Giants of delft: Johannes Vermeer and the natural philosophers : the parallel search for knowledge during the age of discovery 9780838755389

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
List of Illustrations (page 9)
Preface (page 11)
Introduction (page 15)
1. Instrument-Mediated Knowledge in the Arts and Sciences (page 19)
"Instrumental Systems for the Imitation of Nature" and Instrument-Aided Perception
2. Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, van Eyck, and Vermeer (page 30)
The Fruits of Observation and Technique
3. Galileo, Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, and Vermeer (page 54)
The Intellect as Lens
4. Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, Hooke, and Vermeer (page 72)
The Interplay of Text and Image
5. Vermeer and Mapping (page 90)
The Landscape of Reality
6. Vermeer, Raphael, and Huygens (page 102)
The Art of Painting and Saturn's Rings
Conclusion: Vermeer's Philosophy of Perception (page 120)
Notes (page 125)
References (page 145)
Index (page 151)

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GIANTS OF DELFT

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Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge during the Age of Discovery

Robert D. Huerta

Lewisburg Bucknell University Press London: Associated University Presses

© 2003 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp.

All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, provided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923. [0-8387-5538-0/03 $10.00 + 8¢ pp, pe.]

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Huerta, Robert D., 1952-—

Giants of Delft : Johannes Vermeer and the natural philosophers : the parallel search for knowledge during the age of discovery / Robert D. Huerta. p- cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8387-5538-0 (alk. paper)

1. Art and science—Netherlands—History—17th century. 2. Vermeer, Johannes, 1632-1675. 3. Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van, 1632-1723. I. Title: Johannes Vermeer and the natural philosophers. II. Title: Parallel search for knowledge during the age

of discovery. III. Title. N72.S3 H84 2003 759.942—dc21 2002151834 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Lee Ann

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Contents

Preface Introduction11 15

List of Illustrations 9 1. Instrument-Mediated Knowledge in the Arts and Sciences 19 “Instrumental Systems for the Imitation of Nature” and Instrument-Aided Perception

2. Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, van Eyck, and Vermeer 30 The Fruits of Observation and Technique

3. Galileo, Huygens, Leeuwenhock, and Vermeer 54 The Intellect as Lens

4. Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, Hooke, and Vermeer 42 The Interplay of Text and Image

5. Vermeer and Mapping 90 The Landscape of Reality

6. Vermeer, Raphael, and Huygens 102

Conclusion 120 Notes 125 References 145 The Art of Painting and Saturn’s Rings

Index 15] Vermeer’s Philosophy of Perception

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ié= [lustrations

Lucas Furtenagel, Copy of Hans Burgkmair’s Self- Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water

portrait with His Wife. 24 Pitcher, c. 1664-65. 70

Johannes Torrentius, Stell Life, Allegory of Leonardo da Vinci, Muscles of the Right Arm,

Temperance, 1614. 28 Shoulder, and Chest, c. 1510-11. 75

Jan van Eyck, Madonna with Chancellor Nicolas Leonardo da Vinci, The Superficial Anatomy of the

Rolin, c. 1435. 37 Foot and Lower Leg, 1510. 76

Jan van Eyck, Crucifixion, c. 1438-40. 39 Southern Netherlands, Master of the Dresden

“aver fartulary of Saint James’ hit

Tolannes Veneer We45 orpae eM book, ee a a Saint c. 1660-61. inPiLOUTNAL, C. >James's Hospital Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hal, ¢. Master of Catherine of Cleves, Hours of Catherine

1665/1666. 46 of Cleves. 80

Philip Steadman, Drawing of Possible Arrangement MS King’s 5. f. 13. min. Prophets Slain by Order of

for Vermeer’s Cubiculum Camera Obscura. 48 Jezebel. 81

Anonymous, Locust, 1556. 56 Johannes Vermeer, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open

, . . Window, c. 1657. 83

Thomas Harriot, Drawing of the Moon in the First

~ lowed Quarter, 1609. 57 Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, c. 1668-69.

i eesees plone ae 389

anaes| 1658-60. ; FOR 93 KC : 7"

Lorenzo Sirigatti, illustrations from La Pratica di

Prospettiva (1596). 59 Johannes Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl, c. Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr., Reconstruction of Ptolemy's

Perspective Meth vod, trom Samuel ¥. Edgerton Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c. 1666-67.

