Wound Man: Dissecting (pun intended!) My Experience at this Community Building Week Event

The event I attended this week was called “Wound Man: Three Early Modern Afterlives of a Medieval Surgical Image.” The speaker was Jack Hartnell, an art historian whose work focuses on how art intersects with medicine and health, particularly in the late medieval/early renaissance periods. I chose this event because I’ve recently been interested in the intersection of science with art, so I was curious to learn how a prominent scholar would approach this overlap in their own work.

Hartnell’s talk revolved around his forthcoming book, which focuses on how different cultures interacted with and replicated iconography of the “Wound Man” in scientific texts from the 13th to 17th centuries. But who (or what) is the Wound Man, you may ask? The Wound Man refers to any number of images from the Medieval Period that follow a similar theme: the naked body of a man looking calmly towards the viewer as every inch of his body is pierced with knives, swords and other weapons (see figure). The lesions are meant to depict different illnesses, diseases, or injuries, and early versions of the icon were often also accompanied by numbered labels that led to paragraphs describing how to treat each “wound” based on the medical knowledge of the time.

Interestingly, the meaning and significance of the image has changed throughout time, as printing press technologies enabled the Wound Man to spread around Europe, and eventually outside of it (to Japan, for example). These “afterlives” of the Wound Man, are what fascinate Hartnell, and the majority of the talk focused on how depictions of the Wound Man changed based on three new countries the image entered into during the Early Modern Period. In Germany, the image was aestheticized, rendered in ever more elaborate detail with the introduction of scenic backgrounds. In France, it was anatomized; printers disembodied the Wound Man to show specific limbs—a leg being pierced by an arrow, for instance—and emphasized the medical educational qualities of the image. And in England, it was classicized, with the new poses of the Wound Man mimicking classical Greek sculptures (though during the Q+A, one astute audience member pointed out that this supposed classical imitation may have actually been a comical parody of ancient Greece, since the figure is quite gory! Regardless, there was still a distinct “English” portrayal of the icon.)

Overall, I thought the talk was fascinating. I was amazed how Hartnell’s intense focus on this single medical icon caused larger historical themes to emerge, as I was initially skeptical of this singular approach to studying the history of medicine. Yet Hartnell was able to connect the image to many historical events and figures as he traced its reproduction and lineage across Europe. However, I found myself wanting Hartnell to make these connections and “afterlives” extend even further—beyond the 17th century depictions and to the present day. I was left wondering: what is the relevance of Wound Man and these themes in modern medicine? Why is it important that we learn about this image? At the beginning of his talk, Hartnell gave a few brief examples of how Wound Man’s iconography is still in use; he makes an appearance on the crest for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, for example. It would be fascinating to research how modern depictions of Wound Man have (and haven’t) changed compared to Hartnell’s research on the image’s afterlives in Germany, France, and England. 

Additionally, I was confused by Hartnell’s reluctance to examine the relationship between the Wound Man and religious allegory and symbolism. During the Q+A, several audience members remarked on the connections between the Wound Man and Christian martyrs/saints, as well as the inclusion of the crucifix in several images. However, in his responses Hartnell clearly stated that he wanted to avoid reading the image through a religious lens. Although I understand that an art historian should read an image through a multitude of different lenses, it seemed strange and unintuitive to me that, considering Hartnell’s interest in studying how the Wound Man interacted with different cultural contexts, he would avoid studying the image’s interaction with the larger (and arguably more influential) context of religion and the Reformation in Europe during this time. I would be curious to learn more about his reasoning behind this scholarly choice.

Despite my unresolved questions, however, I still thoroughly enjoyed the event. Attending this talk has furthered my interest in the relationships between art and medicine, and I look forward to the release of Hartnell’s book and other research in this field.