Letter: Acclaimed body of work behind Kelly's cadaverous casts

Sir: It is an interesting adjunct to the art/science divergence debate that the artist Antony-Noel Kelly has been arrested for an activity that was considered entirely acceptable within the genre of Romanticism ("Police bail sculptor who crafts bodies", 10 April). Indeed, the anatomical realism displayed in Gericault's Raft of the Medusa is directly attributable to his studies from corpses and body parts "borrowed" from a local morgue.

It intrigues me that, in an era when trains are allowed to run over a woman's body for hours on end and it is considered amusing for medical students to take cadavers to parties, a serious artist is castigated for traditional methods.

TOM HARDY

London SW12