Jr., The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry: Art and 96 Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution

(New York, 1991). 61 Marian Fournier, Diagram Showing Distribution of

Sau ; Huygens, , Publications on Microscopy Christiaan Small Multiple Schematic be hebetween oa 2 f Dede 1625 ka, Regand eae ;

: aS: oe Saturn’s ie : 1750, fromAppearance, Marian Fournier, The Fabric of Life: Explaining Changing from ae = oo ie : Microscopy in the Seventeenth Century. 106

Systema Saturnium (The Hague, 1659). 62 : : ar ; ohannes Vermeer, Astronomer, 1668. Christiaan Huygens, DrawingsThe of Saturn by Other Jone ' 108

Astronomers, from Systema Saturnium (The Sige H 1 65 9). 6 ze ( Raphael, View of Parnassus and partial view of the

Ho Ds oe Y . a) y iAaguec as School of Athens, Stanza della Segnatura, “3 ; : Le ea i Tepe ee ls ey

c. 1662-64. 67 ; . a bs aap, Wf ° n

Johannes Vermeer, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Vatican Palace, Vatican City. 109

Raphael, Astronomy (Urania, Prime Mover), detail

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. of Ceiling Vault, Stanza della Segnatura,

1664. 68 Vatican Palace, Vatican City. 110

69 Foros. TZ

Johannes Vermeer, Woman with a Lute, c. 1664. Albrecht Durer, The Northern Celestial Hemisphere, 9

10 ILLUSTRATIONS Johannes Vermeer, The Procuress, Vittore Carpaccio, Apotheosis of Si. Ursula, Gallerie

1656. 113 Dell’ Accademia, Venice. 117

Johannes Verkolje, Portrait of Antony van Albrecht Altdorfer, Birth of the Virgin,

Leeuwenhoek, 1686. 114 G 15216. ‘Is

Preface This book began as an intellectual exercise regard- with hard to find articles. I am obliged to them ing Vermeer’s relationship to optics, and more and to Edward G. Ruestow, who corresponded generally, to the science of his time. That exercise with me regarding his then forthcoming book The became a short composition, which in extended Microscope in the Dutch Republic. Philip Steadman turn, evolved into this publication. I have kept in also corresponded with me about Vermeer and mind Gowing’s admonition regarding the “optical the camera obscura and made numerous careful way’ as well as Schwarz’s recommendation to and perceptive observations.

include the history of science in any investigation In addition, I greatly appreciate the heroic concerning artists during the early modern peri- effort of Bucknell’s reader, who made both stylistic od. Staying the course they suggested has led me and _ substantive recommendations that improved

along an exciting path of discovery. my manuscript immeasurably. Any errors or shortAny inquiry into the discipline of history is comings in the final product are, of course, my based, to a greater or lesser extent, upon the labor — responsibility. I also acknowledge and thank Greg

of previous authors. A synthetic effort such as Clingham, the director of Bucknell University

mine owes a particular debt to those historians Press, who patiently shepherded this book who took their turn in cultivating this field. [hope through the publication process. The staff at that I have done justice to my small parcel. More Associated University Presses performed their specifically, | thank Harold J. Cook, who early on _ tasks in a professional and efficient manner and I generously provided encouragement and direc- thank them for doing so. Finally, I owe profound tion to a fledgling writer. I also gratefully acknowl- thanks to my wife, Lee Ann Reed, who read, disedge Albert Van Helden, who read and comment-_ cussed, and critiqued this work as it took shape

ed on an early version of chapter 6. During the and whose good counsel and keen intellect help conduct of my research, David C. Lindberg, James make what is possible, real. S. Ackerman, and Silvio A. Bedini provided me

1]

