Abstract Summary
In recent years, scholars of early modern science have emphasized the visual aspects of natural knowledge during the period that was once called the scientific revolution. This panel examines how images and knowledge circulated between painters, draughtsmen, printmakers, naturalists and scientific practitioners. Our chronological focus spans from 1500 to 1800, from the German artist Albrecht Dürer’s musings on the limits of mathematizing the art of perspective to the visual accounts of James Cook’s voyages to the Pacific. We interpret the development of early modern science in a global context, and investigate how European, Latin American and Asian practitioners interacted with each other, exchanging and producing textual and visual information in the process. We also critically examine the limitations of such an approach, paying a special attention to what factors hindered or completely blocked the circulation in the period, both across the globe and across different professional backgrounds. This panel is highly diverse, incl. speakers and commentators from the USA, the United Kingdom, Spain and Hungary, from four different institutions. The speakers range from art historians through museum curators to historians of science.
