JF Ptak Science Books

The (Really) Last Word in Skin Care: Lip Prep, Eye Sealing, Cavity Solidifiers and the Rubbery Chemical Appeals of Embalming Fashions

JF Ptak Science Books LLC   an expanded post (#975) from 2010

[Faint of heart, stop here.]

This carefree stroll through the geology of death prep and care comes to us via the Embalmers’ Supply Company (ESCO) catalog, of 1941, serving and selling to members of the embalming profession since 1886.  It provides the Practioner with all means necessary to scrape away facial muscle, cement the jaw, seal the eyes, color “old age” eyebrows, fill cancerous cavities, mold over gaping wounds, position the arms, contour the chin, scoop out the brain, replace the blood, pull out the bowels, and all other manner of removal/drainage/fillup, and then apply makeup to cover all suture wounds and other “deficiencies”.

 

Medical and Liturgical Cardiac Pathology, 18th Century: Scarpa & Senac vs. the Throne of Satan

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 952

It is a bit odd to compare these three relatively contemporary works on the human heart and to see their points of correlation and (vast) departure. The first belongs to Jean Senac, whose Traite de la Structure de Coeur…(published in 1749) was one of the most valuable works on the 18^th century on the heart, laying a firm foundation for the study of its pathology.  Senac

 

(1693-1773, born in Gascony and later physician to Louis XV) was the first visitor to many aspects of the heart’s physiology, describing delation (as the most common evidence of cardiac pathology), correlated hydrothorax with cardiac failure, pericarditis, and much more—he also published exquisite illustrations by Jacques Poitier to accompany his text.

The next image is the first to properly describe the nerves of the heart, and was published in the magnificent Antonio Scarpa’s Tabulae neurologicae ad illustrandam historiam anatomicam cardiacorum… in 1794.  Scarpa was a monumentally

accomplished anatomist who was also a gifted artist, and it is his own work that illustrates this masterpiece.  The original edition of this work is huge, atlas-sized, and the images of the heart are life-size and float in plenty of free, very wide and perfect margins.

 

On the other end of the spectrum we have this liturgical philosophical anatomy of the stages of the heart in grace and disgrace.  Mostly I’m interested in the foul part, which shows the advanced mortification of the organ in seating the throne of Satan. The edition here is The Heart of Man, either a Temple of God or the Habitation of Satan¹, and is a very heavy-handed 1842 illustrated edition from Harrisburg (PA) version of a French text of 1732.  It is illustrated with ten versions of the state of the heart, ranging from perfect grace to the installation of the Beast, and several points in between, the degrees of gaining and losing each station. 

The first image shows the heart of man completely dominated by Satan, with Man the sinner’s troubled face (along with the mark of Cain (dominating his wayward organ.  The emblematic animals infesting his heart include the peacock (with its misleading haughtiness), goat (“a lascivicious, stinking animal” representing “unchastity” and impurity), hog (gluttony and intemperance), snake (seducer), tiger (cruelty and ferocity) and tortoise (indolence). They chase from the hear the holy ghost and an angel, and allow the presence of Satan (front and center). 

The second image is interesting in that it shows the movement of a bad/evil/wicked heart to a more pious one, though it is just in the transition stages.  In my experience it is uncommon to see an emblematic illustration of a half-way point of, well, anything; this woodcut seems to capture, to be a snapshot so to speak, of the human heart undergoing transformation. 

 

Notes:

1. The original title was something along the lines of Spiritual Mirror of Morality, in which every Christian, who desires his salvation, may view himself, know the state of his soul, and profitably learn to regulate his life according to it. Hardly gender-neutral, the title makes four specific gender references to men. 

History of Holes 12: Caves in mid-Renaissance Art

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 909

“When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to possess reason, but when it inclines to that region which is mingled with darkness, the world of becoming and passing away, it opines only and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opinions hither and thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason.”  Plato, The Republic book. VI, 508d

Plato dipped deep into the myth/metaphor/parable/analogy/allegory of the cave, contrasting it with the allegory of the sun, discussing the pursuit of knowledge real and not-so.

I like the idea of the half-displayed, semi-schematic, fade-away disposition of the cave and how painters dealt with them and their hidden contents in early Renaissance art.

Its difficult to show a cave, a dark hole (occurring in all rock types and topographic situations, btw) that really hadn’t been dealt with scientifically yet—even if humans had been using them one way or another for thousands of years. 

