Embodied Art: A Reading of A. S. Byatt’s ‘Body Art’

Abstract This article examines the idea of an embodied art in A. S. Byatt’s short story ‘Body Art’. In order to contextualize this concept, the essay begins with a survey of Byatt’s earlier explorations of the link between mind and body, as well as an analysis of the small amount of secondary material relating to ‘Body Art’, a text that has received little critical attention. The article then explores the story’s ties to Dutch vanitas painting, a tradition that is intimately linked to the study of anatomy. The vanitas tradition shows how medicine and art were once a unified field, and explores the consequences of their modern division. This leads to a consideration of the influence of theological debates about mind and body and their effect, in particular, on Renaissance humanist art. The next section examines the shifting meaning of the archival collection, particularly in its significance for modern formations of subjectivity. This idea is particularly important in the context of the story’s allusions to Joseph Beuys, who views the artist’s body as a locus of creativity. Like Beuys, Byatt is interested in art that draws on the imaginative power of religious storytelling and imagery while rejecting its supernatural elements. Byatt draws together all of these elements in her story in order to articulate her vision of an embodied art, one that draws together the conceptual and the physical.