BMJ  2005;330:100 (8 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7482.100

reviews

Art

The Human Body Revealed

An exhibition at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington DC, until June 2005.

Admission free http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/revealed/index.html

Rating:

For this exhibition artists have tried to create a model of the human body by combining real images with hand-drawn pictures, to "show the body, not as medical illustrations, but as it actually is." That is to say, the artists have taken anatomical data from magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and electron microscopy, reconstructed it in three dimensions, and then added colour, shadows, and shapes by hand. The result, they say, "is the art in science: to turn science into art."

The images come from the latest book by the journalist and impresario Alexander Tsiaras, whose Anatomical Travelogue company produces multimedia medical content for print and television. The inside cover of the new book, which was released on the day the exhibition opened in November, modestly likens Tsiaras to Andreas Vesalius.

The first picture in the exhibit shows the endocrine system of a man embracing a pregnant woman. Anatomical images have been overlaid with translucent, hand drawn figures. Their sentimental pose—grasping her swollen belly, and each other—typifies the schmaltz that pervades the show. For many pictures, Tsiaras's artists have chosen to embellish the imaging data like this, with superimposed bodies in greeting card postures, and placid faces in soft focus.

The images of finer-scale structures tend to be more interesting, even as the scheme of colouring and shadows begins to seem more arbitrary. A testicle shown in full depth has a section cut away; its pinkish insides make it look like a ripe fig. A vein and artery wriggle like worms from a steep and mysterious black background. Sensory hair cells in the inner ear resemble snow-covered trees growing from a field of purple shrubbery.

Nothing so striking emerges from the gross anatomy. A depiction of the lungs and abdominal muscles stands out not because of its intrinsic beauty, but because the superimposed figure happens to be a taut-bodied woman stretched in an alluring pose, her nipples erect as pencil erasers. Indeed, the introduction to Tsiaras's book points out that he "has managed to reintroduce something else that all great explorations of the human body must include—but these days seldom do—an erotic frisson."

If the show didn't aspire to so much more than erotic frisson, it wouldn't be such a disappointment. But when we hear that "the images in this exhibit are as much of reality as they are art," we're forced down a path that's not worth following. Is this what the body looks like? What's real in these pictures and what isn't? Since no specific information is given on how the images were made, there's no way to answer these questions. On an intuitive level, they just don't look real—they lack texture. The artistic embellishments don't portray the "wetness" that is so central a feature of biological systems. Without a sense of moisture, the stilted figures and multi-coloured organs look lifeless.

What a dramatic contrast emerges in the museum's neighbouring exhibit, on gastrointestinal endoscopy. A repeating video clip of a polypectomy appears to be quite real, as metal teeth twist and wrench a pimply growth from a glistening membrane. The red hole they leave behind quickly wells up with blood. And across the museum, which is an element of the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and which contains more than 24 million specimens and artefacts, hairless yellow babies float in pickle jars. Must we paint on rosy cheeks?

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Washington DC, United States engber{at}lehrer.ucsf.edu

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