I’ve noticed these images time in and time out, and I’ve not really saved them, or at least I haven’t segregated the odd etched or engraved images, though they are all here somewhere, so I can add to this post from time to time.  The image that I’ll use tonight comes from Harvard’s Fogg Museum and is the work of the Master of Osservanza (Sienese school, fl 1430-1450, manuscript illustrator).  It is a popular image, “Christ in Limbo”, though of the others working in this genre we see Christ generally at the entrance to a tomb/cave-like place, standing just outside of the doorway (as with Mantegna, Durer, Pacher, Fra Angelico and others). The Master of Osservanza gives us an exquisite cutaway view of the cave of limbo, showing both the outside and the inside, which is an uncommon and beautiful perspective.

I should add that the tearingly odd "Saint Anthony Abbot Tempted by a Heap of Gold", also painted by the Master of Osservanza (ca. 1435) depicts the least-likely-of-all-saints-to-be-tempted-by-gold reacting in horror to, well, nothing.  Nothing at all. We see him reacting to what used to be there, but which for some reason was removed, painted-over at some dim point in the dusty past, for reasons that I do not know.  (And so the painting could easily move into my Blank and Empty Things series.) But the desert landscape is so sparse and the sky so surreal with bent clouds that it is easy today to overlook the gold entirely. 

[I know there's SO much more to this business with the caves--I just wanted to get this post started before it all went down the thought-hole.]

Unintentional Absurdist Art: Flying Boats with Bucket Feet, 1745

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 901

This treadmill-powered French pontoon dredge, printed around 1745, looks for all the world as though it is floating in mid-air, propelling itself along with two bucket-ended legs, elegantly and impossibly moving its miracle-y-balanced self forward against all forms of reason and logic, a clunky 18^th century non-transforming Transformer.  The profile actually and simply shows a dredge at work and just  fails to show the water in which it floats. 

The boat’s dredge is powered by four humans in two treadmills which would move the buckets back and forth, scraping up the river silt and then emptying it into the shuttle launch aft.  Simple and ingenious—except when taken out of context, where it begins to look like some advanced Age of Reason floating boat which, although awkward-looking, is not without its charm.  

Source:  Charles Singer, History of Tecnology, volume IV, pg. 634.  Singer loftily notes that this machine “is reminiscent of Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehring which inspired Paul Dukas’s well known symphonic poem L’apparenti sorcier” and which would be better known to most folks as Mickey’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice gig in Fantasia.

Out of Context Department: Artists Taken by the Devil, 1620

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 848  Blog Bookstore 

Mark Twain said that Adam only took the apple not because it was delicious or attractive but because it was forbidden.  I wonder why this operative of Satan was so interested in this artist (pictured below), who was seemingly and boringly making his way through a standard portrait of an imagined vision of the Holy Mother. She and the other holies (some of whom appear to be "simply" human and clerical compared to the rest of the iconic foundations of Christianity) are being bathed in pure holy light; an angel at left, seemingly with nothing else to do, unnecessarily points to the main attraction, making sure that the artists knew that it was the folks with the halos who were to be painted. .  [It would be surreal and interesting to imagine a short sequence in which we see these two artists working busily on their unseen canvases, sweating as the oils fly, recording the celestial scene before them, golden and glowing people illuminated by the light of the creator; finished, the artists reveal their work, one painting the holy congress, while the other turns his  godless landscape canvas featuring the odd tower at right-rear. "I could never paints hands" he might've said.]

The engraving is the work of Bortius a Bolwert (1580-1643 and a pupil of the much better-known Abraham Bloemaert) for A. Suquet's morality and Heaven/Hell peepbook, Den wech des eeuwich levens...which was printed in 1620. I don't know what the original message was for this image, unless it was something simple, some punishment for a less-than-pure artist painting purity; perhaps the devil took the artist at death, showing the reader that not only is death available to call at any time, but that the devil was right there, too, to whisk you away to the lake of fire even while your oily hommage to the creator was wet on your easel.  It might well simply be in the dance of death tradition--so beautifully and haltingly executed by people like Albrecht Durer--showing Death visiting people of all ranks and professions, the moment of extinction coming at the time most perfectly illustrating the deathee's station of life. 