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GIANTS OF DELFT

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Introduction In October 1632, the city of Delft produced its His reports regarding the “tiny animals” he saw— most celebrated sons, the artist Johannes Vermeer protozoa, bacteria, rotifers, and many others—are (1632-75) and the microscopist Antony van contained in approximately three hundred letters

Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). The baptisms of he wrote to the Royal Society and other correVermeer and Leeuwenhock, performed just four spondents during the course of his long lifetime.°® days apart, are inscribed on the same page of the It is the nature of perception, its ambiguity, how New Church records. Vermeer is shown as having we use vision to obtain reliable information about

been baptized on 31 October 1632. No entry, the world, and how this knowledge can be transhowever, is made as to his birthdate.! Leeuwen- mitted to others that lies at the core of the conhoek is shown as having been born on 24 October nection between Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek. 1632 and baptized on 4 November 1632." Vermeer’s use of “instrumental systems for the Vermeer, with the aid of a camera obscura and imitation of nature” and his program of informed other instruments, went on to create paintings observation caused him to develop the same workdeeply concerned with the nature of light and its ing methods employed by Leeuwenhoek and optical characteristics. Blocks away, Leeuwenhoek, other scientists in the course of the accumulation the father of microbiology, conducted landmark and interpretation of instrument-mediated knowloptical investigations with the aid of his single-lens edge. I propose that Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek microscopes. Leeuwenhoek was appointed execu- as well as other seekers of knowledge during the tor of Vermeer’s estate the year after the artist’s seventeenth century developed similar modes of death. After Leeuwenhock’s death, many of his operation and engaged in a common four-part microscopes were auctioned in the Guild Hall of | program: Saint Luke, the same guild to which Vermeer was

twice elected director.’ 1. Instrument-mediated knowledge:

There are no certain links between Vermeer The acceptance of instruments as a means and Leeuwenhoek other than these few facts, yet of augmenting vision and the use of those their common pursuit of the “optical way” speaks instruments to gain new information about of a profound philosophical connection. Stronger the world. than any documentary evidence of a_ possible 2. Mental lensing: direct connection is the body of work left behind The recognition by scientists and artists by each man. It is the very nature of their investi- that the mind is an essential part of the gations that binds Vermeer and Leeuwenhock visual system and their resultant use of the

more strongly than any mere ledger entry. For intellect as an optical device.

Vermeer, his life’s work is contained in thirty-five 3. Text and image:

paintings completed during his short lifetime of The combination of word and image by sciforty-three years. These works of art distill within entists and artists for the purpose of comtheir small boundaries the very essence of reality, municating their newfound knowledge to

of “the stubbornly solid objects that make up the others.

commonplace world.”° 4. Mapping reality:

As a student of perception, Vermeer immersed The solution to the problem of how to rephimself in the sea of images the human visual sys- resent in consistent pictorial form the tem assimilates and decodes on a continuous unfamiliar images and new data revealed basis. By doing so he sought to understand the by instrumental systems. world and man’s place in it. Leeuwenhoek was also

concerned with images, the images of microor- At the beginning of the seventeenth century, ganisms that he viewed with the aid of lenses he — the invention of the telescope and the microscope ground and polished for his simple microscopes. and the change in attitude toward natural philos15

16 INTRODUCTION ophy set the stage for the age of observation. As a These men, whose genius produced “something thinking man, Vermeer would have been deeply over and above any rules,” separated themselves

affected by the scientific and philosophical from the common rank not merely because they advances taking place during his lifetime. He used instrumental adjuncts but because they would have been aware of and influenced by the applied their creativity to extend the limits of techscientific discoveries of the day and the work of nique. Vermeer and van Eyck took this a step furmen such as Leeuwenhoek, Christiaan Huygens, ther and used painting technique itself as a type of and Galileo Galilei. Vermeer’s concerns about the meta-instrument to record new visual/optical process of perception and his search for new effects and encounter new expressive possibilities. means of artistic expression would have caused I posit that it was this intersection of instrumenta-

him to be open to the possibilities suggested by tion and ideation, sight and imagination, that

these developments. allowed these four investigators to bring into focus

I put forth the theory that a confluence of images beyond the capacity of others to resolve, events occurred at the end of the 1650s that much in the same manner that modern microplayed a large part in Vermeer’s transformation scopial investigators use lenses to obtain working

from history painter to genre artist with an opti- images in order to visualize structures beyond cal/scientific approach to the creation of his art. those lenses’ theoretical capacity for resolution.

