This essay focuses on the wax tableaus of Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656–1701), which represent the human body in various stages of putrefaction. Focusing on descriptions of these works in travel accounts and in fiction, this essay discusses the eighteenth-century viewer’s fascination with wax’s peculiar properties as a sculptural medium. Paradoxically, wax’s “lifelike” qualities seemed most powerful when they depicted decay’s destruction of the human form. Zumbo’s work, therefore, inspires a contemplation of the relationship between a realist aesthetics and the spectacle of corruption.

中文翻译：

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蜡的现实主义和腐烂

本文重点介绍 Gaetano Giulio Zumbo（1656-1701）的蜡像，这些蜡像代表了处于不同腐烂阶段的人体。本文着眼于旅行记述和小说中对这些作品的描述，讨论了 18 世纪观众对蜡作为雕塑媒介的特殊特性的迷恋。矛盾的是，蜡的“栩栩如生”的品质在描绘腐烂对人类形态的破坏时似乎最为强大。因此，赞博的作品激发了对现实主义美学与腐败现象之间关系的思考。