C = Controversial or just plain creepy?

Henry Soloman Wellcome, 1887
Image credit: Wellcome Library

Sir Henry Wellcome was a crazy keen collector. His compulsive need to acquire anything that vaguely illustrated the 'art and science of healing throughout the ages' alienated and exhausted many of his staff. And eventually drove his wife off.

He intended that his cumulation of treasures become the Museum of Man. Of less than trifling concern was the sacrifice to the cause of the occasional woman.

By the time Wellcome died in 1935, he had amassed over 1 million artefacts, plus a small mountain range of books. 
Most had not been catalogued. 
Much seems to have had tenuous (at best) links to his initial aims. Sir Henry seems rather to have fallen in love with the process of seeking out increasingly more bizarre and varied items and images, no matter how controversial they may be.

Anatomical paintings by JF Gautier d'Agoty, c. 1760
Dimensions of each: 53.5cm x 193cm

Image credits: Wellcome Library

The oil paintings pictured above are life-sized, and were highly controversial in their day. To be honest, I reckon they are still conversation-worthy today, almost 300 years later. Attention to detail (no matter how shocking), the use of colour, light, and the postures of the subjects make them more like portraits than anatomical works. People of the day were confounded.

Is it art or science? 

Is it macabre or magnificent?

Me of today wonders if it is a wee bit creepy to use romantic style for clinical subjects.

And does anyone else find the fact that the pregnant female figures have in-tact faces, heads and breasts more than a wee bit worrisome? If you could paint a dissected baby or two, why would you shy away from a boob? 

The Anatomical Angel
Image credit :Wellcome Library

The work pictured at left is Gautier D'Agoty's most famous. 

He called her The Anatomical Angel but she has come to be popularly known as The Flayed Angel, her flesh folded back from her spine like wings.

At the risk of giving away far too much about myself, I find her more stylish than shocking. She strikes me as calm, not contentious. I find this image mesmerising.

But I'd really like to know what you think. 
If you've bothered to read this far, I hope you'll also take the time to leave a word to indicate your opinion of Gautier D'Agoty.


What do you think: 
Controversial? 
Creepy?

During the month of April, I am participating in the Blogging from A–Z Challenge.

My posts will all feature images of and by the Wellcome Collection, Euston, London: the free destination for the incurably curious.