During the mid to late 1650s, the output of micro- Over a hundred years ago, Ernst Abbe scopial publications began to rise. At the same _ explained that the image we see in a microscope is time, Leeuwenhoek and Huygens probably began not the result of reflected light but rather is a their own investigations into lens making and its Fourier synthesis of transmitted and diffracted

application to microscopial and astronomical rays. Similarly, Vermeer’s work can be seen as a study. Additionally, Huygens authored publica- Fourier-type synthesis of “varied forms of attentions in 1656 and 1659 regarding the till then tion.” His paintings represent an integration of unanswered question of Saturn’s changing principal and secondary images revealed by the appearance. Chapter 6 discusses these factors and camera obscura, lenses, mirrors, perspective conVermeer’s response in two of his paintings, The structions, technique, and most importantly, the Astronomer and The Art of Painting. | propose that creative prism of Vermeer’s painterly vision. The Art of Painting was, in part, created by Vermeer Common to all these innovators was their abili-

as homage to Huygens and that the scientist pic- ty to use the focusing power of the mind to fire tured in The Astronomer can be interpreted as rep- their creative imaginations for the purpose of pro-

resenting Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, an ducing works of genius. This idea of using the image taken directly from Raphael’s representa- intellect as a lens, as a bridge between the objection in the Stanza della Segnatura in Rome. tive and subjective worlds, is pursued in chapter 3. Chapter | follows the parallel development of Since our appreciation of the world is a totally instrument-mediated knowledge in the arts and mediated process, the “images” our visual system sciences and shows how the inevitable overlap provides us can be looked upon as nothing more between the two disciplines evidenced itself in the than maps or mental constructs. As a result, the work of men such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht role that the mind plays becomes especially imporDurer, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. The tant when an observer is dealing with an effigy that use of instrumentation in Dutch art of the seven- _ is the fruit of the interposition of yet another opti-

teenth century is also discussed. cal apparatus.

In chapter 2 I develop this parallel by looking With the invention of the microscope and telemore closely at four diligent examiners of reality. scope, natural philosophers came upon previously These men—Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, Jan van Eyck, unencountered problems regarding the proper and Vermeer—all used instruments in combina- interpretation and illustration of the unfamiliar tion with superior technique to achieve ascendan- images these devices presented. Vermeer’s experi-

cy in their respective fields. However, their mentation with the camera obscura caused him to achievements were not simply the result of superi- face these same issues and find similar solutions. or technique, for “technique reaches its limits pre- Galileo’s approach to deciphering the strange cisely at that point beyond which real creativity is lunar images his telescope revealed was to use “not called for—in the sciences as well as the arts.”’ just the eyes in his head, but those in his mind as

INTRODUCTION | BY well.”® This use of the intellect to modulate senso- of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries ry input has been referred to as the “distorting and their role as predecessors to Vermeer’s work.

quality of the mind.” I call this technique of see- With the advent of instrumentation and logicoing in a knowing manner “mental lensing” and dis- rational calculation during the seventeenth centu-

cuss how paradigm observers such as Vermeer, ty the partnership between word and image Galileo, Leeuwenhoek, and Huygens, by using became less equal. The new natural philosophers their minds as an optical device, were able to make subordinated the image to the service of reason successful interpretations of novel visual data and and text. For Galileo, this meant distancing himproduce pictorial representations beyond the _ self from the use of pictures as a means of comcapabilities of their contemporaries. By applying munication. Although images were an integral sight and imagination to the process of discovery, part of Szdereus Nuncius, Galileo knew that in order

these theorists were able to fabricate original pic- to separate himself from the less respected

tures of their vision of reality. mechanical and visual arts, his future publications

