ANATOMY AND ART. 
429 
skin, with its concomitants of color and hair, becomes the 
quintessence of form in its wonderful capacity of expression. 
A hundred years ago Diderot, the ablest art critic of his 
century, said: “A thousand painters have died without 
having comprehended flesh; a thousand others will die 
without comprehending it.” 
The glorious period of Grecian art is, to us, emphatically 
the age of sculpture. That it was equally famous for its 
paintings we know from history, but they have all long 
since perished. A beautiful specimen of what is thought to 
be a painting of those early days was discovered at Cortona. 
The peasant who dug it up had used the slab as a door to 
his oven. The painting consisted of an exquisite female 
face of the purest Grecian type. An enthusiastic critic, after 
dilating on its beauties, says: “ It is a pagan face, and the 
Christian soul has never dawned in those eyes.” What the 
particular expression of the “ Christian soul dawning in the 
eyes ” may be he prudently leaves unexplained. It was a 
touch beyond the reach of common sense. 
Leaving the consideration of the period of the master¬ 
pieces of Grecian sculpture, let us briefly consider what 
anatomy did for art at the time of the Italian Renaissance. 
Four names present themselves especially in this connection. 
Luca Signorelli (1442-1524) exhibited a remarkable knowl¬ 
edge of anatomy, from which it is known that Michelan¬ 
gelo greatly profited. Luca painted a noble picture repre¬ 
senting a man carrying a dead youth on his shoulders. Both 
figures were nude, and it is probable that the painting was 
made in a lazar-house, for at that time the hospital, the gal¬ 
lows, and the churchyard were the only schools of anatomy, 
or it may have had some allusion to a touching incident of 
Luca’s life. He had a favorite son, an extreme^ beautiful 
youth, who was one day brought home dead, having been 
slain in a duel. Luca carried him into his studio, removed 
the clothing, and tenderly washed the blood stains from the 
beautiful body. He arranged the light, and, with dry eyes 
and firm lips, remained hour after hour painting on his can- 
