Aboriginal “x-ray style” figure. Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. Rock painting, ca. 6000 B.C.E. © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis

Hot on the heels of our most interesting visit a week ago to BodyWorlds, I’ve just come across in my bookmarks another anatomy based exhibition online, called Dream Anatomy. Put together by the US National LIbrary of Medicine, it is a more traditional and historical exhibition that demonstrates how the study of anatomy melded science and art. There are many interesting pages to peruse and a large gallery of images to view.

My own interest in prehistoric art and culture is piqued by this page which includes the above image:

Fascination with the interior of the body goes back to the dawn of humanity. The ancient Egyptians had specialized knowledge in some areas of human anatomy, which they used in mummification and, to a limited degree, surgery. Even before the advent of large organized cultures, prehistoric peoples performed rituals with remains that indicate familiarity with gross anatomy. Because they hunted and slaughtered large animals for food, the Inuit and Australian aborigines, developed a detailed knowledge of mammalian anatomy, and a complex vocabulary of anatomical terms, which they applied to animals and humans. Rock paintings dating back to the Neolithic in Europe, Africa, and Australia show schematic and expressive representations of the human interior, as do some European, Islamic and Asian pre-modern manuscripts.

And of course, as a printmaker I enjoyed reading about the technologies of anatomical representation, which mentions the use of many printmaking techniques.