Vermeer’s oeuvre, when looked at as a whole, could not contain pictorial representations. This reflects many of the same techniques used by sci- focus on the narrative power of detailed discussion entific investigators. Leeuwenhoek and Robert 1s exemplified by Hooke’s Micrographia and is evi-

Hooke both stressed the importance of perform- dent in Leeuwenhoek’s work. Vermeer, while ing repeated observations during the conduct of acknowledging the narrative element in painting microscopial research. In the field of telescopic and its function as a conveyor of information, nevastronomy, Galileo and Huygens spoke of making ertheless focused on the role of image making in “oft-repeated observations.” Vermeer’s method of the act of communication. In two works, Vermeer coming back again and again to the same theme, ostensibly presents us with paintings about the of using similar compositions, of employing light narrative process. I argue that in these two paintin a consistent manner, was his way of pursuing a ings, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window and program of informed observation and parallels Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Vermeer is not deal-

Leeuwenhoek’s “concentric method.” ing with letters as pictorial or narrative elements,

I also compare Vermeer’s oeuvre to Huygens’s but rather is focusing on the picture-making famous schematic regarding his ring solution to power of discursive communication. By using the the problem of Saturn’s changing appearance. device of a reflection in the Dresden painting and Like Huygens, Vermeer repeated the same design a Map in the Amsterdam painting, Vermeer gives structure in his paintings, examining again and us access to the mental processes of these two again the same few subjects in a series of painterly women as we literally “see” the images created in experiments, comparing changes visually and at. their mind’s eye. By giving us access to the reader’s the same time providing alternative ways of view- process of delineating in the imagination those

ing reality. mental images called forth by the picture-making The idea of looking at Vermeer’s oeuvre as a sin- quality of words, Vermeer focuses on the process

ele structure is also pursued in chapter 6. of visualization. Huygens’s ring solution to the problem of Saturn’s I conclude the chapter by looking at two of changing appearance was first published in Vermeer’s later paintings, The Astronomer and The Systema Saturnium in the form of a diagram which Geographer. | contend that the scientist depicted in Edward Tufte has called a small multiple design. If | these paintings is shown at the nexus of images and we look at Vermeer’s paintings not as individual _ ideas, sight and imagination, as a theory maker fabworks but as members of a larger assemblage, it is ricating his pictures of the world. In these works of possible to construe his oeuvre as his own kind of art, we see picture making as the wellspring of cre-

small multiple design, presenting his solution to ation, whether it be the models visualized in the the problem of how best to interpret the multiple astronomer’s mind as he views the universe aspects of the changing appearance of reality. through the lens of his intellect, or the artist’s conChapter 4 reviews the relation between word ception in paint of that moment of creation. and image and its happy conjunction in the work Chapter 5 discusses the significance of cartograof Leonardo, the herbalists, and Andreas Vesalius. phy in Vermeer’s oeuvre. Maps or globes figure This unification of text and image is also explored prominently in nine of Vermeer’s paintings. Maps, in a discussion of the work of Dutch illuminators as conveyors of information and representations

18 INTRODUCTION of reality, would have appealed to Vermeer. He did he grappled with parallel problems regarding the

not fail to see the logic of placing maps within his interpretation and representation of the novel own painterly projections of materiality, paintings visual effects he saw in the camera obscura. that can themselves be seen as tinted maps in high The atlas makers’ goal of creating an archetype relief. Additionally, the long-standing relationship by eliminating idiosyncrasies in observed objects between cartography and art, arising from their and selecting those phenomena key to the essence parallel concerns regarding the logical ordering of things is compared to the universality present in of objects within space, played a part in Vermeer’s Vermeer’s paintings. Vermeer’s ability to capture interest. Vermeer was also fascinated by the inher- the universal in the particular, to bridge the gulf

