Friday, January 15, 2016

Project 1

In the heart of Florence, La Specola stands as the oldest recorded medical science museum. It contains a wide array of specimen, flora and fauna, and anatomical wax sculptures. Before knowledge about plants and animals became abundant, people really had no idea the variety of animals that existed, how they were related or how to study them properly. The curiosity about plants and animals, however, was fully realized as people collected various specimen for aesthetic purposes. Wealthy people at the time would go on hunting trips and had whatever they collected preserved so they could display their achievements. They would also pay people to travel and hunt exotic animals that they would taxidermy and add to their collections. With travel being difficult, people normally would not be able to experience the wide variety of animals so when they brought them back from other areas of the world they were quite the spectacle. Often, as seen in La Specola, taxidermists didn't yet have an understanding of the workings of the bodies of many animals and would sometimes combine animals to create strange unreal creatures which baffled and amazed people. They created cabinets of curiosity where they kept these collections, categorizing them how they pleased based on aesthetic principles. In La Specola, there was more of an attempt to categorize and understand animals and how they related to each other. Another very exciting component of La Specola is the atomical waxes. They were cast over a number of years with one display taking up to six months to complete. They outline the parts of the human body by separating it into sections with descriptions. These waxes were created by casting real organs so they were incredibly accurate. It was the first medical school because it was open to the public and people who wanted to be doctors and understand the body could do so. It created a greater understanding of how the body worked, because it really was a mystery to most people and knowledge about how it worked was not widely known. I really enjoyed being able to experience firsthand their process of trying to categorize and understand nature. They were, for the first time, pursuing understanding for public knowledge which created a ripple effect of trying to understand science. I also thought it was fascinating how it related to art by inspiring it. The primary reason they collected at first was because they were interested in the way things looked and would decorate their houses with such things. I also was so fascinated by the ornate and beautiful details in the waxes, which is what inspired my piece. In architecture, art and fashion in Italy everything is extremely ornate which is why I was able to make the connection between the ornateness of the human body and the architecture. I thought both were equally beautiful but in different ways but I found it was interesting that some people were disgusted by the human body even though it had such similar aspects and textures. I also love the color pallet of the waxes and wanted to incorporate that into my work. 

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