How relevant is birth to the

identification of woman as a

human being?

AN ESSAY ON BEING HUMAN Teodora Silvia Modoi

1413 words

Introduction

Humanism, the philosophical stance in which the human being is

regarded as ‘the measure of all things’1, refers to the ‘classical

ideal2’ as man only. And, just like in Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man

drawing, the universal man is white, European, young, healthy,

with beautiful facial features. Woman, just like the title of Simone

de Beauvoir’s book, has been regarded as ‘The Second Sex’,

despite her crucial role in the process of procreation. There have

been times in European history when woman was seen as nothing

more than a vessel that carried an unborn child, the woman’s

identity as a human and her importance in society being directly

linked to the importance of her womb. My work explores

pregnancy, an experience I would define as an extreme condition

of the human body, which has the capacity to create life inside of

it and an experience that is highly relevant to the idea of being

human. The questions I ask through my work are how has the

view on pregnancy changed through history and how relevant is

birth to the identification of a woman as a ‘human being’?

In order to understand the notion of human in the context of humanism I will return to da Vinci’s

Vitruvian Man (Fig. 2), the embodiment of the universal He. Just as Rosi Braidotti states in her book

The Posthuman (Fig. 3) the European worldview, being organized in a binary system of positive and

negative (positive – male, negative - female, positive–action, negative-passiveness) sees different as

inferior: ‘In so far as difference spells inferiority, it acquires both

essentialist and lethal connotations for people who get branded as

‘others’. These are the

sexualized, racialized, and

naturalized others, who are

reduced to the less than human

status of disposable bodies.’3 To

paraphrase the author, women

were seen as ‘others’, to be read

as inferior. Furthermore,

Woman was associated with

passiveness even though it is in

her body that a new life is

created. She was regarded as a

1 Protagoras, Greek Philosopher 2 Braidotti, Rosi, The Posthuman, Chapter 1 Post-Humanism: Life beyond the Self, page 13 3Braidotti, Rosi, The Posthuman, Chapter 1 Post-Humanism: Life beyond the Self, page 15

Fig. 1

Fig. 3 Fig. 2

‘disposable body’ made only for carrying the child, a fact that inspired me to name my two works

Sacred Vessel 1 and Sacred Vessel 2.

I did some ‘field-research’ at The Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. One of the most fascinating

collections there is A Healing Passion, which was very resourceful for my interest. The permanent

exhibition contains pieces from his various collections, illustrating his passion for the natural world as

much as his passion for culture. The joining of the two elements under the same roof is a perfect

metaphor for the nature-culture continuum, a key term in the Introduction of Rosi Braidotti’s book

The Posthuman. The collections illustrate the controversial process of how an object belonging to the

biological world can transgress into a cultural artefact. The most meaningful examples are the wet

preparations of human tissues and organs.

One of the most striking anatomical preparations is a gravid uterus belonging to a patient who died in

the last stage of her pregnancy (Fig. 4). The collection contains a series of life size plaster casts of

dissections showing the pregnant uterus (Fig. 5), just like the illustrations of Hunter’s ‘The Anatomy of

the Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures’. These generated the idea of using vintage medical illustration

Fig. 4 Fig. 5

for my final piece and lead me to Crucial Interventions, An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles &

Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery by Richard Barnett. Between the beautiful and unnerving

illustrations of the book I have found two drawings of caesarean sections (Fig. 6, Fig. 7). I have decided

to use them as a starting point for the paintings, as they illustrate a medical process that was extremely

dangerous for the mother, before the introduction of anaesthesia and antiseptic. Caesarean section

is the use of surgery to deliver babies, a medical process that can still damage the mother’s body

nowadays. In the ancient times, it usually resulted in the mother’s death. Between the 16th century

and the 19th century the procedure had a high mortality rate. For example, in Great Britain the

mortality rate at the beginning of the 19th century was around 85%. Being so close to death in the

process of bringing a new life in the world represents an extreme stance of what being human means

to me. It implies a direct challenge towards the physical existence of the mother. In addition, it implies

the closest relationship between two human beings (mother and child). This fact is highly relevant

because we define ourselves as humans in relation to others, the definition implies affiliation.

Fig. 6 Fig. 7

In my studio practise, I have repainted the

illustrations by using a way of painting

inspired by Rembrandt, whose works,

alongside Da Vinci’s drawings, have been

part of my main secondary resource.

Rembrandt has been my inspiration both

on a conceptual and on a technical level.

Firstly, Rembrandt’s work The Anatomy

Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (Fig. 8)

emphasizes the same anatomical

dimensions of the human being. Secondly,

I believe that one should always return to

Rembrandt while seeking technical

virtuosity, his paintings representing an

unlimited source of inspirations for artists

nowadays. I have used acrylic paint texture

to create the effect of impasto to suggest

the emerging of the baby from the

mother’s body, as well as the anatomical

insights The body of the woman was

painted in a flat manner for the same

reason. I have added the text order to suggest the

provenience from medical illustrations. The piercing

represents a spontaneous addition to the work, an

object that states the fact that a woman doesn’t give

up her identity while giving birth to a child, a claim of

the freedom every human is entitled to possess. The

emphasis of anatomical elements in my work is

directly linked to my personal view on what being

human means.

