I took my drawing class to the Dalhousie University Anatomy Museum last Tuesday. It was a fascinating experience. First let me say, they are a wonderful group of students. They are eager to learn and work hard. The technician at Dal said he’s never had such a quiet group there.
Then there was the Museum itself: dozens of skeleton parts, plasticized body parts and jars filled with, well, you know, body parts. Somehow it doesn’t upset me. I know we will all die at some point. I’ve never heard of anyone who can avoid that particular part of life. I can’t watch violence and bloodshed in movies but this is an anatomy drawing class. It’s not war.
Then, as a bonus, Dr. Richard Wassursug, who teaches anatomy at Dalhousie, came in to look over the students drawings, critique them from an anatomist’s point of view while I gave the student ideas how to fix (from a drawing perspective) the problems he pointed out. It was enormously helpful for them. About fifteen years ago, Richard and I co-taught the Anatomy Drawing class at NSCAD U. He taught the anatomy and I taught the drawing part. Now I’ve been doing both so his input was greatly appreciated this past week.
Towards the end of our class time there, Richard gave a talk on the anatomy of beauty. He told us there was a study taking photos from a wide variety of people, morphing them into each other and coming up with the example of what would be considered beautiful. It turned out that result was the average person. The conclusion is that we find beauty in what is familiar. It’s when things deviate from the norm that we are uncomfortable. As when someone has a limp or is missing a limb.
As a result, in order to express individuality, people make small adjustments to symmetry: an extra earring in one ear, parting hair just side of center. Tattoos, intended originally to express individuality, are often group signage, almost like a date stamp. Certain decades have specific common denominators in choices of tattoo (as Chinese characters were used in the ‘80s and peace symbols in the ‘60s) so the person (wearing it forever) tells the time it was placed there (like a best before date).
Richard will be teaching a class in May about humanism and anatomy. I’d love to take it but it is a three-week intensive course. I don’t know if I will have the time.