ent dualities evident in maps, and I discuss these between specific and general, to address both dualities and how they relate to Vermeer’s con- mimetic and didactic concerns, is then discussed ception of the ambiguous nature of perception. as part of the element of duality that pervades his Maps were also used by Vermeer to continue his oeuvre. I then compare this theme in Vermeer’s theme of visualizing images in the mind’s eye. work to the issues of uncertain interpretation Vermeer’s interest in the power of words and which faced Galileo and Huygens in their astroimages to create pictures in the mind found a res- nomical work and Leeuwenhoek and Hooke in onance in the distinctive maps he depicted in — their microscopial research. The infinite variety of paintings such as Officer and Laughing Girl. I nature and the mediated form of our perception advance the theory that in this painting Vermeer of it creates the ambiguous situations scientists began his use of maps as a kind of materialization and artists struggle with as they strive to create of the human cognitive landscape, giving us access their template of interpretation. I submit that the to the psychological world of the inhabitants of his richness, ambiguity, and variety in Vermeer’s work,

paintings. his use of maps with their inherent duality and his I also investigate the common problem of presentation of the universal through everyday

choice facing the cartographer and painter. Since objects, is a reflection of his acknowledgement of maps and paintings cannot display every single this complexity and the variety of choice that conaspect of the environment, they must be selective. fronts the gifted image maker. This issue of choice is discussed in the context of Vermeer’s oeuvre, as small multiple with its indithe work of the herbalists of the sixteenth century, vidual components similar in format and subject the atlas makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth matter, is finally likened to a compendium of maps centuries, and the microscopial endeavors of of reality asking multivariate questions about what Hooke and Leeuwenhoek. Vermeer used methods and how we see, comprising in totality Vermeer’s similar to those employed by these investigators as own super atlas of the landscape of reality.

| Instrument-Mediated Knowledge in the Arts and Sciences “INSTRUMENTAL SYSTEMS sight ceases.”” The new philosophy said nature’s FOR THE IMITATION OF NATURE” workings are hidden and that unaided, undisciAND INSTRUMENT-AIDED PERCEPTION plined senses do not reveal reliable information about its underlying components. As a result, sciThe seventeenth century, an age of discovery and entists of the age saw no reason to fear instruinvention, was also an age of instruments. During ments such as the microscope and the telescope, this remarkable period, six important scientific but instead eagerly sought out more refined and instruments were invented and/or developed: the powerful instruments to aid them in their search.

telescope, the microscope, the thermometer, the During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, barometer, the air-pump, and the pendulum __ there was a general reluctance to rely on devices clock.'! Beginning with the Renaissance and con- such as lenses or eyeglasses to augment the senses. tinuing through the seventeenth century, natural This was in spite of the fact that eyeglasses were

philosophers turned from scholastic texts and discovered late in the thirteenth century and that began to develop their own programs for accurate by the mid-fourteenth century wealthy patrons observation. This was especially necessary since such as Hugh of Provence had their portraits the new natural philosophy was seeking explana- painted showing them using these visual aids.° tions for insensible qualities such as magnetic For three hundred years no serious attempt was force, qualities that Aristotelian physics said were made to systematically investigate the properties of beyond its ability to explain through common lenses or their potentialities. Generally, medieval sense analysis of their sensate features. Scholastic philosophers took a metaphysical approach to science called these phenomena “occult qualities” sight and instead of analyzing the physical nature and accepted as fact that their underlying causes _ of light, lenses, and the human eye, merely specu-

were unknowable.” lated as to how people see and from these conjecIt was precisely from this point, however, that the tures developed various emanation theories.’ As a new philosophers took up their investigations. One _ result, light or /ux became identified with God and

of the greatest of these natural philosophers, tampering with it was tantamount to challenging Robert Hooke (1635-1703) wanted to discover the God’s truth.® Images created by lenses were con“hidden causes of things” and used a two-step — sidered visual lies. Any instrument that distorted

