Since the first day of class, I have started to think more about the definition of art. I was searching the web for artistic images that I could post, when I remembered my trip to the Boston Museum of Science a few years ago to see an exhibit called Body Worlds (which I'm sure many of you have either heard of and or visited). Body Worlds is an exhibit of preserved human bodies, created and developed by a German anatomist (and in my opinion, artist) named Gunther von Hagens.
Each of the bodies is, in itself, a sculpture. In society, much emphasis is placed on the beauty of the human exterior. In this exhibit, however, von Hagens focuses on the beauty of interior anatomy. Every body is meticulously arranged in a way to demonstrate the power and grace of the human form. The exhibit is often observed from a purely scientific perspective, but I think that this exhibit could as easily appear in a museum of art rather than a museum of science.
Although von Hagens has created thousands of pieces, from figure skaters to soccer players to hurdlers, I chose the horse and rider sculpture because it reminded me of the discussion we had in class about Marcus Aurelius. I think this piece is really powerful because it shows that a horse and human are both composed of muscle and bone, yet the muscular composition of each is so radically different. The size relationship between the human and horse also made me think about the power of the brain, and how it came to be that a horse is subservient to a human. The detail and precision of this piece is amazing to me.
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