Mechthild Fend

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Kunstgeschichtliches Institut, Faculty Member

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Mechthild Fend is professor of history of art at Goethe University, Frankfurt. She taught previously (2006-2020) at University College London (UCL).
Major research interests are the image and the body, the history of artistic anatomy and medical imagery. Her publications include "Fleshing out Surfaces. Skin in French Art and Medicine" (Manchester University Press, 2017). Her first book "Grenzen der Männlichkeit" (2003), which has been translated into French as Les limites de la Masculinite with La Decouverte, was concerned with androgynous masculinities in the period of the French Revolution.
Her current research focuses on medical imagery and the connections between portraits and pathology.

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University of New England - Australia

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Papers by Mechthild Fend

The Painter s Touch Boucher Chardin Fragonard by Ewa Lajer Burcharth

Art Bulletin, 2019

A Review of Ewa Lajer Burcharth's book 'The Painter's Touch'.

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Body and Clothing

A Cultural History Of Color in the Age of Enlightenment, 2020

Hermetic borderline

Portraying Skin Disease: Robert Carswell’s Dermatological Watercolours – Mechthild Fend

A Medical History of Skin

© Taylor and Francis 2013 and Jonathan Reinarz and Kevin Siena 2013. One of the more remarkable n... more © Taylor and Francis 2013 and Jonathan Reinarz and Kevin Siena 2013. One of the more remarkable nineteenth-century images of a pathological condition represents a woman reclining in a half-upright position, supported by pillows and covered in white clothes and a sheet (see Figure 10.1). When we focus on the upper le section of the watercolour, she seems quite comfortable in her bed despite her very visible skin condition. Her emotionless face does not betray signs of pain or itching; as her eyes do not engage with the viewer, she seems absent and self-contained. e draughtsman, on the other hand, must have looked attentively at his object of study. e question is of where exactly this particular draughtsman, Robert Carswell, a Scottish pathologist studying morbid phenomena in Paris, directed his attention, and what precisely was the object of his study: a sick person or the visual manifestations of smallpox?

Zeichen in der Oberfläche. Valie Exports 'Body Sign Action

Körpersehen : über das Haptische bei Alois Riegl

This historiographic article discusses the sense of touch in the writings of Viennese art histori... more This historiographic article discusses the sense of touch in the writings of Viennese art historian Alois Riegl and relates it to debates in 19th-century sense physiology. Starting point is the current reception of Riegl in Deleuze and feminist art/film theory as well as Walter Benjamin’s earlier reception, and the positive embrace of Riegl as a theorist who particularly valued touch. In investigating Riegl’s discussion of the sense of touch through his writings, I argue that a more differentiated view is required. In his attempt to write a history of perception, Riegl argues for a development from the haptic to the visual, and thus considers visual perception as more advanced. The haptic is often related to a more instinctive, animal reaction, and mentioned in Riegl’s essays along with a concern about the modern urban culture, and debates around Darwinism. On the other hand, Riegl acknowledges the role of the sense of touch for spatial perception – an argument he makes fully inform...

Die Substanz der Oberfläche : Haut und Fleisch in der französischen Kunsttheorie des 17. bis 19. Jahrhunderts

This article is part of a volume on fleshtones in art that I co-edited with Bohde. It explores th... more This article is part of a volume on fleshtones in art that I co-edited with Bohde. It explores the terminolgy for the representation of body and skin in French art discourse from Roger de Piles to Charles Blanc. It shows that French late 17th and early 18th century art theory - much in the tradition of earlier Italian art discourse - refers to the representation of skin in terms of flesh. There is however a shift in the terminolgy for the rendering of skin: since the middle of the 18th century skin becomes a more prominent organ in art and medical discourse. It was considered a “nervous canvas” imbued with sensitivity and life, a notion of skin visually articulated in works such as portraits by Fragonard. Around the middle of the 18th century a hightened interest in paint handling goes along with a new attention for different skin textures and an udnerstanding of the body’s exterior as skin rather than flesh. The surface of the body remains a focus in neoclassical art theory and pra...

Geblähte Körper: Die Haut oder das Unverhältnis von Innen und Außen in den Porträts von J.-A.-D. Ingres

UCL logo UCL Discovery. ...

Medium und Material: Zur Kunst der Moderne und Gegenwart

Pygmalions Werkstatt : die Erschaffung des Menschen im Atelier von der Renaissance bis zum Surrealismus

Desk Work Traces

Review of Exhibition: Figures du corps. Une leçon d'anatomie aux beaux- arts. Paris, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. 21.10.2008-04.01.2009

Les limites de la masculinité : l'androgyne dans l'art et la théorie de l'art en France, 1750-1830

Book review of Markus Buschhaus: 'Über den Körper im Bilde sein. Eine Medien-archäologie anatomischen Wissens

Grenzen der Männlichkeit : der Androgyn in der französischen Kunst und Kunsttheorie 1750-1830

Book description: Mechthild Fend untersucht die erotische und effeminierte Mannlichkeit im Uberga... more Book description: Mechthild Fend untersucht die erotische und effeminierte Mannlichkeit im Ubergang von hofischer zu burgerlicher Gesellschaft. Der Androgyn stellt sich dabei als eine fur Umbruchphasen charakteristische Krisenfigur heraus. Gegenstande der Studie sind Gemalde, Grafiken und Skulpturen von Kunstlern wie Jacques-Louis David oder Anne-Louis Girodet und medizinische, kunsttheoretische sowie literarische Texte von Johann-Joachim Winckelmann bis Honore de Balzac. Auch in Frankreich sind die klassizistischen Schonheitsideale von Winckelmanns Schriften zur Kunst des Altertums gepragt. Sie sind androzentrisch am Bild des Mannes orientiert. Die von einer einheitlichen, fliesenden Linie konturierten Korperbilder entwerfen dabei ein ideales, klar umgrenztes Ich, das zugleich von Destabilisierung und Auflosung bedroht ist. In diesem Sinne sind die »Grenzen der Mannlichkeit« zu verstehen: es geht um Definitionen im Sinne einer Begrenzung, um Androgynie als ein Grenzphanomen zwische...

Bodily and Pictorial Surfaces. The Representation of Skin in late 18th and 19th Century France

Flesh-tones, Skin-color and the Eighteenth-Century Color Print

Fleshing out surfaces: Skin in French art and medicine, 1650–1850

Noch einmal: Vater und Söhne

Fräulein Rosa malt fast wie ein Mann". Rosa Bonheur und die Schwierigkeit als Künstlerin androgyn zu sein