463 research outputs found

    The Early Royal Society and Visual Culture

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    Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artefacts –manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades”. Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records.AH/M001938/1 (AHRC

    A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern

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    A parallel of the antient architecture with the modern

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    Following a stay in Rome in 1650, Fréart de Chambray published this anthology of ten ancient and modern writers on the classical orders. He argues that the Greek orders (the Doric, the Ionic, and Corinthian) are perfect models for all architecture and he condemns the Roman orders (the Tuscan and the Composite) as being corrupt. Citing its use in the Temple of Solomon, he declares the Corinthian order to be the ‘flower of Architecture and the Order of Orders'. To Fréart de Chambray, Vitruvius and his translators were beyond reproach
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