Revision of Anatomy Class

I think I'm fated to be involved in a career that's somehow connected to cadavers and carcasses because I'm about to attend Anatomy class for the 3rd time in my life, even in a place as weird as Mountain East! And somehow, this has got something to do with the fact that I'm an artist.


A drawing of Leornado Da Vinci showing movements made by the Biceps, c.1510.

As part of the European art tradition, at least in older universities, since the Renaissance revolution, in depth knowledge of the bones and muscles of living beings, were one of those much awaited subjects, besides nude painting classes, artists attend so as to acquire a better understanding of the functions and structures of the human body, an object of which the Western culture was so adorned on.

So as part of my Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theories degree at London University, almost a decade ago few years back, I was made to study anatomy at what I regard as the BEST place ever to learn all the flesh and bones of dead animals and bodies, i.e. the Darwin Building at Gower Street, where Charles Darwin used to live since 1839.

It houses collections since the 1800s, and it's where the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy located as well.

I was made fortunate to attend anatomy with all the medical students at UCL. Fine Art artists are some how a much fascinating species to our biologists, and hence, it's no surprise that top notch lecturers and researchers were fighting so honoured to teach us. I remember while attending the lectures, I could virtually see blinking in the lecturer's eye this neon signage :"Wow, I'm looking at the extra-ordinary SENTIENT bunch of the species."

Well, though my sister would no doubt correct it to be "Wow, how weird it is to be teaching a bunch of circus animals dressed in human skin."

But really, I truely enjoyed my lectures there because, strange as it is, the English do have a way of making education an experience of which one could musingly describe as Romantic with a big R - be it in an Anatomy Lab with the stinking smell of formaldehyde, latex, cleaning agents etc.



Bones of the ear "1, malleus, or hammer; 2, incus, or anvil; 3, stapes, or stirrup." — Blaisedell, 1904

Besides getting all the '1st class' carcasses from kind donators, drawing bones of weird and ancient homosepians species collected from around the world, playing with fossils and dinasour eggs, it is how well the human body was 'designed' that fascinated me the most, even as tiny as those EAR bones. The lecturer related the whole mechanism of our bodily functions as much as the affectionate a little girl has for her 1st Baribie or my youngest brother describing the joy of car drifting or Yeng talking about food. (Ha!)

And, of course, please excuse a bit of self promotion here, I absolutely enjoyed all the wows I received when showing my sketches to the biologists and anatomists. I guess they haven't found 'the bit' in the body that destines someone to be an artist. I truly believe the fact that you can never train someone to be an artist.

I wonder if my Mountain East class will be as good?

I doubt that. But We'll see.