The Body of the Artisan : Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution

"Since the time of Aristotle, the making of knowledge and the making of objects have generally been considered separate enterprises. Yet during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the two became linked through a "new" philosophy known as science. In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela H. Smith demonstrates how much early modern science owed to an unlikely source - artists and artisans." "From goldsmiths to locksmiths and from carpenters to painters, artists and artisans were much sought after by the new scientists for their intimate, hands-on knowledge of natural materials and the ability to manipulate them. Drawing on a fascinating array of new evidence from northern Europe including artisans objects and their writings. Smith shows how artisans saw all knowledge as rooted in matter and nature. with nearly two hundred images, The Body of the Artisan provides astonishingly vivid examples of this Renaissance synergy among art craft and science, and recovers a forgotten episode of the Scientific Revolution - an episode that forever altered the way we see the natural world."--BOOK JACKET. "Since the time of Aristotle, the making of knowledge and the making of objects have generally been considered separate enterprises. Yet during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the two became linked through a 'new' philosophy known as science. In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela H. Smith demonstrates how much early modern science owed to an unlikely source--artists and artisans. Goldsmiths, locksmiths, carpenters, and painters were all sought after by early scientists for their intimate, hands-on knowledge of natural materials and their ability to manipulate them. Drawing on a fascinating array of new evidence from northern Europe, and including nearly two hundred images of artisans' objects alongside their writings, The Body of the Artisan convincingly demonstrates that artisans viewed knowledge as thoroughly rooted in matter and nature. The Body of the Artisan provides vivid examples of this Renaissance synergy among art, craft, and science, and recovers a forgotten episode of the Scientific Revolution--an episode that forever altered the way we see the natural world."--Back cover

Since the time of Aristotle, the making of knowledge and the making of objects have generally been considered separate enterprises. Yet during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the two became linked through a "new" philosophy known as science. In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela H. Smith demonstrates how much early modern science owed to an unlikely source-artists and artisans.From goldsmiths to locksmiths and from carpenters to painters, artists and artisans were much sought after by the new scientists for their intimate, hands-on knowledge of natural materials and the ability to manipulate them. Drawing on a fascinating array of new evidence from northern Europe including artisans' objects and their writings, Smith shows how artisans saw all knowledge as rooted in matter and nature. With nearly two hundred images, The Body of the Artisan provides astonishingly vivid examples of this Renaissance synergy among art, craft, and science, and recovers a forgotten episode of the Scientific Revolution-an episode that forever altered the way we see the natural world.

Intro; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part One: Flanders; 1: The Artisanal World; Part Two: South German Cities; 2: Artisanal Epistemology; 3: The Body of the Artisan; 4: Artisanship, Alchemy, and a Vernacular Science of Matter; Part Three: The Dutch Republic; 5: The Legacy of Paracelsus: Practitioners and New Philosophers; 6: The Institutionalization of the New Philosophy; Conclusion: Toward a History of Vernacular Science; Notes; Bibliography; List of Illustrations; Index. Flanders -- Artisanal World -- South German Cities -- Artisanal Epistemology -- Body Of The Artisan -- Artisanship, Alchemy, And A Vernacular Science Of Matter -- Dutch Republic -- Legacy Of Paracelsus: Practitioners And New Philosophers -- Institutionalization Of The New Philosophy -- Conclusion: Toward A History Of Vernacular Science. Pamela H. Smith. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [315]-346) And Index. Demonstrates how much early modern science owed to an unlikely source: artists and artisans. Including nearly 200 images of artisans' objects alongside their writings, this work also demonstrates that artisans viewed knowledge as throughly rooted in matter and nature. It provides examples of this Renaissance synergy among art, craft, and science. In seeking out an artisanal worldview, we can look to the objects artisans fashioned, to the texts they wrote, and, as we saw in the case of Messerschmidt, to literate intermediaries who put their actions into a form both comprehensible and accessible to a wider audience.