Research Seminar November 8th - Antoine Gallay (Cohn Institute): Drawing as an Epistemic Practice
Monday, November 8th, 18:00, Gilman 449.
04 November 2021
Monday, November 8th, 18:00, Gilman 449
Antoine Gallay - Cohn Institute
Drawing as an Epistemic Practice: The role and status of droughtsmen and engravers within the early Académie royale des sciences
During the last few decades, our understanding of both social and epistemic aspects of early modern scientific illustration has considerably developed. It is nowadays commonly acknowledged that early modern pictures played an active role in the development of modern science. However, while most studies have hitherto focused on the impact of pictures on scientific works, I intend to investigate the way pictures were actually made, hoping that the close analysis of this process might shed new light on the epistemic values promoted during the early modern period. In this talk, I will focus on the changing relationship between draughstmen and scholars within the early French Royal Academy of Sciences, and I will attempt to show that the recognition of draughtsmen’s abilities was paired with the development of new epistemic values in natural history.