Copyright Date: 2022Published by: Amsterdam University Presshttps://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2rcnqqbPages: 208https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2rcnqqbTable of Contents
Prometheus is a figure that has acquired the status of ‘martyr’ for the human intellect and development. His suffering has been the subject of a large variety of artworks through the ages remaining present in artistic conventions on martyrdom and mythology. Chained to the scraggy precipice of the Caucasus Mountains, Prometheus is visited daily by an eagle that tears out parts of his liver, a practice and punishment that continues into eternity. This endlessness is not solely the result of Prometheus’ immortality; the suffering continues because the Titan’s liver grows back each night. What crime warrants such a grave punishment...
Prometheus wasn’t human. Yet his story is as benefactor to mankind. The hero was a Titan – one of the twelve pre-Olympic gods that were the direct offspring of the primordial deities Gaia, mother earth, and Uranus, god of the sky. When the Olympic gods decided to create mankind, they asked Prometheus – ‘He who looks ahead’ (προ / pro – before, μανθάνω / mantháno – thinking, understanding) – and his brother, Epimetheus – ‘The thinker of the afterthought’ (επι / epi – after) – to provide humans and animals with the correct characteristics. Epimetheus asked if he could divide...
The Prometheus myth has been handed down to us through the pens of several different authors. Each of them added to or removed elements of the story, altering the myth and its implications for society. All of these adaptations can be located in the visual arts of classical antiquity. This interplay between text and image is called iconography, and Prometheus’ iconographical tradition is rooted in early formal image making and begins at the same time and place as the stories, when the myth was still a ‘living’ myth. This chapter will examine a selection of the early correspondences between text...
Ancient Greek medicine achieved its zenith in the figure of Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 BC). This physician, native to the isle of Kos, is seen as the father of Western medicine (fig. 3.1). The Hippocratic Oath, the foundational pledge of medical ethics that binds physicians to the ethical and standardized care of their patient, is still pledged by newly inaugurated doctors worldwide. Rational thoughts, based on Hippocrates’ own observations and experiences, formed the cornerstone of his medical manifesto. He operated on the basis of humoral pathology in which four temperaments were distinguished and coupled to four types of bodily fluids: blood,...
Within ancient Etruscan culture the haruspex, the oracle, fulfilled an important societal function. He (women were excluded from fulfilling this role) foretold the hidden intentions of the gods – and thus the future – by reading animal entrails. Most often the future was read in the liver of a sacrificed sheep. The aforementioned bronze liver found in Piacenza served as an instructive model for students who were training to become haruspex (fig. 3.2). The haruspex would cut the liver out of the sheep, hold it up in his left hand and run his right hand over the base of the...
One of the most significant changes in the cultural landscape between antiquity and the Middle Ages is the rise and spread of Christianity in Europe. The new faith brought with it new stories that required new modes of depiction. This raises the question of what role a pagan classical figure like Prometheus could fulfil in this new world. In this chapter, we shall answer that question.
The Middle Ages are a time period that remains plagued by negative associations in the court of public opinion: It is seen as a dark period of decay, the remnants of the fall of...
Claudius Galen (130-201 CE), born in Pergamon, was the most respected medical authority from Graeco-Roman antiquity (fig. 6.1). His teachings, based in large part on the writings of Hippocrates and Aristotle, defined medical thought and practice for fifteen centuries. The work of Galen, as he was more commonly called, was to the field of medicine what the Bible was to the Church, and questioning it in any way was akin to heresy.
Galen studied medicine in Pergamon (modern day Bergama in north-western Turkey), after which he visited the famous medical schools in Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria. He finally settled in...
Renaissance means ‘rebirth.’ In the period of ca. 1453 to 1600, an interplay of political, economic and cultural circumstances facilitated a tremendous flourishing of the arts and sciences. People found a renewed interest in classical antiquity, and this is strongly reflected in the art from this period. The term ‘rebirth’ refers to this rekindled interest. In these one hundred and fifty years, the figure and myth of Prometheus also underwent a rebirth in kind.
Through the course of the late Middle Ages, new texts from classical antiquity were reintroduced in Western Europe. These texts had been preserved in Islamic countries,...
In the beginning of the sixteenth century in Freiburg, somewhere between 1503 and 1519, the Carthusian monk and scholar Gregor Reich published a remarkable work: the Margarita Philosophica¸ which translates to ‘the pearl of philosophy.’ In this treatise, he outlines the current state of scientific affairs in his era. This voluminous work can be seen as the first encyclopaedia in print, and functions as a scientific conclusion of the Middle Ages forming the base that the Renaissance could be built upon. The book contains a plethora of high-quality, hand-coloured woodcuts to illustrate theories. These include an illustration of the human...
During the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque, we see a shift in the way Prometheus is depicted: he changes from heroic thinker to heroic tortured nude. In this chapter, we will showcase the masterpieces of this era that take up Prometheus as their subject, and consider why the punishment of Prometheus formed the ideal motif through which artists expressed seventeenth-century artistic sensibilities.
The term ‘baroque’ may come from the Portuguese word ‘barroco’, which means ‘flawed pearl’. Even though the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque is a gradual one, the increase in drama and caprice in the...
The quest to find truth through empirical observation that found its origins in the Renaissance came to fruition in the seventeenth century. The publication of the magnum opus of Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica¸ gave the study of anatomy a scientific basis that was then emulated by many practitioners. The most significant milestone in the beginning of the seventeenth century was the 1628 publication of William Harvey’s De motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, in which this doctor and researcher described the workings of the circulatory system and the heart. Harvey proved that blood was circulated in a closed system...
In the previous chapters, the art historical stylistic periodisation encompasses quite large stretches of time. Despite undeniable technical progress within artistic practice, the circumstances of patronage and the climate around art commission and production remained relatively uniform. Nobility, monarchy, and the Church remained present within society and continued to represent the most significant client base for prominent artists. By the end of the eighteenth century, this ‘client base’ started to change. A succession of political, scientific, and industrial revolutions heralded the dawn of a new era. While preceding centuries are generally referred to as ‘pre-modern’ or ‘early-modern’, these developments characterise...
One of the most important scientists of the eighteenth century, often called the last ‘homo universalis’ of his time, was the Swiss doctor Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777, Fig. 12.1). He wasn’t solely a famed doctor, anatomist, surgeon and physiologist, but he also made a name for himself as a botanist and poet. He was the son of a lawyer from Bern and showed signs of being a prodigy from a very young age. At only nine years old, he composed a Hebrew and Greek dictionary from words that he had managed to glean from the Bible. At the same age,...
At the end of our chapter on modernity (chapter eleven), we discussed how artists began to approach the subject of Prometheus in increasingly individualistic ways. Instead of referencing a classical source, Prometheus became a vehicle through which artists could express personal convictions. This relationship was solidified in the twentieth century, a period in which art movements followed one another in rapid succession: expressionism, futurism, cubism, etc. The century is sometimes affectionately called the ‘time of the many ‘-isms.’’ The twentieth century was also shaped by two world wars, the effects of which greatly impacted philosophical and artistic thought. In this...
In the second half of the nineteenth century, it became possible to operate on patients under general anaesthesia, enabling surgeons to undertake larger and more invasive operations. Most procedures that concern organs in the abdomen were first conceptualised of and performed for the first time in the 1880s. The stomach, the large and small intestine, the appendix and gallbladder could be partially or entirely removed, respectively. The liver, however, was a latecomer. For a long time, the liver was off limits to surgeons due to the high risk of severe bleeding if the organ was cut. This organ contains a...
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Prometheus and the Liver through Art and Medicine
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