Type

Text

Type

Thesis

Advisor

Moskowitz, Anita. | Monteyne, Joseph

Date

2013-12-01

Keywords

Anatomical Illustration, Jewish Art, Jewish Medicine, Ma'aseh Tuviyah, Metaphor in Art, Tobias Cohen | Art history

Department

Department of Art History and Criticism.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/76871

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

An illustration that compares a dissected body to a house is the subject of this thesis. The illustration opens the pathology chapter of Ma'aseh Tuviyah, a Hebrew encyclopedic manuscript, written by the Jewish physician Tobias Cohen at the turn of the eighteenth century. The body and the house are mirror images that strengthen the metaphor BODY IS HOUSE, a metaphor thoroughly developed in the text that follows the illustration. Aided by architectural terms, this metaphor was designed to assist the medical student in understanding the ailments of the body. This thesis argues that the illustration, as an adjunct to the text, depicts four more metaphors. All five metaphors have a strong socio-political component that stems from both the author's personal biography and the collective history of the Jewish people. This thesis explores the metaphors as well as their extra-pictorial context in order to further the modern viewer's understanding of the illustration's function and its significance to the physician-scholar, Tobias. | 66 pages

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