Bodies at Rest

Charles Estienne (1504 - 64) soon followed after Vesalius with his contributions to anatomy in the medical field with his treaties on the human body. His work "Dissecttione Partium Corporis Humani" (On the Dissection of Parts of the Human Body) served as a popularly used medical text.

Though the woodcuts shown do, in part, take after Vesalius's style of posing subjects in restful positions, they differ by focusing on the depiction of the inner workings of the human body. Estienne's images depict more on the internal organs, demonstrating where and how they are positioned in the body.

A noteworthy element of Estienne's work is that a lot of the poses he used came directly from the work of other artists, particularly prints by Italian painters working in France and images from other anatomical texts. Oftentimes there were only minimal changes, like background or the position of an arm or leg. The organ that the treatises may be focused on might have been the only difference as well. 

Bodies at Rest