Also appearing under such titles as Ars moriendi, Memento mori, Vanitas, Dancs Macabre,  the Skeleton Dance,  la Danza de la Muerte, Totentanz, and the Chorea Machabæorum, among others, the idea of the Dance of Death existed as morality plays and in literature for many centuries.  In the years before printing in Europe, there were many versions of time's massacre in frescoes in churches and chapels all across Europe (see here for an interesting chronological listing) as well (of course)as in myriads of manuscripts.  In addition to Durer, some of the early post-Gutenberg masters of this genre included Konrad Witz,  (1460); Bernt Notke,  (1463); Hans Holbein the Younger (1538),  Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki,r Johann Elias Ridinger.  (See here for an introduction to and explanation fo the Holbein cycle.)
In music too the Dance of Death scenario is seen many times:  the Danse Macabre (by Camille Saint-Saëns, 1874); Songs and Dances of Death, (by Modest Mussorgsky, 1875); Dance of Death in Symphony No. 4, 2nd Movement (by Gustav Mahler, 1901); Mattasin oder Toden Tanz, (by August Nörmiger, 1598);  (Dance of Death), in Ballad of Heroes, (by Benjamin Britten, 1939); Dance of Death, in Trio in E Minor, op. 67 (by Dmitri Shostakovich, 1944); Totentanz ( by Franz Liszt, 1849 AND Felix Woyrsch in 1905 AND Arnold Schoemnber in 1914 AND Wilhelm Kempff in 1931, and on and on.  I didn't mean to go on about this, but just wanted to make the point that the Looming Nature of Death really was so in Medieval and Renaissance Europe--and where death as waiting at virtually every turn, the Devil wasn;t too far behind. 

(Also, see Bibliodyssey for a wonderful woodblock book of the dance of death.)

A Short Note on Forks and Art

JF Ptak Science Books LLC   Post 791   Blog Bookstore

I was on my way to something else when I stopped to look at this engraving by Ulrich Pinder, his last supper, the Speculum passionale, published in Nuremberg in 1507.  It has a nice perspective, an interesting ceiling, and a crowded table with very little on it in the way of food.  And no forks.  Knives—yes of course—and big containers of some sort of liquid, but no forks.  As it turns out, the fork really hadn’t made a strong appearance in northern Europe until the end of the century, brought back evidently from travelers in Europe.  The first appearance in a painting, in another Last Supper, I believe, occurs at least by 1599.

I know, there’s no spoons either, but they had been around for a long time, and just didn’t make an appearance on this table for reasons unknown.

"I observed a custome in all those Italian Cities and Townes through which I passed that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, neither doe I think that any other nation of Christendome doth use it, but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are cormorant in Italy, does alwaies at their meales, use a little fork when they cut the meate . . . their forkes being for the most part made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but these are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is because the Italian cannot endure by any means to have his dish touched by fingers, seeing that all men's fingers are not alike cleane. Hereupon I myself thought to imitate the Italian fashion by this forke cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and often-times in England since I came home."Thomas Coryate, Coryat's Crudities (1611)
See:

Forbes, R. J. "Food and Drink," Charles Singer, et. al. eds. A History of Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. Vol. II: The Mediterranean Civilization and the Middle Ages, c. 700 B.C. to c. A.D. 1500:  page 126.

Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible, London: Collins, 1981:  page 209.

Dadaist Images in 19th Century Prints: William Rimmer's Artistic Anatomy, 1877

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 667

Looking at old prints sometimes reveals more than just their own history, simple or not:  there are, from time to time, subtle bits of otherness that creeps into the image, if you allow yourself the time to see it.  And sometimes looking at images of the past reveal a little of the future, or the possibility of the future.

I wrote a little about this in the odd art/color textbooks of the pre-Kandinskian Emily Vanderpoel , about whose color theory I still understand not at all, though the images that she produced as illustrations to these bizarre theories are stunning, pre-modernist, and unintentional creations.

William Rimmer’s (1816-1879) Art Anatomy (1877 and subsequent printings) is another such adventure.  Rimmer was a very accomplished artist, and was also a fine anatomist.  He was very concerned and interested in what happens to the skin, forced into action by all of the stuff underneath it.  He pursued the movement of muscle, and bone, and the interplay of the two, and produced a wonderful exponent of artistic anatomy. 

