Black Apollo: Aesthetics, Dissection, and Race in Joseph Maclise’s Surgical Anatomy

Abstract

Joseph Maclise’s Surgical Anatomy (1851) is no ordinary anatomical atlas. While there is an assumption that the cadavers pictured in Western anatomical illustrations are white, Maclise included in his publication several depictions of the dissection of a Black man. A close examination of Maclise’s rendering of the interior and exterior of the Black body allows for a consideration of the complex relationship between aesthetics and race in mid-nineteenth-century anatomical illustration. It also offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of dissection during the mid-Victorian period and the racial identities of those who ended up, against their will, on the dissecting table. Shifting from the anatomy theatre to the art gallery, the Black cadaver in Maclise’s atlas is notably aestheticised, placing him in dialogue with classical statues such as the Apollo Belvedere, the “high” art productions of Joseph’s brother Daniel Maclise, pictures of Black pugilists, and abolitionist imagery from the period.