Where Art and Science Intersect

Technology, Dutch Art and the Commercial Revolution

Kimberley SorensonThe Waterford School1480 E. 9400 SouthSandy, UT 84093

Italian Renaissance

• Raphael’s Madonna of the Meadow, 1509

• Platonic—believes that the ideal is more enduring and real than specific examples. Tableness, for example, lasts forever, though tables don’t.

• Narrative—telling a story.• Perspective—seen from

a unique vantage point.• Chiaroscuro—light and

shadow model three dimensionality

• Many languages to describe the ideal• Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (c. 1480) and secular humanism

The Cracking of the High Renaissance

• Francis I of France invades at invitation of Milan, 1494

• Savonarola overthrows Medici; Machiavelli out of power

• Habsburgs come to “help;” occupy and sack Rome 1527

• The Prince, 1532• The “Machiavellian

Moment”: a ruler should be effective, not idealistic

• Last Judgment, 1535-1541, and Mannerism

Christian Humanism

• Northern Europe; next generation• Anxiety re: secular humanism• Humanism has the potential to

deepen and purify man’s relationship with Christ

• Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)• In Praise of Folly, Handbook of the

Christian Knight; translation of New Testament

• He was the Internet of his day; in personal communication with major thinkers all over Europe (Latin)

Northern Renaissance Art

• Jan Van Eyck begins as an illuminator—detail

• Oil paint had been around; he is the first to discover linseed oil, a varnish that dries at a consistent rate

• Oil holding pigment in suspension reflects light

“Disguised symbolism”

• Single candle and dog: fidelity in marriage

• Green: fertility and hope• Shoes removed: standing in a

holy places• Gendered space: man is

wearing outside clothes and pattens; woman is inside, with slippers

• Fascination with reflective surfaces: beads, chandelier, and mirror; perhaps camera obscura

• “Jan Van Eyck was here.” Witness, not creator.

Madonnas of Van Eyck (North) and Veneziano (Italy), c. 1450

Italian vs. Northern

• Attention to a few large things

• Objects modeled by light and shadow

• Legible situation in space more important than surface of objects

• Seen from single perspective

• Narrative/ideal

• Attention to many small things

• Light reflected off objects• Surface of objects more

important than situation in space

• No clearly situated viewer• Objective record

16th century historical context

• Beeldenstorm, 1566• Dutch Revolt and end of centralized authority• Anxiety re: social order and importance of family as social unit and

restraint on “embarrassment of riches”

Think Martha Stewart Living

• “Just as American sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s offered a forum for new notions of home and family, Dutch paintings of the 1650s and 1660s worked out and reinforced ideals of proper domestic life.”

• Dollhouses that allowed women to pore over details of refinement

Family is source of learning (5 senses), including appropriate life roles

Formation of Family

• Catholic societies, best marriage is Christ with church (i.e. nuns, priests)

• Protestant societies, marriage is companionate

• He’s 35, she’s 30• Thistle is “man’s faith”• Ivy is woman clinging to

man• Wedding ring on

forefinger and hand on heart

• Garden of love in rear

Children are children, with their own needs and personalities

The Sick Child

The Lacemaker

Van Eyck, Vermeer and technological innovation

• Both experimented with techniques to mimic light

• Van Eyck: eventually found varnishes that made oil-base paint practical

• Vermeer put sand in paint• Both used a camera

obscura, which means they physically modeled their compositions

• Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek were friends; better lenses

Evidence

• All paintings have highly specific vantage point

• All are very specific• Sizes correspond to

size of reflection• Vermeer’s secrecy

and slowness• “camera” viewpoints• Lens-like highlights

Commercialization of Dutch Art

• 2 separate historical estimates: more than 5 million paintings during Golden Age

• 20% landscapes; perhaps nostalgia

• Small enough to hang and be affordable in homes

• Workshops, with masters doing faces and hands

• Specialization

Seeing as a way of knowing more completely; Willem Kalf’s lemons

Rembrandt

The Art of Describing

• “Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp” (who changed his name because he loved tulips)

• Hand demonstrating the actions of the flexors

• Vesalius—first to deny Galen’s mistakes with empirical evidence

• Describing rather than interpreting

Francis Bacon and the Scientific Revolution

• “But to resolve nature into abstractions is less to our purpose than to dissect her into parts.” Novum Organum, 1620.

• Describing rather than characterising; empiricism

Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, and the Royal Society

• Christopher Wren is astronomer who uses new lenses. His study group becomes the Royal Society in 1661.

• Robert Hooke named weekly “experimenter.”

• Robert Hooke fiddles with lenses, adds stage and water bladder, publishes Micrographia, 1665

“The eye, helped by the lens, was a means by which men

were able to turn from the misleading world of Brain and

Fancy to the concrete world of things…shewing, that there is

not so much requir’d towards it, any strength of Imagination,

or exactness of Method, or depth of Contemplation (though

the addition of these, where they can be had, must needs

produce a much more perfect composure), as a sincere

Hand, and a faithful Eye, to examine, and to record, the

things themselves as they appear.”

--Sir Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

Hooke and Wren’s “sincere hands and faithful eyes”

1. 52 churches after Great Fire of 1666.

2. Function: want everyone to hear and see sermon, so invent central plan churches

3. Little experience. Builds models. Experiments with materials for acoustics and light.

Commercialization of architecture

• Had to build them quickly

• Had to build them cheaply: sacrificed exterior

• But King wanted footprint in London: beautiful steeples

Commercialization of Fashion

• From 14th century, French send 300 pound “fashion doll” to English court once a year. Fashion cycle of c. 15 years

• 1770—Ladies’ magazines. Fashion cycle of 1 year.

• Painted fashion plates. Fashion cycle of 3 mos.

• 1790—paper dolls

Josiah Wedgwood and the commercialization of desire

• Same pattern of style (Herculaneum); technical innovation (transfer; new glazes; new clays) and lower pricing (canals)

• But he realizes that’s not sustainable

• MARKETING: regional warehouses, showrooms, frog service for Catherine the Great, money back guarantee, free delivery to London, traveling salesmen, ads and puffs

Commercialism of science itself

• Begin with collections• Lectures sponsored

by coffeehouses and local societies

• Museums, panoramas, zoos, etc.

• TOYS and BOOKS; Matthew Boulton and John Newbery