Skin-deep. Wax moulages between science and aesthetics

Starting from a well-known letter from Goethe to Beuth, this essay focuses on the problem of visual representation in plastic anatomy from 18th century wax Venuses to 19th century moulages. I will argue that the very same problem – i.e. the replacement of the real body by means of artificial substitutes – led to very different solutions, with regard to both the depiction and the observer’s gaze