Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp. Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
1632 Oil on canvas, 169.5 x 216.5 cm
The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis
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Anatomie des Dr. Tulp. Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
1632, Öl auf Leinwand, 169,5 × 216,5 cm
Den Haag, Königliche Gemäldegalerie Mauritshuis
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Ανατομία του Δρ. Tulp. Ρέμπραντ Χάρμενσζον φαν Ράιν
1632, λάδι σε καμβά, 169,5 × 216,5 εκ
Βασιλική Πινακοθήκη της Χάγης, Mauritshuis
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The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is a 1632 oil painting on canvas by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is pictured explaining the musculature of the arm to medical professionals. Some of the spectators are various doctors who paid commissions to be included in the painting. The painting is signed in the top-left hand corner Rembrant. f[ecit] 1632. This may be the first instance of Rembrandt signing a painting with his forename (in its original form) as opposed to the monogramme RHL (Rembrant Harmenszoon of Leiden), and is thus a sign of his growing artistic confidence.
The event can be dated to 16 January 1632: the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, of which Tulp was official City Anatomist, permitted only one public dissection a year, and the body would have to be that of an executed criminal.[1]
Anatomy lessons were a social event in the 17th century, taking place in lecture rooms that were actual theatres, with students, colleagues and the general public being permitted to attend on payment of an entrance fee. The spectators are appropriately dressed for a solemn social occasion. It is thought that the uppermost (not holding the paper) and farthest left figures were added to the picture later.[2]
One person is missing: the Preparator, whose task it was to prepare the body for the lesson. In the 17th century an important scientist such as Dr. Tulp would not be involved in menial and bloody work like dissection, and such tasks would be left to others. It is for this reason that the picture shows no cutting instruments. Instead we see in the lower right corner an enormous open textbook on anatomy, possibly the 1543 De humani corporis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius.
Medical specialists have commented on the accuracy of muscles and tendons painted by the 26-year-old Rembrandt. It is not known where he obtained such knowledge; it is possible that he copied the details from an anatomical textbook. However, in 2006 Dutch researchers recreated the scene with a male cadaver, revealing several discrepancies of the exposed left forearm compared to that of a real corpse.[3] The surgically astute will notice that the origin of the exposed forearm muscles would seem to indicate that the flexor compartment originates at the lateral epicondyle, when it is, in fact, the medial epicondyle. It is the common extensor origin that originates at the lateral epicondyle.
In a 2007 study, the American artist and anatomist David J. Jackowe and his colleagues demonstrated that the mysterious white cord that courses along the ulnar aspect of the cadaver's carpus and little finger, long thought to be either an ulnar nerve variant or artistic error, is most likely the tendon of an anomalous forearm muscle, the accessory abductor digiti minimi.[4]
The corpse
The corpse is that of the criminal Aris Kindt (alias of Adriaan Adriaanszoon), who was convicted for armed robbery and sentenced to death by hanging. He was strangled earlier on the same day of the scene.[5] The face of the corpse is partially shaded,[1] a suggestion of umbra mortis (shadow of death), a technique that Rembrandt was to use frequently.
The French art historian Jean-Marie Clarke points out that the navel of the corpse has the shape of a capital R and connects this observation to the fact that Rembrandt worked intensively on his signatures in 1632, using three types consecutively before settling on the final, first name form in 1633.[6]
Kindt was discussed in the 1999 novel The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald, and plays a significant role in Laird Hunt's 2006 novel The Exquisite.
Related works
The anatomy lesson of Joan Deyman (or Jan Deijman)[1] painted by Rembrandt in 1656, was intended to be displayed in the Anatomical Hall in Amsterdam alongside The anatomy lesson of Tulp..[7] Deijman was Tulp's immediate successor in the post of praelector chirugic et anatomie. The painting was damaged by fire in 1723, and only a central fragment survives.
