How Paintings Mirror Society

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicoles Tulp by Rembrandt Van Rijn is an oil painting, painted in 1632. This painting mirrors society by showing what scientists were doing during the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a time of new creations and discovering new things, this painting shows Dr Nicoles Tulp dissecting a human arm. Before the Renaissance everyone only looked to the Church for answers on sickness and death. Once the Church started to fall into decline and people stopped totally believing in them. They decided to look for answers for themselves. The dissecting of the human body allowed them to figure out what was causing sicknesses and how to cure them. In the painting Dr Nicoles Tulp is disecting a human arm to an audience of doctors that were curious on the human body. In the painting the audience is looking at the tools that the doctor was using and what the arm looked like on the inside, like the muscles and tendons. After they learned about the human body they could create medicine to cure the sicknesses and not to look at God to heal you but to rest and take medicine that scientist were creating. Leonardo Da Vinci was also interested in dissecting the human body. He was curious on how the body moved and how the muscles moved according to different actions, which is similar to what Dr Nicoles Tulp was working on.This reflects the Renaissance by showing people what the Renaissance was all about rebirth of new knowledge.