Thinning the Corpus: Flesh and Bone in Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Visible World

The slight, adolescent forms of the male models and bathers preserved in the figure studies and prints of mid-seventeenth-century Dutch artists, such as those of Rembrandt (1606-1669) and his circle, stand in marked contrast to the bulging musculature favored by their predecessors. Artists’ writings on this subject often attribute this exaggerated appearance – at times compared to a sack of onions, gourds, or dried hake – to a disproportionate dedication to the study of anatomy. The solution? A curtailed anatomical curriculum designed specifically for artists. Distinguishing his approach from those of physicians and surgeons, Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) asks, “who has the time or the inclination, as regards human anatomy, to work through all the writings of Vesalius, Du Laurens, or Cabrol? [...] I will show [my Young Painter] a shorter route.” Yet, in what follows, the painter and author moves beyond the surface anatomy typically found in period art literature and, perhaps surprisingly, offers his reader text and image that more closely follow the anatomical atlases he rejects. Focusing on two anatomical plates that Van Hoogstraten designed and executed for his art theoretical treatise, The Visible World (Rotterdam, 1678), this paper investigates how artists engaged with anatomy, the motivations for the inclusion of this subject in their publications, and how it contributed to changing representations of the male body. I argue that these atlas-style images were moderated to suit artists’ needs and, as such, document their particular pedagogical and professional interests, particularly concerning the perceived credibility of their products.