Around 1856 Édouard Manet visited The Hague and made a small oil on panel copy of The Anatomy Lesson. Broadly painted in a limited palette, Manet gave the painting to his physician, Dr. Siredey.[8]
A less detailed copy of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by an unknown artist hangs in Edinburgh as part of The University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection
The Gross Clinic of 1875 and The Agnew Clinic of 1889 are paintings by the American artist Thomas Eakins which treat a similar subject, operations on live patients in the presence of medical students.
In 2010, Yiull Damaso created a parody of the painting depicting prominent South Africans. Nelson Mandela was the cadaver, Nkosi Johnson was the instructor, and the students were Desmond Tutu, F. W. de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa, Trevor Manuel, and Helen Zille.[9] The African National Congress condemned the work as disrespectful to Mandela, racist, and culturally insensitive to African taboos on depiction of living people as dead.[10]
The 2011 video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution references the painting in both in-game portraits that can be found on the wall and in a certain cinematic trailer, featuring the main protagonist Adam Jensen as the cadaver as Dr. Nicolaes and his students study his charred and ruined arms, which in the actual story become amputated and replaced with mechanical limbs.
The painting is discussed by the narrator (a young man) and his mother during a visit to the Met in The Goldfinch, a 2013 novel by Donna Tartt.
In the 2012 German film Barbara, there is a scene in which Dr. Andre offers his interpretation of the painting to Dr. Barbara when she points out the inaccuracy of Arendt's left hand.
Notes
^ Jump up to: a b Rachlin, Harvey (2007). Scandals, Vandals and Da Vincis. Chrysalis Books. pp. 55–61. ISBN 978-1-86105-878-2.
Jump up ^ Delaney, Samuel R. (2011). Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics--A Collection of Written Interviews. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. p. 98.
Jump up ^ F. IJpma et al., Frank F.A.; Van De Graaf, Robert C.; Nicolai, Jean-Philippe A.; Meek, Marcel F. (2006). The anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt (1632): a comparison of the painting with a dissected left forearm of a Dutch male cadaver. "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt (1632): A Comparison of the Painting With a Dissected Left Forearm of a Dutch Male Cadaver". J Hand Surg [Am] 31 (6): 882–891. doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2006.02.014.
Jump up ^ Jackowe DJ, Moore MK, Bruner AE, Fredieu JR. New insight into the enigmatic white cord in Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632).J Hand Surg Am. 2007 Nov;32(9):1471-6.
Jump up ^ O'Bryan, C. Jil (2005). Carnal Art. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 64–67. ISBN 978-0-8166-4322-6.
Jump up ^ Michiel Koolbergen, "De R van Rembrandt. Waarheen wijst de tang van dokter Tulp?" Trouw, 31 January 1992, 13; this article appeared on the 360th anniversary of the original anatomy lesson by Dr. Tulp. See also, http://www.rembrandt-signature-file.com/remp_texte/remp051.pdf
Jump up ^ Choulant, Ludwig; Frank, Mortimer; Garrison, Fielding Hudson; Streeter, Edward Clark (1852). History and bibliography of anatomic illustration in its relation to anatomic science and the graphic arts. The University of Chicago press.
Jump up ^ Christie's Impressionist & Nineteenth Century Art. Catalog, p. 62, 24 June 1988.
Jump up ^ Van Wyck, Lisa (9 July 2010). "Mandela 'autopsy' just not on". Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg). Retrieved 9 July 2010.
Jump up ^ Smith, David (9 July 2010). "Anger over Nelson Mandela autopsy painting". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 9 July 2010.
References
The Anatomy Lesson of Nicolaes Tulp at the Literature, Arts & Medicine Database
Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Professor Nicolaes Tulp by A.C. Masquelet
Heller, Joseph (1988), "Picture This", Scribner Paperback Fiction, ISBN 0-684-86819-
External links
The 'Tulp-Research Project', Carl Ferdinand Von Graefe Institute for the History of Plastic Surgery.
[2], Jean-Marie Clarke, The Rembrant Search Party
wgsebald.de, Sebald: The Rings of Saturn
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