在西方人体艺术发展的历史中,英国功利主义哲学家边沁创造了一种罕见的艺术特例——自体圣像艺术。他死后,其肉体被解剖并重新组装,至今仍以活生生的形象放置在伦敦大学的一条走廊里。边沁以肉身作为使自己不朽的“纪念碑”,这和他的哲学观念密不可分。在他看来,灵魂是虚幻不实的,只有肉体是真实的实体。如果一件特定的事物,它的最充分的代表者只能是它自己,那么人的肉体就比绘画和雕塑具有和人自身更完美的相似性,就成了人死后自我延续的最有效途径。边沁的自体圣像艺术以及这种“艺术”所依托的哲学在西方具有特异性,但它依然是与西方哲学史对话的产物,并在诸多方面对西方现代、后现代的艺术实验提供了灵感。 In the history of the development of Western body art, Bentham, a British utilitarian philosopher, created a rare artistic exception - the art of self-portrait. After his death, his body was dissected and reassembled, still living in a living image in a hallway at the University of London. Bentham uses his flesh as a “monument” to make himself immortal, which is inextricably linked to his philosophical notion. In his view, the soul is illusory, and only the flesh is the real entity. If a particular thing, its fullest representation, can only be itself, then human flesh will have the perfect resemblance to painting and sculpture with one’s own self becoming the most effective self-continuance after death way. Bentham’s self-portrayal art and the philosophy upon which this “art” is based are specific in the West, but they are still the product of dialogues with the history of Western philosophy and have provided, in many ways, modern and postmodern artistic experimentation in the West inspiration.