The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery [Hardcover]

Max Aguilera-Hellweg (Author), M. D. Richard Selzer (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An accident cost professional photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg the use of his right arm for a year. Forced to work with a tripod and the larger format of 4-by-5-inch film, he was providentially assigned to photograph a neurosurgeon as she worked. This ultimately gave birth to The Sacred Heart, a magnificent and utterly disturbing collection of photographs of the human body seen through invasive surgery.

There is nothing like this collection either in the annals of medical photography or the arts. Almost 50 surgical procedures--a liver transplant, a mastectomy, the harvesting of organs after death, a cesarean birth, and others--cause us to look away and immediately look back. Surgeons' hands hover gracefully over gaping wounds, and lighting on gloves, instruments, and bare flesh is both theatrical and holy.

Aguilera-Hellweg's essay integrates the photographs and historic information about early surgical procedures with his own philosophic musings. The Sacred Heart inspires terror, pity, and awe as our gaze lingers on these horrific images.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch Press (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821223771
• ISBN-13: 978-0821223772
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,020,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Medical Procedure

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reality is too much for some people, December 16, 1999

By 

Adam Parfrey "Feral House Publisher" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Hardcover)

This book is brave, and very well put-together. The work of photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg, whose shots can also be seen in the yearly calendar issued by Philadelphia's Mutter Museum, is brilliant in its lighting and composition.

The subject, as revealed in the subtitle, is invasive surgery. Those who say the book is exploitative since the photographs are disturbing, probably need a Hallmark Card version of truth, and reality.

Invasive surgery invades the body. There are not photographs of Kate Moss, though it might be of Kate Moss later in life after the effects of her smoking finally rear their ugly head. But the photos in The Sacred Heart really come to terms with the ugliness and contradictory beauty of the human body in its most elemental stage.

The introduction is by Richard Selzer, whose other extremely readable books achieve direct paths to the most curious and disturbing aspects of what is seen by the doctor of medicine.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing photographs of surgeries with moving text., October 18, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Hardcover)

Imagine as a layperson being a witness to 100 major surgeries and you've entered the world of Max Aguilera-Hellweg's incredible book, "The Sacred Heart." A review of this book of surgical photographs in the Los Angeles Times grabbed my attention. "...these images are so visually beautiful that you are drawn into them before you know what you're looking at . . .Most of us have some familiarity with medical photography, and though it's rarely pleasant, it generally has a clinical quality that allows us to distance ourselves from the events depicted. Aguilera-Hellweg upends that tradition as well; drawing a parallel between the invasiveness central to surgery and photography, he leaves the viewer no place to hide and pushes everything front and center." This is the only book I've ever experienced where you think twice about turning the page for fear of what you might see next. Check it out.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Both reverent and irreverant, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Hardcover)

There is no doubt in my mind that An Atlas of the Human Heart was a labor of love on the part of Max. The photographs are at once the most reverent and irreverant portrayals of the human body that I have ever seen. I will never quite be able to think of my body the same way again. Max's work is ambitious, inspiring, and challenging. The book gives you a glimpse of a truly sacred place -- the inside of the human body.