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Ecorches are human figures depicted with the skin peeled off, exposing the musculature. They date back to the 1400s and are used by artists and medical students to understand human anatomy. Ecorches can be sketches, paintings, or sculptures, and can vary in depth. They can also be made for other species. Some art schools still teach ecorche classes.
An ecorche or “flayed figure” is a painted, drawn, or sculpted human figure depicted with the skin peeled off, exposing the underlying musculature. Medical textbooks may use ecocorches for illustration so students can clearly visualize the structures they are studying, but ecocorches are more commonly used as references by artists. In some cases, they’re even works of art in and of themselves, even if they can be a little macabre.
The ecorche seems to date back to around 1400, when several artists including Leonardo da Vinci began making such figures. Taboos against dissection often made it difficult to access human bodies, whether it was an artist wanting to create more accurate work or a medical student wanting to learn about the body. da Vinci, along with many other artists, felt it was important to understand the underlying architecture of the human body when he depicted it in artwork, and ecorches aided artists in this task.
An ecorche can be a relatively simple sketch, a more detailed painting, or a sculpture. The sculptures can be very useful as artistic references because they are three-dimensional, allowing students to see a realistic example of the structures of interest. Some models of ecorche are made with casts of dissected human bodies, while others are built by hand by sculptors with an eye for detail. The entire piece may be an ecorche, or the work may have certain areas covered in skin, allowing students to see muscles on one side and the same muscles covered in skin on the other. Ecorches can also include representations of the skeleton.
The skinned layers in an ecorche can vary radically in depth. Some expose only the superficial muscles, while others are dissected more deeply, showing the underlying muscles and attachment points. The human body has a huge number of muscles that interconnect in a very complex system and a relatively small area like the arm can provide hours of study for a patient student. Ecoscales of other species can also be prepared, which can be useful for artists who like to draw portraits or make sculptures of animals such as horses and dogs.
Historically, many art schools have taught ecorche classes for their students, allowing their students to work with an ecorche model to enhance their knowledge of human anatomy. While this practice is less common today, some art schools continue to offer it, and students can also take advantage of echo sounders on display in some art school museums, art galleries, and archives.
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