Class, sexuality and gazing
in François Sallé’s ‘The Anatomy class’, 1888
Associate Professor Alan Krell, College of Fine Arts, University of NSW
Purchased by the Gallery in 1888, this relatively little-known painting offers a fascinating insight into late 19th-century French attitudes on class and sexuality, and their representation in ‘high art’. Negotiating these questions, Dr Alan Krell moves provocatively from the role of the model to the role of the viewer, from scientific ordering to the homosocial.
See the painting in the collection
Image: François Sallé The anatomy class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts 1888 (detail)
