The body and difference: Anatomy training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the later nineteenth century

Art History

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 23-60

  Callen, Anthea ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 67651149783     PISSN: 01416790     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8365.00045     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. '... aucun élève quels que soient le nombre et la nature de ses succès dans l'école, ne peut être admis dans le concours de composition, de la tête d'expression et de la figure peinte s'il n'a obtenu l'une des récompenses attachées aux concours de perspective', Article 28 of the regulations of 1839, quoted in P. Grunchec, Le Grand Prix de Peinture: Les concours des prix de Rome de 1797 à 1863, Paris, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1983, p. 96
2. On the Prix de Rome see P. Grunchec, The Grand Prix de Rome: Paintings from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts 1797-1863, Washington DC, 1984, and Grunchec, op. cit. (1983)
3. See references in notes 5 & 6, and also, for example, CARAN AJ/52/53, Rapport annuelle de l'Ecole impériale et supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Distribution des prix et médailles de l'année scolaire 1854-55, Paris, 1855, p. 10
4. The most comprehensive study to date is J.-F. Debord's 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in J. Clair (ed.), L'Ame au corps: arts et sciences 1793-1993, Paris, 1993, pp. 102-117. P. Grunchec, op. cit. (1984), has very limited information on the Concours in anatomy and its teaching (p. 24), but in his 1983 volume (op. cit., p. 89) the anatomy professors are listed, and general information is given on methods of appointment and payment of staff; he notes that succession was not automatic. However, under Concours spéciaux (op. cit., 1983, pp. 96ff) anatomy is again left out, the detailed information focusing instead on perspective, historical landscape and historical composition, the expressive head and the painted torso contests
5. See also Alexis Lemaistre, L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts dessinée et racontée par un élève, Paris, 1889, on anatomy, pp. 119-31
6. Henri Delaborde, L'Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1891
7. Gabriel Rouchès, L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1924
8. M.-M. Duval and E.-P.-J. Cuyer, Histoire de l'anatomie plastique ...', Paris, 1898, pp. 245-6
9. On Thiroux d'Arconville, whose class and gender status did not permit her to publish in her own name, see L. Schiebinger, The Mind has No Sex? Women and the Origins of Science, Harvard, 1989, esp. Chaps 7 and 9. As with the identity of the author-translator, there is confusion regarding the execution of the drawings for Traité d'ostéologie; the 1759 edition gives J. Tharsis, but Schiebinger, pp. 195-6, suggests both that d'Arconville herself made the drawings, and that she directed their drawing by others
10. J.-J. Sue, Traité d'ostéologie, Paris, 1759, vol. 1, p. 210. Cf. Schiebinger, op. cit., p. 193, 'The bones of Women are frequently incomplete, and always of a Make in some Parts of the Body different from those of the robust Male, which agree to the Description already delivered, unless where the proper Specialities of the Female were particularly remarked, which could not be done in all Places where they occur, without perplexing the Order of this Treatise ...' (Monro, 1726, Appendix, p. 341): Monro deemed the differences so numerous as to disrupt the orderly male narrative of the Treatise if examined in the body of the text rather than as a separate appendix. The role and importance of anatomies, notably concerning theories of social and racial distinction, including gender difference between male and female skeletons, are developed in Callen, op. cit. (under preparation)
11. See Charles Singer, 'Historical Introduction', in Ludwig Choulant, History and Bibliography of Anatomical Illustration, New York and London, 1961, pp. 22-5
12. Jean-Joseph Sue (fils), Elémens d'anatomie à l'usage des peintres, des sculpteurs et des amateurs, Paris, 1788, p.20
13. See M.-M. Duval and A. Bical, L'anatomie des maîtres, Paris, 1890, p.22
14. This approach circumscribed medical knowledge of the body, too; it was only with Charcot in the 1870s that a new emphasis on medical study of the live body emerged; see A. Souques and H. Miege, 'Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), Les Biographies Médicales: Notes pour servir à l'histoire de la médecine et des grands médecins', Revue médicale illustrée, 13e année, 1939, part I; I shall return to this issue below
15. Revue des beaux-arts, 1856, t. VII, p.123, quoted in Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., p. 106
16. CARAN AJ/52/433, cited in Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit. pp. 107-108
17. CARAN AJ/52/53, Rapport annuelle de l'Ecole impériale et supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Distribution des prix et médailles de l'année scolaire 1853-54, Paris, 1854, p.8, 'Le Concours d'Anatomie, de nouvelle institution, et qui aura lieu pour la premiére fois à l'issue des Cours de l'année prochaine, nous permet d'espérer des resultats satisfaisants.'
