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Understanding the Inside to draw the Outside: The History of Artistic Anatomy in Lisbon

Mariana de Figueiredo Sousa, CIEBA, Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa
Alice Nogueira Alves, CIEBA, Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa
Lia Lucas Neto, Instituto de Anatomia, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa

Currently, we have reached a point where Art is (indisputably) inseparable from the body, from its physical materiality; it is humans thinking about themselves and producing from within. The exploration of this relationship has existed since the beginning of artistic production, but the connection between the scientific understanding of the human body and its study for inclusion and support in the visual arts arises with the fusion and cooperation between Science and Art, resulting in a new approach to human anatomy. This new perspective has allowed the sharing of discoveries in Medicine and their use in the Fine Arts, bringing the two fields of knowledge together with the same objective: understanding our true Nature. This complementary relationship has become unquestionable, reaching contemporary times without further reflection, in a truth that is universal across all societies.

However, access from Art to Science and from Science to Art was not always facilitated. In Portugal, this turbulent history, little known and explored, had the highest period in which, based on an admirable partnership between the Medical-Surgical School and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, students from both schools came together in the Anatomical Theater of Lisbon for the observation, study, and copying of the human cadaver body. From this collaboration comes the University of Lisbon's collection of anatomical drawings, dating from the first half of the 20th century, with magnificent illustrations by some of the main Portuguese artists of the second generation of modernists.

Included in this collection, we also find drawings used to illustrate national scientific research articles in medicine, executed by some of these artists, hired by the Institute of Anatomy, or by the institution's doctors and researchers, who were more interested in exploring their analytical and diagnostic capabilities through graphic representation. The inclusion of the optional subject Drawing in the curricular program of the Medicine course during the 19th and 20th centuries encouraged this union of mutual assistance between the two fields of knowledge, which exists and is currently recognized.

This collection is the materialized testimony of an interdisciplinarity essential to artistic training and medical progress, triumphant in plastic quality combined with scientific rigor.

This narrative and heritage importance led to a multidisciplinary working team formation, currently in activity, acquiring financing and a grant for the research, preservation, and accessibility of this fundamental part of Portuguese culture.

In this project, we aim to introduce this museum core and the history of Artistic Anatomy education through a new intersection between Art and Heritage Sciences and Medicine achieved through a narrative focused on the History of Artistic Education, represented by highly relevant names in the Portuguese artistic panorama. Its development will allow us to understand how Art and Anatomy complement and assist each other, perceiving how their teaching affected national artistic production and how scientific illustration and anatomical drawing influenced Portuguese medical education. In addition to this knowledge, we will ensure the safeguarding of this heritage, comprising over 2400 drawings, with measures for preventive conservation, its musealization, and accessibility to the public.

Keywords: Anatomy, Teaching, Fine Arts, Preservation, Scientific research