Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900

by Michael Sappol

In centuries past, sexual body-parts and same-sex desire were un­men­­tionables de­barred from polite conver­sa­tion and printed discourse. Yet one scientific discipline-ana­to­my-had license to rep­re­sent and nar­rate the in­timate details of the human body-anus and genitals in­clud­ed. Figured with­in the frame of an anatomical plate, pre­sen­ta­tions of dissected bo­dies and body-parts were often soberly tech­ni­cal. But just as often mon­strous, provoca­tive, flirtatious, theatri­cal, beau­tiful, and even sensual. Queer Anatomies explores overlooked examples of erotic expression within 18th and 19th-century anatomical imagery. It uncovers the subtle eroticism of certain anatomical illustrations, and the queerness of the men who made, used and collected them.

As a foundational subject for physicians, surgeons and artists in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, anatomy was a privileged, male-dominated domain. Artistic and medical compe­tence depended on a deep knowledge of anatomy and offered cultural legitimacy, healing authority, and aesthetic discernment to those who practiced it. The anatomical image could serve as a virtual queer space, a private or shared closet, or a men's club. Serious anatomical subjects were charged with erotic, often homoerotic, undertones.

Taking brilliant works by Gautier Dagoty, William Cheselden, and Joseph Maclise, and many others, Queer Anatomies assembles a lost archive of queer expression-115 illustra­tions, in full-colour reproduction-that range from images of nudes, dissected bodies, penises, vaginas, rectums, hands, faces, and skin, to scenes of male viewers gazing upon works of art governed by anatomical principles. Yet the men who produced and savored illustrated anatomies were reticent, closeted. Diving into these textual and represen­ta­tional spaces via essayistic reflection, Queer Anatomies decodes their words and images, even their silences. With a range of close readings and com­par­ison of key images, this book unearths the connections between medical history, connoisseur­ship, queer studies, and art history and the understudied relationship between anatomy and desire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2024

About the author

Michael Sappol lives in Stockholm, Sweden and is a senior fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala. For many years he was a historian, exhibition curator and scholar-in-residence in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (USA). His work focuses on the history of anatomy, death, and the visual culture of medicine in film, illustration and exhibition. He is the author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies (2002) and Dream Anatomy (2006), editor of A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire (2010) and Hidden Treasure (2012), and curator of a number of exhibitions, including Once & Future Web (2000), Dream Anatomy (2003) and Visible Proofs (2006). His new book is Body Modern: Fritz Kahn, Scientific Illustration and the Homuncular Subject (University of Minnesota Press, 2017).

Reviews

[Darren Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900 , Michael Sappol helps show that the anatomical atlas may have been something far more charged than a clinical tool. Sappol’s study is an scholarly excavation of the erotic undercurrents woven through 18th- and 19th-century medical imagery, revealing how the disciplined gaze of science often overlapped with spaces of aesthetic pleasure and homoerotic possibility.

This is a book that leans unapologetically academic — steeped in theory and visual analysis — yet readers drawn to medical history or the odd byways of visual culture will find it deeply rewarding. Particularly striking is the section on “Connoisseurship,” where Sappol traces how men of the period entered queer and homosocial spaces through the shared viewing and collecting of anatomical texts. The act of looking becomes communal, charged, and culturally meaningful.

Importantly, Sappol avoids the easy temptation of retroactive labeling. He does not claim that the publishers or illustrators of these atlases were themselves homosexual; rather, he demonstrates how their work circulated in ways that allowed it to be used, appreciated and even savored within queer contexts. That restraint lends the book intellectual integrity.

For me, this book hit a bit harder as I own two anatomy lithographs printed in 1833 in Oken's Allgemeine Naturgeschichte für alle Stände by Lorenz Oken. Who himself is briefly mentioned in Sappol's study. I found myself reconsidering them not merely as scientific artifacts but as objects that once moved through complex social worlds of looking and longing.

This work may not suit the casual browser, but for those intrigued by the entanglement of medicine, art and desire, it offers a thoughtful and unsettling reframing of the anatomical image.

[Slestein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews here, but I'm a professional historian of medicine, and I loved this book, so I feel an obligation. This is a delightful, often quite cheeky history of anatomical illustration--mostly 18th and 19th century, mostly British--and the clubby masculine communities who used and appreciated anatomical images. The (homo)eroticism of anatomical images from the Renaissance on is clear. I've certainly marveled at Vesalius's muscle men, and I know that my students always find them striking and very surprising. Sappol queers the history of anatomy in valuable ways, and readers interested in these matters will find a huge amount to fascinate, titillate, and disturb. The hefty collection of images he's selected is a treasure all on its own. I think that this book would also serve as a good introductory text on some key queer theory. I didn't love his tendency to downplay some of his evidence or return to a focus on what we don't and can't know about some of these historical figures, but I certainly understand the impulse. Anyway, if you're interested in medical or queer history--read this book. Highly recommended.

[Corno De · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a delight to look at and read about the anatomical imagery of male bodies. In a world where nude images were limited to only a small number of spheres, the anatomical atlas was the perfect closet for men to look at images of male bodies and get away with it. Michael Sappol guided me along the (not so hidden) clues that hint at same sex interests of the artists (and their audiences).

[Jasmijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

erg interessant om de ontwikkeling van anatomische tekeningen zo duidelijk te zien, in combinatie met een historische analyse van wat in homosociale kringen wel en niet geaccepteerd werd in de 18e eeuw, mooi boek met mooie plaatjes!

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

But, from a distance, how can we “grasp … the motors of concealment” and hear “the specific language of a person hiding himself”?