18. CARAN AJ/52/35, chronological register of personnel 1793-1956, no. 96; the standard salary for the anatomy professors almost throughout the century was 2,400F per annum
19. CARAN AJ/52/35, chronological register of personnel 1793-1956, no. 134. Here it is noted that Boyer had been a student of the Ecole des hautes études, and had hospital training and experience; he became a hospital externe in 1873 and was a Laurier of the Faculty de médecine in 1874. He was a hospital intern from 1875 to 1878, and a hospital Laurier in 1875, 1876 and 1878. The information on his death in this source is contradictory; it states that he was on permanent leave from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts after April 1905, suggesting ill health; it also states that he died in 1883. The entry under Cuyer (no. 140) states that Boyer was Professeur supplémentaire to Duval when Cuyer took over that position from Boyer in 1894; hence Boyer was Professeur supplémentaire from 1881 to 1893 or 1894, and so he cannot have died in 1883
20. Suggested in Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., p. 109, citing CARAN AJ/52/460, dossier Chicotot; Anatomie artistique d'Arnould Moreaux, Paris, n.d., p.xx, but cf. CARAN AJ/52/35, chronological register of personnel 1793-1956, no. 231 - Charles Vincent, prosecuteur d'anatomie, annual contract from 1 Jan. 1909 -1 Jan. 1914, replacing Dr Chicotot
21. Richer's 'Science du Nu' will be outlined later in this article, and see Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., pp. 108-11
22. In 1785 he presented to the Académie his 'Précis d'un cours d'anatomie pittoresque à l'usage des élèves'; see Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., p. 104. Debord notes that the comte de Caylus proposed opening a 'concours pour l'étude du squelette', but later Ecole records suggest that this was never formally instituted; see notes 42 and 47 below
23. ENSBA, Département des collections, MS Sue, De l'ostéologie, (n.d. [18th c.]) pp. 2-3
24. CARAN AJ/52/439, 'Projet de reglements', 1839, Article 22, and cf. AJ/52/2, a published report of regulations, (n.d., 1840?), pp. 17-19, which emphasized, p.19, Article 26, that competitors were forbidden to communicate with each other outside the Salle des Concours. Absolute silence had to be maintained during the competition itself
25. CARAN AJ/52/39, notes on the teaching programmes, concours spéciaux for the school year 1854-5; anatomy medal noted as new for this year. The earliest anatomy prize drawings conserved in the Ecole collections are from 1855
26. CARAN AJ/52/1, MS procès-verbaux of concours regulations, 27 August 1853, n.p
27. CARAN AJ/52/59, 8 Juillet 1885; n.d
28. CARAN AJ/52/1, MS procès-verbaux of concours regulations, 27 August 1853
29. CARAN AJ/52/440, MS, Rapport au conseil supérieur de l'Ecole nationale des Beaux-Arts, année scolaire 1873-4, par M. Guillaume, Directeur, [p.11]
30. CARAN AJ/52/440, Rapport au conseil supérieur par le Directeur de l'Ecole au commencement de l'année scolaire 1874-75, Paris, Imprim. Nat. 1875, pp. 9-10
31. CARAN AJ/52/440, Rapport sur l'exercice 1897-1898 presenté au Conseil par le Directeur de l'Ecole au commencement de l'année scolaire 1898-1899, p. 7
32. the Director was disparaging of the women's efforts in general, but excepted their performance in the anatomy and perspective courses; in 1896-97, the Ecole 'proprement dit' was opened to women. The Report for 1896-97, p. 5, notes that in 1895-96 women had been authorized to follow the oral courses, and that a special anatomy course had been created for them. On the struggle for women to enrol at the Ecole, see Sauer, op. cit.; and T. Garb, Sisters of the Brush, London, 1993
33. CARAN AJ/52/56, Concours Publics Spéciaux. Anatomie. Professeur M. Mathias Duval. The name prix Huguier had been dropped after 1894-95. See also Sauer, op. cit., p. 36 and annex 9, and plates 11-12, photographs of Heuvelmans and one of her reliefs
34. Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., pp. 104-106
35. See M. Kemp, Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts, Glasgow, 1975, pp. 16-17
