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Learning: Bodies of Knowledge
How has the human body been represented when seen as an object of study? A good start on an answer to this question can be seen in the myriad of images of the body gathered together by the British Library as part of their Learning: Bodies of Knowledge. The only draw back to the site is the lack of info on specifically where (i.e. which books) the images come from, but the images themselves... pretty amazing.
The British Library explains:
Our bodies are incredibly complex machines. Every second of every day we are powered by beating hearts, and carried around by intricate skeletons. Pipes, organs, hormones and brain cells keep us eating, breathing, growing and thinking. And yet few of us ever get to see the amazing mechanisms hidden beneath our own skin.For thousands of years the inner workings of the body have provoked fascination, confusion, amazement and even disgust. [Learning: Bodies of Knowledge] looks at the way different cultures, at various points in history, have looked at the body, and how these ideas have been translated into pictures.
Categories include: Medieval astrology, Acupuncture, Vitruvius’s theories of beauty, Vesalius’s Renaissance anatomy lessons, Ruysch’s anatomical curiosities, Victorian freak shows, Roentgen’s discovery of the x-ray, Fritz Kahn’s body machines, Kundalini yoga, Activities. After opening text, each of these has its own gallery of images.
To view some of these great images, go check it out: Learning: Bodies of Knowledge
— michael | February 12, 2008 11:04 AM | I found it online