process to uncover nature’s secrets. This process the truth could not be trusted. Since any repreconsisted of the right method, or technique, with sentation or image we create of the physical world instruments as “helps to the senses.”* Hooke felt would perforce be imperfect, according to scholasthat it was important that the mind be supplied _ tic logic there was no need to investigate it. with accurate sense information, since humans This began to change by the end of the sixteenth gained information about nature solely through century as independent thinkers realized that true the senses. One of the central themes of his book advances in science or knowledge in general could Micrographia, published in 1665, was employing not be made without first trusting the senses and instruments as “artificial organs added to the nat- observing nature directly, an observation to be ural” so as to enlarge the “dominion of the senses.”* undertaken with the aid of instruments, if necesOther philosophers, such as Francis Bacon _ sary. These investigators began to take to heart the (1561-1626), also felt that the scholastics had ancient principle “nihil est in Intellectu, quod prius been too trusting of their bare senses and criti- non fuerit in sensu.” [There is nothing in the intelcized them for ending their investigations “where _ lect that was not previously in the senses. | 19

20 GIANTS OF DELFT Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was one of the first Keplerian optics could not explain why the image to decry this lack of confidence in the senses when — cast behind small apertures was always circular, no

he challenged scholastic arguments regarding the matter the shape of the opening) owes obvious illusoriness of eyesight and/or instruments. The debt to Durer’s own style of dealing with light and underlying assumption in Galileo’s argument is vision. Kepler’s experiment made use of Durer’s the acceptance of problems inherent in the use of technique and allowed Kepler to gain the insight instruments. For Galileo and others like him this that the eye is nothing more than a camera obscuwas better than having no aids at all. While the — ra containing a lens. Kepler in fact invented a tentscholastics refused to use instruments because type camera obscura.'’ The language Kepler used

they gave incomplete information about the regarding his analysis of the eye also displays his world, Galileo adopted their use for the very same debt to artistic visualization. Kepler referred to the reason. To Galileo, even partial information, if image on the retina as a “picture which gets there interpreted correctly by an expert observer, would — by a process of painting (pingendi).” He also refers

lead to the truth.!? to the cones of the eye as “small brushes (penical-

With the issuance of publications such as U).”!> Straker argues that Kepler’s experience with Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, optics and the nature of artists’ techniques, devices, and conceptual perception became the center of interest for nat- metaphors enabled him to develop a “visualization ural philosophers.'' Once Johannes Kepler of optical problems that differed in significant ways (1571-1630) read Galileo’s “Starry Messenger,” he from that of the received scholarly traditions.”'®

did not rest until he had obtained a telescope for Further evidence of Kepler’s familiarity with his own use. Good telescopes, however, were not artistic metaphors is found in his preface to Dzopjust lying about. Although Kepler had heard of ¢tce. In it Kepler waxes poetic regarding Galileo’s Galileo’s discoveries as early as March 1610 and _ telescope: “What now, dear reader, shall we make received a copy of Szdereus Nuncius on 8 April, itwas out of our telescope? Shall we make a Mercury’s

not until August of that year that he was able to magic-wand to cross the liquid ether with, and, borrow one of the telescopes produced in Galileo’s like Lucian, lead a colony to the uninhabited workshop. !” From 30 August to 9 September evening star, allured by the sweetness of the place? Kepler observed Jupiter and its moons, analyzed or shall we make it a Cupid’s arrow, which, enterthe workings of the telescope (the action of lenses ing by our eyes, has pierced our inmost mind, and upon light), and proceeded to write Dioptrice, cre- fired us with a love of Venus?””° Kepler’s analogy ating the science of optics. He completed it within between the telescope and Cupid’s arrow entering a few weeks.!° Kepler’s genius lay in eliminating the _ the eyes is significant in light of recent research by psychology of the observer from the equation. He Michael Kubovy. In The Psychology of Perspective and focused on the physical factors and objectified or Renaissance Art, Kubovy analyzes Andrea Manteg“mechanized” light much as the artists of the na’s fresco Archers Shooting at Saint Christopher and Renaissance did.!* Kepler’s discovery regarding the convincingly argues that the image of the man function of the eye was aided in no small part by | shot through the eye with an arrow is a metaphor two notable artistic achievements: Alberti’s “veil” for the art of perspective. Kubovy calls it “the

