Main entry:

Hunter, Matthew C.

Title & Author:

Wicked intelligence : visual art and the science of experiment in Restoration London / Matthew C. Hunter.

Publication:

©2013
Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2013]

Description:

xv, 329 pages, 10 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-316) and index.
Introduction: "Very able, very sordid, cynical, wrong headed and whimsical" -- "I resolved to throw aside all manner of hypotheses ... and to attend wholly to what the appearances themselves would teach me" -- Knives out: thinking on, with, through, and against paper in the mid-1660s -- Pictorial intelligence: Peter Lely, experimental culture, and the parameters of painting -- Cascade, copper, collection: constellations of images in 1670s experimental philosophy -- "The wonderful elaboratory of the animal body": the Royal Society's repository at work -- The science of architecture and the architecture of science -- Conclusion.

Summary:

"In late seventeenth-century London, the most provocative images were produced not by artists, but by scientists. Magnified fly-eyes drawn with the aid of microscopes, apparitions cast on laboratory walls by projection machines, cut-paper figures revealing the exact proportions of sea monsters--all were created by members of the Royal Society of London, the leading institutional platform of the early Scientific Revolution. Wicked Intelligence reveals that these natural philosophers shaped Restoration London's emergent artistic cultures by forging collaborations with court painters, penning art theory, and designing triumphs of baroque architecture such as St Paul's Cathedral. Matthew C. Hunter brings to life this archive of experimental-philosophical visualization and the deft cunning that was required to manage such difficult research. Offering an innovative approach to the scientific image-making of the time, he demonstrates how the Restoration project of synthesizing experimental images into scientific knowledge, as practiced by Royal Society leaders Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren, might be called wicked intelligence. Hunter uses episodes involving specific visual practices--for instance, concocting a lethal amalgam of wax, steel, and sulfuric acid to produce an active model of a comet--to explore how Hooke, Wren, and their colleagues devised representational modes that aided their experiments. Ultimately, Hunter argues, the craft and craftiness of experimental visual practice both promoted and menaced the artistic traditions on which they drew, turning the Royal Society projects into objects of suspicion in Enlightenment England. The first book to use the physical evidence of Royal Society experiments to produce forensic evaluations of how scientific knowledge was generated, Wicked Intelligence rethinks the parameters of visual art, experimental philosophy, and architecture at the cusp of Britain's imperial power and artistic efflorescence"--Publisher's description.

ISBN:

9780226017297 (hardcover ; alkaline paper)
022601729X (hardcover ; alkaline paper)
(e-book)
9780226017327
022601732X

Subject:

Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703 Criticism and interpretation.
Lely, Peter, 1618-1680 Criticism and interpretation.
Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703
Lely, Peter, 1618-1680
Hooke, Robert 1635-1703
Lely, Peter 1618-1680
Wren, Christopher, 1632-1723.
Royal Society (Great Britain) History 17th century.
Royal Society (Great Britain)
Royal Society London
Scientific illustration England London History 17th century.
Art and science England London History 17th century.
Art, British England London 17th century.
Architectural drawing England London 17th century.
Illustration scientifique Angleterre Londres Histoire 17e siècle.
Art et sciences Angleterre Londres Histoire 17e siècle.
Art britannique Angleterre Londres 17e siècle.
Dessin d'architecture Angleterre Londres 17e siècle.
02.13 practice of science.
15.70 history of Europe.
Architectural drawing
Art and science
Art, British
Scientific illustration
Naturwissenschaften
Experiment
Rezeption
Kunst
Bildliche Darstellung
Wetenschap.
Natuurwetenschappen.
Filosofie.
Vetenskapliga illustrationer historia.
Konst och vetenskap historia.
England London Dalston
England London
Engeland.
1670-1700

Form/genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Geschiedenis (vorm)

Holdings:

Location: Library main 284599
Call No.: BIB 223660
Status: Available