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 10

Before the invention of anaesthesia, not only was the procedure life risking, but it was also very

painful. There are some the features that make pain a key point in observing various aspects of

human life. Between them I would mention its extreme nature, its universality and the fact that it

implies an interaction with the outside world. Pain is a strong feeling of consciousness, an

experience that make us aware of the reality around us. In The Human Condition Hannah Arendt

presents pain as the most intense, private and ineffable experience: ‘Indeed, the most intense feeling

we know of, intense to the point of blotting out all other experiences, namely, the experience of great

bodily pain, is at the same time the most private and least communicable of all.’4 The radicalness of

pain transforms it into something that cannot be experienced in an inauthentic manner: ‘Pain, in

other words, truly a borderline experience between life as "being among men" {inter homines esse)

and death, is so subjective and removed from the world of things and men that it cannot assume an

appearance at all.’5 More so, in the context of the Eurocentric binary paradigm, I would link pain to

the female gender, as it implies passiveness and endurance.

The experience of pain during child labour is yet a very complex matter. I chose to add more details

to the hands performing the surgery in order to suggest the male agency and the female

objectification. Still, the active force of a woman in labour has huge proportions. In order to

demonstrate that I will paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche who states in his book Thus spoke

Zarathustra that all creators need to be similar to pregnant women, to endure the same pain and to

feel the same joy afterwards. Furthermore, following Nietzsche’s perspective on the human kind,

people are designed to be creators, to produce new things and to invent new values, my work

presents the pregnant woman as a symbol of all human beings in general and of artists in particular.

4 Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition, The public Realm: The Common 5 Ibid

Fig. 11 Fig. 12

Reflection

All in all, the view on a woman’s pregnancy has changed through history, male agency loosing and

gaining importance according to different time periods and philosophical movements. Woman has

been seen as nothing more than a vessel, but woman has been seen as the sacred source of life as

well. My two pieces are suggesting this contradiction. As for my opinion on the identity of a woman

as a human being, I believe that the experience of pregnancy can bring total awareness of the bodily

and spiritual existence, belief that I am trying to express through my paintings. The physical body is

changing in order to permit the creation of something that is more than just physical existence, thus

emphasizing its humanity.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:

Fig. 1 Front Cover of the book The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, Source:

https://www.feministcurrent.com

Fig. 2 The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo Da Vinci, Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

Fig. 13 Fig. 14

Fig. 3 Front cover of the book The Posthuman by Rosi Braidotti, Source:

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+posthuman+rosi+braidotti+image&rlz=1C1SQJL_roRO841R

O841&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=BzI2vxu_7SzGHM%253A%252C0TZLxYZWM88uaM%252C_&

vet=1&usg=AI4_-

kS67z4WfCMSZOFPM1YGdIIckvxDXQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiF6cbWpvflAhULKMAKHcFTC7YQ9QEwAn

oECAsQEw#imgrc=BzI2vxu_7SzGHM:

Fig. 4 Photography of a Gravid Uterus belonging to a patient who died in the last stage of her

pregnancy, collection A Healing Passion, Hunterian Museum

Fig. 5 Life size plaster cast of a dissection showing the pregnant uterus, collection A Healing Passion,

Hunterian Museum

Fig. 6 Caesarean Section, Crucial Interventions, An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of

Nineteenth-Century Surgery by Richard Barnett, page 181 (Scanned copy)

Fig. 7 Caesarean Section, Crucial Interventions, An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of

Nineteenth-Century Surgery by Richard Barnett, page 180 (Scanned copy)

Fig. 8 The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr._Nicolaes_Tulp

Fig. 9 Sacred Vessel 1, Detail

Fig. 10 Sacred Vessel 2, Detail

Fig. 11 Sacred Vessel 1, work in progress

Fig. 12 Sacred Vessel 2, work in progress

Fig. 13 Sacred Vessel 1

Fig. 14 Sacred Vessel 2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosi Braidotti., (2011) The posthuman, null Polity

Arendt, Hannah, (1998) The human condition, 2nd Edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Nietzsche, Friedrich, (1991), Edinter, Asa grait-a Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra)

Barnett, Richard, Thames&Hudson, Crucial Interventions - An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles &

Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery

Barnett, Richard, Thames&Hudson, The Sick Rose – Disease and Medical Illustration

De Beauvoir, Simone, (1953) La Deuxieme Sexe (The Second Sex)

https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/collections/permanentdisplays/williamhunter/

https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/collections/permanentdisplays/ahealingpassion/