Making expert knowledge through the image: antiquarian images and early modern scientific illustration
Making expert knowledge through the image: antiquarian images and early modern scientific illustration
This essay examines drawings of antiquities in the context of the history of early modern scientific illustration. The role of illustrations in the establishment of archaeology as a discipline is assessed, and the emergence of a graphic style for representing artifacts is shown to be closely connected to the development of scientific illustration in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The essay argues that the production of conventionalized drawings of antiquities during this period represents a fundamental shift in the approach to ancient material culture, signifying the recognition of objects as evidence. As has been demonstrated in other scientific fields, the creation of a visual system for recording objects was central to the acceptance of artifacts as “data” that could be organized into groups, classified as types, and analyzed to gain knowledge of the past.
58-99
Moser, Stephanie
af3009ce-a7c4-4550-a180-7e1987b7deed
1 March 2014
Moser, Stephanie
af3009ce-a7c4-4550-a180-7e1987b7deed
Moser, Stephanie
(2014)
Making expert knowledge through the image: antiquarian images and early modern scientific illustration.
Isis, 105 (1), .
(doi:10.1086/675551).
Abstract
This essay examines drawings of antiquities in the context of the history of early modern scientific illustration. The role of illustrations in the establishment of archaeology as a discipline is assessed, and the emergence of a graphic style for representing artifacts is shown to be closely connected to the development of scientific illustration in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The essay argues that the production of conventionalized drawings of antiquities during this period represents a fundamental shift in the approach to ancient material culture, signifying the recognition of objects as evidence. As has been demonstrated in other scientific fields, the creation of a visual system for recording objects was central to the acceptance of artifacts as “data” that could be organized into groups, classified as types, and analyzed to gain knowledge of the past.
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Accepted/In Press date: March 2014
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 March 2014
Published date: 1 March 2014
Organisations:
Archaeology
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Local EPrints ID: 364843
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/364843
ISSN: 0021-1753
PURE UUID: 2e3dbe03-2f77-443d-aac7-85576ab10761
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Date deposited: 14 May 2014 14:35
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 16:42
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