The anatomy of Dr. Tulip
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| The anatomy of Dr. Tulip |
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| Rembrandt van Rijn , 1632 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 169.5 x 216.5 cm |
| Mauritshuis |
The anatomy of Dr. Tulp is a painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt . The work, completed in 1632 and measuring 216.5 cm × 169.5 cm, now hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague .
Contemporary history background
Two people in this painting are particularly exposed: One is the doctor Dr. Nicolaes Tulp , who explains the skeletal muscles to the audience using the section of the left arm of the person to be autopsied. The other is the dead person lying on the table, commonly identified as Adriaan Adriaanszoon, but this is increasingly being questioned. Adriaanszoon was a violent mugger who was hanged for his crimes. The other people are probably Jacob Jansz Colevelt, Adrian Cornilsz Slabberaen, Mathys Evertsz Calkoen, Jacob Jans de Witt, Jacob Dielofse Block and Frans van Loenen, which can be supported by the order situation as well as the paper held in the middle of the hand. Anatomy demonstrations were a social event in the 17th century . They took place in so-called anatomical theaters , similar to lecture halls ; the public, often guild colleagues , students and dignitaries , had to pay admission. The people involved in the exhibition were rewarded with the money raised.
The paintings
The spectators shown are solemnly dressed for the social occasion, like Dr. Tulp members of the Amsterdam Guild of Barbers and Surgeons. The high rank of Tulp is shown by the fact that he kept his hat on in the hall. However, this is a later compositional solution, as x-rays in deeper layers of paint revealed a hat on the highest seated person. It is also assumed that the person on the left in the picture and the person standing in the background above all other viewers were only added to the picture afterwards.
The science of the time declared that the bloody craft of the section should be done by other professional groups. Logically, there are no cutting instruments in this picture, instead it ends in the lower right margin with a huge book that is not readable for the viewer, but will be a textbook on anatomy. The painting reveals a factual error: According to the anatomical nomenclature , the raised muscle ( flexor digitorum superficialis ) should have its origin on the inside of the elbow, but it does not start there in the picture.
Rembrandt was only 25 years old when he painted the picture. But already here, especially in the design of the person of the deceased, a peculiarity becomes apparent that Rembrandt practiced more and more often in later years: the shadowing of faces, which is interpreted as an indication of the umbra mortis .
Aftermath
In November 1967 several photos were taken of Che Guevara , who was laid out and who had recently been captured and shot by the Bolivian military. One of the most famous photographs is the picture by the Bolivian photographer Freddy Alborta , which shows officers, soldiers and civilians who have placed themselves around Guevara's body. It was written by the British art critic John Berger in an essay on the anatomy of Dr. Tulp compared. In addition, several artists combined the photography with the painting, for example the Mexican Arnold Belkin in a series of four acrylic paintings created between 1972 and 1975 .
In The Rings of Saturn, WG Sebald deals extensively with the painting, especially with the anatomical error. In the feature film Barbara by Christian Petzold (2012), the doctor André interpreted Reiser, based on Sebald, the error so that Rembrandt has drawn his hand intentionally wrong - as a second right hand. All doctors look at the anatomy textbook and see the hand as they want to see it - as shown in the textbook - but not as it is in reality.
Goscinny and Uderzo parodied the painting in Asterix band The Seer . The seer "reads" the future from a fish lying on the table while the villagers stand around the end of the table. In an advertising trailer for the computer game Deus Ex: Human Revolution , the image was implemented as a variation in a computer-generated animation . It serves as a parallel for the replacement of the arms with cybernetic prostheses.
literature
- William S. Heckscher: Rembrandt's Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp - An Iconological Study. New York University Press, New York 1958.
- William Schupbach: The Paradox of Rembrandt's' Anatomy of Dr. Tulip '. Medical History, Supplement No. 2. London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. 1982.
- Max Imdahl: speaking and listening as a scenic unit - remarks with regard to Rembrandt's anatomy of Dr. Tulip. In: Karlheinz Stierle, Rainer Warning: The conversation. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1984, pp. 286-296.
- Doris Mitchell: Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulip. A sinner among the righteous. In: Artibus et historiae. 15, No. 30, 1994, pp. 145-156.
- Rose-Marie Hagen, Rainer Hagen: Masterpieces in detail. Volume 2, Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8228-1371-0 .
- Claus Volkenandt: Rembrandt - anatomy of an image. Dissertation . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2004. Basel 1996/1997.
- Gary Steiner: The cultural significance of Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp ”. In: History of European Ideas. 36. 2010, pp. 273-279.
- Marco Gutjahr: The order of the eyes. Rembrandt and the Interior of Painting. In: Ph. Stoellger, M. Gutjahr (Ed.): Visuelles Wissen. Iconic conciseness and power of interpretation. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8260-5339-9 , pp. 131–140.
Web links
- Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald : Rembrandt: The anatomy of Dr. Tulip . From: The Rings of Saturn , pp. 22f, 102.
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Berger : Che Guevara Dead . In: Aperture . tape 13 , no. 4 , 1968, p. 36-38 , JSTOR : 24471426 (English).
- ^ David Kunzle: Che Guevara. Icon, Myth, and Message . UCLA Fowler Museum Of Cultural History, Los Angeles 1997, ISBN 0-930741-59-5 , pp. 89 (English).
- ↑ Christian Petzold in an interview: Clouded Romanticism . ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Monopoly , March 6, 2012.
