What is Medical Illustration?
History
During the Renaissance it was ordinary to be interested in both sciences and the arts. It was thought that one could not be proficient in one without the other. “Medical artist” wasn’t a separate profession, and artists could often be found in the dissecting room learning about how facial muscles or other anatomical structures worked (Hansen 1999). This unity of the sciences and arts has generally been lost today, particularly with the contemporary drive towards specialization. As we aim to further immerse ourselves in our given fields, the lines that are drawn between concentrations become increasingly concrete. We can see these separations manifest themselves in various ways in a university setting, from the administration of programs to the geographical layout of campuses. There is a difference in attitudes of authority between the sciences and arts that needs to be reevaluated. As medical artists, we are in the privileged position of drawing together multiple discourses. We are tasked with communicating ideas and teaching through visual representations—through the creation of pictures, infographics, or animations. Our labour is to take scientific concepts and produce a piece of art that is both informative and visually interesting; but we are also in a primary position to unite the different values and ideologies of the sciences and arts.
When one thinks about the scientific method, there is a certain set of jargon that comes along with it: objectivity, research, impartiality, and rationality. These words seem to have no place in the world of contemporary art, which values instead multiplicity, plurality, and a destabilization of dominant conceptual frameworks such as gender. C.P. Snow argued in his famous “Two Cultures” essay that it is the separation of these cultures that is the major obstacle to solving the world’s problems. Snow thought this gap would be bridged by a “Third Culture” of scientists and literary intellectuals communicating and working together. We, by a large margin, have failed to accomplish this. Medical Artists can help to act as this bridge.
Art has always been about teaching and learning. Scientific visualizations shouldn’t be thought of as mere add-ons to research, or only a way to communicate to untrained people. Visual representations are essential to the field (Pauwels, L. 2006). As De Vinci said: “How in words can you describe this heart without filling a whole book? Yet the more detail you write concerning it the more you will confuse the mind of the hearer.” The unseen world is what draws people to science. Science offers a rulebook for finding answers and laying down the framework for our understanding of the universe. The profession of Medical Art is an extension of this desire for discovery. By collaborating with scientists and physicians we give conceptual ideas a more grounded visual context and hopefully make that concept more accessible to a wider audience. In this way, medical artists can both focus on patient education and contribute to academic research.
The best art is art that seeks to be inclusive. Science should be the same. As medical artists, we are not only artists or scientists, but we are also always teachers. As a medical artist it is important to look to the arts as well as the sciences to inform us in our work. For example when looking at sex and anatomy, ensuring we take into consideration gender politics and the implications our pieces could have is important. Medicine is laden with a history of the objectification and dehumanization of its patients, who were often treated as test subjects rather than individuals. In our current moment, biases continue to manifest themselves in medical illustration. For example, in basic anatomical texts, the number of images depicting male subjects far outweighs that of female or gender neutral subjects (Giacommini, 1986). It is important that we recognize that Medical Art is not immune to influence by contemporary circumstances, whether that is social, economic, technical, or other aspects of cultural conventions (Roberts, 1992).
Medical Art should aspire to humanize its content. There are traditional aspects of “The Arts” that are invaluable to research. Valuing social commentary means that artists are more likely to integrate widely ranging cultural issues or take up lines of inquiry devalued by others (Pauwels, L. 2006). The development of new and increasingly prominent forms of communication and dissemination (such as the increasing prominence of telecommunications and our culture’s constant access to stores of online information) could help to bring scientific knowledge to a wider audience. Taking into account the larger social influence that medical illustrators can have, it is exciting to have the opportunity to create educational content that is both scientifically accurate and socially conscious.
References
Giacommini, M., Rozee-Koker, P. and Pepitone-Arreola-Rockwell, F., (1986) Gender Bias in Human Anatomy Textbook Illustrations. University of California at Davis, Psychology of Women Quarterly. vol. 10 no. 4 413-420
Hansen J. and Porter S., (1999) The Physician’s Art Representations of Art and Medicine . Duke
University Medical Center Library, Durham Pauwels, L. (2006) Visual Cultures of Science: Rethinking representational Practices in Knowledge Building and Science Communication. University Press of New England. Lebanon
Roberts, K. (1992) The Fabric of the Body: European Traditions of Anatomical Illustration. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Snow, C. (1959) The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York