36. Duval and Bical, op. cit., p. 22, and n. 1, and p. 27. In Duval's syllabus, Camper's 'facial angle' was also taught in relation to the anatomy of the cranium, Lesson XIX. On Camper's 'facial angle', and other issues of art, anatomy and difference, see A. Callen, The Spectacular Body: Science, Method and Meaning in the Work of Degas, New Haven and London, 1995, Chap. 1
37. P. Grunchec in 1981 suggested to the Art Gallery of New South Wales that Cuyer was the figure far left; however, when compared with Lemaistre's portrait of Cuyer (plate 7), the identity in the Sallé now proposed seems beyond dispute. According to the gallery, H. Toussaint suggests that the youthful student left of centre could be Léon Bonnat. Grunchec erroneously locates the Sallé as in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (in op. cit. [1983], p. 88)
38. Etienne Roc, 'Professeur Mathias Duval', Les Hommes d'Aujourd' hui, vol. 6, no. 273, Paris, n.d. [1886], n.p
39. Noted in N. Schiller, 'Une collaboration artisticoscientifique: Mathias Duval et Edouard Cuyer', Comptes Rendus du 92nd Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Strasbourg et Colmar, 1967, Section des sciences, tome I, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1969, p. 159, n. 14
40. Identified by contemporary anthropologists with atavism and a low position on the evolutionary scale, these particular physiognomic signs, in class terms, defined low social status and potential deviance and criminality; see C. Lombroso, The Criminal, in Relation to Anthropology, Jurisprudence, and Psychiatry, London, 1876
41. and also A. Callen, 'Anatomy and Physiognomy: Degas's Little Dancer of Fourteen Years', in R. Kendall, Degas: Images of Women, London, 1989, p. 12
42. French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theories of pictorial unity to which Sallé's treatment of light and shade principally conforms are discussed in T. Puttfarken, Roger de Piles's Theory of Art, London, 1985, esp. chap. 4 and pp. 131-3
43. A copy of the print after this painting is housed in the Musée de l'Assistance Publique de Paris, and it is annotated with the names of all those present, which also include Jules Clarétie, Théodule Ribot and Philippe Burty. See the analysis of this image and a discussion of female hysteria, and of the Charcot/Richer collaboration in Callen, op. cit. (1995), pp. 50ff. An exhibition on the subject was held at the Musée de l'Assistance Publique de Paris in 1986, La Leçon de Charcot: voyage dans une toile, Paris, 1986
44. See also S. Schade,' Art History, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 499-517
45. Souques et Meige, 'Les Biographies Médicales: Jean-Martin Charcot', op. cit., p. 333, and see Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., p. 108-109
46. In 1873, Duval was elected a member of the Société d'Anthropologie. Broca was also a follower of Darwin and founder of the French school of anthropology in 1861; in 1876 he founded the Ecole Publique d'Anthropologie in Paris. On Broca's death, Duval succeeded him, in 1880, as Director of the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie in Paris, where he led research in comparative embryology, the laws of development and of heredity. See E. Roc, 'Professeur Mathias Duval', op. cit., p. 1. Richer, another Darwinist, was also associated with the Société d'Anthropologie; see P. Richer, L'Anatomie dans l'Art, Proportions du corps humain, canons artistiques et canons scientifiques, Paris, 1893, esp. pp. 32-6, and his Leçon d'Ouverture, 25 November 1903, Ecole Nationale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1903
47. The issue of a female gaze is too complex to address here, but a desiring, and potentially castrating, female gaze with regard to these photographs, and in photographic anatomies more generally, forms part of another study (Callen, op. cit. [in preparation]). Cf. T. Garb, 'The Forbidden Gaze: women artists and the male nude in late nineteenth-century France', in K. Adler and M. Pointon (eds.), The Body Imaged, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 33-42
48. These drawings are conserved in the Département de morphologie, ENSBA. As Debord has pointed out, the female morphology produced by the era of the corset and included in Richer's book was in this respect already an anachronism by the time it was published. See Debord, 'De l'anatomie artistique à la morphologie', in Clair (ed.), op. cit., p. 112