Page 27 - Studio International - January 1972

among them (24), demonstrate, among many
other things, a dignity that is a straightforward
realization of conditions under which structure
is laid bare to a certain viewpoint (25).
As these parallels continue into the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries some of them may
reflect remote historical connections, by way of
the patterns of pioneer anatomical study, which
have entered deeply into both medicine and art.
Others may seem closer to the kind of comical
coincidences which used to fill the picture
sections of magazines. Even if these comparisons
are no more than an amusing game, it is none the
less to the point to enquire why it is possible to
play this game with only one kind of artist.
Broadly speaking, it is the succession of artists
from Masaccio through Raphael, Poussin and
Ingres to Degas that lend themselves to it. One
cannot play the game with another kind, the
kind of which Antonio Pollaiuolo, Michelangelo
and Rubens are typical, which includes the
greatest anatomists in art. The positions they
evolve are useless to the radiographer.
These affinities evidently point to an attitude
to the body quite different from the conceptual
analysis ultimately originating in dissection.
Similarly, they suggest an order of artistic
meaning distinct from rhetorical expression
through physical movement. The other kind of
physical imagery, which the photographs invite
us to isolate, has some rather elusive
characteristics. The normal perspective
convention is so familiar that we hardly notice
that cognate processes may also be depicted, so
that the forms register quite meaningfully
against a plane within the picture.
Each of the radiographic photographs
catches a physical structure in the act of
surrendering itself to projection on the
radiographic plate which is included in the
scene (27, 28). Just similarly, in the picture by
Ingres at Aix the long arabesque of Thetis is
projected on to Jupiter's rectangular chest (26).
No-one supposes that The Battle of Anghiari
(3o) was fought about the condition of the
para-nasal sinuses (29). Nevertheless the
comparison shows that the pose of Leonardo's
soldier drew force from the way he confronted
his antagonist in the picture with the
structures for snarling and biting in their
clearest and most intimidating aspect.
The body is both the medium and the theme.
Many of the great subjects of art are in essence
physical postures. Related themes cluster
together around the major aspects of the body.
The Agony and the Stigmatization (31),
presentiment (33) and reminiscence, revolve
around an exposure of structure to the
penetrating ray which makes the whole body
vulnerable as if to a supernatural eye. The
mystic messages of Western art are often visual
rays with a natural kinship to the figurative
process.
This analysis might allow us to re-examine
some of the outstanding puzzles of art-history.
Why, for example, did Poussin, in search of a
pose for the dead Narcissus (36), choose among
'7