You can visit the site at http://tunetaps.com/ where you’ll find everything you need to know about the musical shoes that Natasha Dzurny and I will be demo’ing at the 2013 ITP Spring Show.
Category Archives: Biomechanics
I’m currently reading Young Michelangelo a biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti by John T. Spike. I’ve always known that Michelangelo studied anatomy, as anyone who’s seen the David can plainly see, but Spike mentions that the young artist in fact dissected cadavers to increase his knowledge of the human body. This was, of course, totally illegal and forbidden by the Catholic church. Ironically, it was an Augustinian Friar named Bichiellini, who ran a hospital, that gave him access to the cadavers.
“Prior Bichiellini provided the youth with a room and the disposition of cadavers in the hospital’s mortuary. In gratitude, Michelangelo carved a wooden crucifix as a donation to the church (Santo Spirito).” (62)
This was the beginning of a body of work, visible to the public and other artists, that contributed knowledge to Anatomy and Biomechanics. While Michelangelo did not publish writing on these subjects, he did produce a wealth of anatomical drawings and some writings in his notebooks. The artist also, “often thought of writing a treatise as a service to artists.”
Perhaps the most significant part of his work, though, is that he was one of the first to apply first hand knowledge of human anatomy to a three dimensional medium, a huge advantage for those who wished to draw from his knowledge.
A few of Michelangelo’s drawings of musculature can be found in this WSJ article.