 And inside of these images is something else, sometimes.  There is an undoubted Leonardoesque quality to many of his drawings, the figures appearing with deft lines and interesting shadings, many times

surrounded by the author’s notes and explanations  But there’s also something else—some of the images are just, well, a little bizarre given the time in which they were executed.  Some of the details are positively modernist, begging to be identified as a 1920’/1930’s creation, or Dadaist, or something—just not 19^th century.  I’ve included some further examples below

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Is Dance Dangerous? The Naive Surreal Collection, Part 8.

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 477
In the history of questions, this  ("Is the dance dangerous?") certainly must rank in the bottom tenth percentile.  Or at least I hope it does.  The question is the title of this small pamphlet, written by Porter Bailes (of the First Baptist Church of Tyler, Texas) in 1947, a work which is part of my Naive Surreal collection.  "If it's doubtful, it's dirty" is the major maxim that floats it way through this work, and proceeds to attacks it subject of "the"dance on its unholy, immoral, unnatural, imprudent, prayer-defeating nature. 

"Can any one stretch the imagination as to think of Jesus as being congenial and at ease in the atmosphere that the dance creates? No! Dancing is not to the glory of god. It never made anyone feel the nearness of god.  It robs us of the desire to pray. A dancing foot and a praying knee are not found long on the same limb."

And also:

"There are many fine people who dance.  They are fine not because they dance, but in spite of the dance."

And:

"The dance does not involve any moral requirements.  The more lewd the people are, the more proficient they may become. The gestures of the dance demand lewdness." 

Lastly:  "the tine of the dance makes it dangerous. Its hours are unearthly and abnormal"

And lastly last:  " The position of the dance make it dangerous.  For two normal people to place their bodies in the close personal contact that the modern dance demands and not have impure thoughts and unholy emotions stirred, would be very unnatural.  In truth, it is against all the known laws of human nature."

This is last just for my examples:  there are 20 pages of this.  It is remarkable that, in this highly restrictive and judgmental work,  the paper is allowed to bend. 

And not to be outdone, the author tells us that 97% of professional gamblers "attribute their habit to the practice of playing cards at home".  "The risk is too great, young people" Pastor Bailes tells us, "for you to start gambling--even at home".  He began to warm to this subject but I guess was saving this subject for later.

Original Reflections: unique experiences with mirrors: Van Eyck & Brunellesci

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I was thinking about writing a short post on van Eyck and settled on his painting of this newly married couple--The Arnolfini Marriage, painted in 1434, depicting the union of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, who married in Bruges in that year--and the very unusual image of the scene as reflected in the convex mirror directly behind the couple. It is a wonderful painting of course, lusciously and richly colored--the observer, though, is brought instantly to the mirror. And in that reflection is what is seen from behind the couple as well as what the couple is seeing--in a sense, a 180-degree view of the room (if we considered the painter's perspective towards the couple as 90-degrees). It is one of the first times that a mirror is used in this fashion and is also offers a great instruction on the newly-rediscovered perspective. (The inscription above the mirror, which is surrounded by ten scenes from the life of Christ, reads “Jan van Eyck was present"--and probably was literal, as we see the painter himself reflected in a tiny portrait...along with another man, who may also have been involved with the wedding).

As a matter of fact, it is just 30 years earlier that Filippo di  Ser Brunellesci (1377-1446) used mirrors as a tool in "creating" the first paintings in linear perspective in modern times--and he uses the mirrors in such a way as to compare what he was seeing in front of him, rather than using them to gain a sight-line for things that he couldn't see. But they did in a way do just that. Brunellesci set his position inside the unfinished Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence), and used the apparatus (pictured here from the linked website) to record the facade of San Giovanni de Firenze (better known by its subsequent name, the Florentine Baptitstry, as all Florentine Catholics
 were Baptized there well into the 19th century) which was opposite his position across the Piazza del Duomo. He effort was a panel which was finished between 1407 and 1410, and which is now lost to time and space.

It should be noted that the Baptistry, an 8-sided figure (with another, triangular, form added later; and 8-sided to represent the octava dies, the "eighth day," the day of the risen Christ, which would be outside the scope of time and measurement) was decorated with colossal, fantastically beautiful doors, some of which were created by none other than Ghiberti, another (slightly later) master of linear perspective.

(The image above is taken from the very useful site which goes into good detail about the Brunellesci pin/peephole experiment.)