Bodies beautiful
British secretiveness about bodies informs the row about a new exhibition
JOHN DONNE, wrote his fellow poet T.S. Eliot, “knew the anguish of the marrow” and the “ague of the skeleton”. But that was only metaphorically. Visitors to “Body Worlds”, an exhibition newly opened in London (despite the objections of some MPs) will see the real thing. It consists of preserved body parts, sometimes in isolation, sometimes as part of the full Monty—whole bodies flayed and considerately splayed, leaving nothing to the imagination. For example, “The Rider” sits atop a flayed horse, holding his own brain in one hand and the horse's in the other.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Bodies beautiful”
From the March 23rd 2002 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party