic walks along the Seine with a handsome french hand model. Instead, it was stacked with a three hour Contemporary Art lecture I understood about ten percent of, a grump at the grocery store, pouring rain, a head-ache inducing lack of coffee, and another failed venture into the labyrinth of the Parisian metro. Man, I was on the brink.

And when I stepped into the circular room on the first floor of the Musee de l'Orangerie, something in me cracked. It was breathtaking— a crisp open space embraced by four large water lily panels by Claude Monet. There was something about the silence and pervading sense of absolute calm in that room that contrasted so strongly with the last ten days I've spent in Paris. For the first time, I felt like I could take a deep breath. Like I could sigh. Like I could just lay it all down for a few minutes. So I cried — but it's not like they had to put up a 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign up after I left or anything.

Monet created 'Water Lilies' after World War I, and donated the work and space to the French people. It was intended as a space of nature, tranquility and contemplation — a breath of air and a space to think in the middle of a city racked by stress and stimuli. In 1909, when Monet was proposing the project, he wrote "Nerves strained by work would relax in its presence, following the restful example of it's stagnant waters, and for he who would live in it, this room would offer a refuge for peaceful meditation in the midst of a flowering aquarium." Two vestibules and eight panels comprise the whole, the panels depicting time passing from sunrise till sunset.

When you first step into the Water Lily room, your eye may sweep the field of blue that is the wall. You may notice the colors first — the deep purples, the range of greens and blues, the shades of rose. Then a small dab of white will catch your eye, and your gaze will dance from one lily to the next, skimming the blues of the water, gracing the greens of the reflection, fluttering along with the sunlight on the water's surface. You may choose to sit in the middle of the room and let the work swallow you whole. Or you may choose to walk around the room, your feet moving along with passages of color and light. You may stay a long time, you may take a few deep breaths and move to another exhibit. You may think of water lilies when you close your eyes. You may wonder if sky and water and plants and light are more than the disparate elements we make them out to be, are instead a harmonic of blues.

In any case, the flowering aquarium will be there for you next time you need it.

Take the virtual tour of Les Nympheas

Observation 1: french men can't dance

This video clip accurately sums up what I witnessed on the dance floor last weekend.  I still haven't given up on all these Jacques and Pierres — they may not be able to swing their hips, but I hear they can whip out a damn good Creme Brulee.

Art Girl Puts on her Looking Glasses

Art Girl Takes Paris by Storm

Wow I am one lucky bastard, I think to myself as the plane wheels land on the tarmac.

Five months in Paris? My karma is not near good enough to have earned me this. But here I am, and could not be more excited for the adventures to come.

My name is Art Girl. Well, that's not actually what my parents officially christened me, but they did manage to instill in me a deep mistrust of all things cyber and a hesitance to reveal my address, social security number and mother's maiden name to the internet community at large. So Art Girl — there you have it — and good luck finding that one on the public records.

My parents also engrained in me a deep mistrust of urban dwellers. Old women innocently asking me for directions, young children begging for change, men with headphones on the sidewalk — all potential pickpockets, muggers, and potential wearers of six inch knives strapped to their thighs. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is, in case you've never been, is about as classic white suburbia as they come. Think labrador retrievers, lemonade stands, and PTA meetings. So you can imagine when my taxi dropped me off in the center of Paris in my thirty-hours sans sleep state of semi-consciousness, I was a little — out of my element? It wasn't like taking a putting a fish-bowl fish in the ocean and watching it flap around for a few minutes before it instinctively headed towards the coral reef. It was like airdropping a gerbil into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with three unweildy bags tied to its legs and saying 'swim to shore'. I'm the gerbil in that scenario, in case the metaphor was getting a bit too off target.

Contex: Despite having taken two years of french in college, I do not speak french. French people raise their eyebrows at my accent (Au revoir =  'Our-ree-vore'). I have decided conjugating verbs is a luxury my french iterations will never enjoy ('i to go to subway you to come?'). I am, however, an excellent devourer of croissants, a lover of wine, and have had an Eiffel keychain on my backpack since the third grade, so figure these deeply-rooted french ties compensate for my language shortcomings.

Art Girl has yet to see any art, but soon her cot will be planted in the Louvre, sketchbook squeezed under armpit, charcoal in hand, ready to spend some quality time with that reputable lady Mona Lisa.