Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2750
E-Mail:	m.m.a.hendriksen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, KG Moderne beeldende kunst
Office Address:	Johan Huizingagebouw Doelensteeg 16 2311 VL Leiden Room number 2.19
Personal Homepage:	www.hum.leiden.edu/​research/​culturesofcollecting www.mariekehendriksen.nl

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Fields of Interest

Philosophy of art and the senses, art history and cultural history in general, history of science, the connections between science and art, changing ideas about beauty and perfection.

Research

Collections of Perfection
(within the NWO project ‘Cultures of Collecting: The Leiden Anatomical Collections in Context)

This project aims at an analysis of how the early modern anatomical collections of Leiden University were rooted in ideals of perfection in different fields of knowledge and expertise. It starts from the premise that collections (institutional as well as private) generally represented and generated knowledge. It  means that collectors were continuously and consciously making choices as to what they should and should not include. Even more, they chose methods of preservation and ways of exhibiting, involving not only technical skills but also cultural ideas and ideals. Anatomical exhibits, in other words, were made objects. They were meant to show the anatomy of the body (according to contemporary physiological ideas), but were at the same time portraits of their makers, of their image of the ideal body and of the intimate experience of their own body.

For the Leiden anatomists Rau, Albinus, Van Doeveren, Bonn and Brugmans perfection was at the core of their decisions. Aesthetically, the objects had to be presented according to fixed proportions, perspectives and other aesthetic conventions. Technologically and scientifically, the anatomical collections were aimed at showing ever more perfect methods of revealing and preserving nature. Ethically, the collections functioned like mirrors and helped in the educational and therefore ethical perfectibility of man. There was even a theological meaning of perfection as some collectors sought to represent the perfect order of creation. Also the exhibition of so called ‘monsters’, tumours and other malformations were meant to enhance (ex-negativo) the image of the perfect body.

While considerations of perfection were central to anatomical preparations and their collections, the precise content of the perfection to be realised was contended ground. In other words, the meaning of perfection was different according to cultural settings and technological possibilities. For this reason, research into the ‘materialisation’ of perfection in anatomical collections is at the same time an analysis of perfection as a conceptual tool informing the way artefacts were preserved and exhibited.

Although historians of medicine have to some extent discussed the notion of perfection in the early modern Leiden cabinets, little attention has been paid to the construction of the homo perfectus in a broader cultural and academic context. As a result, much of the work that has been done on the Leiden early modern collections is confined to the history of medical ideas, mostly judged by modern medical criteria. This project seeks to resolve the shortcoming through adopting an interdisciplinary approach. Analysing contemporary medicine and anatomy in relation to philosophy, theology and the arts will allow the researcher to understand how the early modern (mostly eighteenth-century) anatomical cabinets act as ‘fluid’ bodies of knowledge that are a result of culturally and historically determined ideals of (aesthetic, religious, ethical and scientific) perfection.

Moreover, not only does the project result in a better understanding of ideals of perfection, it also aims at enhancing our understanding of the contemporary quest for the perfect body as a cultural phenomenon. It will disclose the origin of many contemporary (and public) images of the perfect body. The project Collections of Perfection, in short, shows that the quest for the perfection of man is no newcomer to our culture and can therefore historically inform the current debate on the perfectibility of the human body.

Curriculum Vitae

Marieke Hendriksen
Born: 21 May 1982

2000-2005 
MA Languages and Cultural Studies, Utrecht University
Thesis title: De gustibus non est disputandem: waarom koken geen kunst is.

2005-2006 
Project coordinator Sustainable Purchasing in Higher Education, LHUMP

2006-2007
MRes Humanities and Cultural Studies (with merit), The London Consortium, Universityof London
Thesis title: The use, value and meaning of food and taste in contemporary art. A case study.

June-Dec 2007
Program Secretary, Nyenrode Business University

Jan-Aug 2008
Course Developer, Dutch Probation Office (Reclassering Nederland)

Sep 2008 – present
PhD Student (Art History), Leiden University

Teaching Activities

2008-2009
- Lecture for LKV (Leiden Art Historical Association) together with Hieke Huistra

2009-2010
- Onderzoeksperspectieven (research perspectives): guest lecture together with Elsje van Kessel
- Modern and Contemporary Studies: Truth and Method (Gadamer): guest lecture on Gadamer and art
history

2010-2011
- Kunstwetenschap II: Esthetica (Aesthetics)

Publications

´Koken is juist kunst´ in Bouillon! Cultureel gastronomisch magazine, zomer 2007, pp. 44-51

´Pourquoi la cuisine n´est-elle pas un art´ in Deshima. Revue française des mondesnéerlandophones., 2007, 1, pp. 163-180