Menselijk bot met een afwijking 1836 - 1912

Curator: Up next, we have "Human Bone with Deviation" by Isaac Weissenbruch, dating from 1836 to 1912, currently held in the collection here at the Rijksmuseum. It’s rendered in graphite on paper. Editor: Stark. The immediate feeling I get is…almost clinical. And undeniably vulnerable. It strips away everything we associate with the human form and leaves this rather barren depiction. Curator: What I find striking is Weissenbruch's choice to use graphite. Such a commonplace, unassuming material to portray something so intimately linked to life and mortality. The stark realism achieved with such simple tools speaks volumes about the democratisation of knowledge occurring at that time. Art moved towards depicting objective truths and scientific inquiry. Editor: You are so right! Bones themselves are loaded symbols across cultures, aren't they? Markers of identity after life, religious significance. I mean, the deviation itself – what could that signify symbolically? The inherent flaws in humanity? The fragility of the body? I imagine some viewers seeing illness. Curator: It’s possible. And I would stress that we need to understand the drawing not as a completed artistic thought but within a tradition of medical observation, study, and access to scientific images, as an image produced with the requirements and resources for the time. Editor: Yes, exactly. Even now, though, those small letterings 'a' and 'b' that mark aspects of the bones...they provide a cold, academic lens and that, strangely, adds to the power of it. You can read "deviation" any way you want! Curator: Ultimately, looking at this graphite drawing through both the artistic process and material aspects opens it to larger ideas and meanings concerning mortality, science, art, and culture itself. Editor: Indeed! Thank you. A final lingering thought… this little graphite drawing manages to feel profoundly monumental in a rather curious, muted way.