and Leonardo’s experiments with the camera arrow in the eye” and points out that light rays obscura and subsequent comparison of the human used in Renaissance perspective texts can be eye to a camera obscura with a lens in it.'° Stephen likened to arrows piercing the eye. He cites three Straker has investigated this artistic connection instances of well-known Renaissance authors using and Kepler’s use of “instruments” in developing his _ this imagery in their writings. Leon Battista Albertheory of optics. Straker argues that Albrecht ti (1404-72) made use of it in De Pictura, published Durer’s (1471-1528) Underweysung der Messung of in 1435, and Della Pittura, published in 1436; Anto1525 would have held special interest for Keplerin nio Averlino (c.1400-c.1469) in Treatise on Architeclight of Durer’s “visualization of optical problems.” ture, published 1461-64; and finally, Leonardo da He analyzes Durer’s descriptions of devices for Vinci (1452-1519) in his notebooks.

training the student painter and stresses their The arrow in the eye metaphor thus became mechanical aspects as models of light and vision.'!° part of Renaissance perspectivists’ stock imagery. Straker shows that Kepler’s solution to the cam- In light of this, Mantegna’s fresco can be looked at era obscura problem of rounded solar images (pre- as a veiled reference to Alberti’s text with its use of

1 / INSTRUMENT-MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 21

the arrow in the eye and the Albertian window.?! hold (1511-53), a Wittenberg professor, used the In a similar way, I believe Kepler was making ref- camera obscura to observe eclipses in 1544 and erence to his knowledge ot perspective principles 1545. Reinerus Gemma-Frisius (1508-55), a Dutch and their application to optics and the workings of physician, mathematician, and astronomer, pubthe telescope when he made his prefatory remarks lished in 1544 what is probably the first illustration in Dioptrice. We thus see yet another example of of the camera obscura. It shows an image ofa solar Kepler’s interest in artists’ concerns and how this eclipse projected onto the wall of a room. Coperknowledge may have augmented his ability to con- nicus, Brahe, Moestlin, Kepler, and Fabricius used ceptualize optical problems in unique and pro- this same room-type camera obscura.** Galileo

ductive ways. and Scheiner also used similar techniques to

After Galileo’s virtuoso display of what was pos- observe sunspots.” Kepler, in fact, used a roomsible with the aid of an instrument, Kepler fin- type camera obscura to view sunspots in May 1607, ished the task with his quantitative analysis of why although at first he thought he was observing a

the telescope could do what it did. When com- transit of Mercury.”? Kepler also used a camera bined with Kepler’s mechanization of sight in Ad obscura to observe a solar eclipse in the Graz marVitellionem paralipomena (1604) and the revelation ketplace on 10 July 1600.°' Although it is not

that the human eye could be compared to an apparent what type of camera obscura Kepler used instrument, namely the camera obscura, the way for his Graz observation, it is possible that his viewto the great optical era and its pursuit of instru- ing of this eclipse in the open marketplace was the ment-aided perception was opened. For ifour very impetus for his creation of the tent-type camera. eyes are instruments, then as Galileo instructed, In any event, Kepler was to publish just four years

we must determine the rules under which they later the first coherent description of the underlyoperate, distinguish between deceptions and real- ing mechanism of the camera obscura in Ad Vitelity, and resolve to make informed observations. lionem Paralipomena.**

Soon after 1610 men did just that. About the middle of the seventeenth century Christoph Scheiner (1573-1650), the great there was a marked increase in the use of the

Jesuit astronomer, made telescopic discoveries and microscope as an investigative tool. The number verified Kepler’s theories regarding image forma- of publications concerned with microscopy began tion on the retina.22 Scheiner’s Rosa Ursina of 1630 to rise rather suddenly in the early 1660s.°° The remained a standard work on sunspots throughout principal investigators were five men who have

the rest of the century.?> Pierre Gassendi been called the classical microscopists: Robert (1592-1655), a French scientist and philosopher, Hooke, Marcello Malpighi, Jan Swammerdam, observed a planetary transit (Mercury) in 1631.24 Nehemiah Grew, and Antony van Leeuwenhoek.*4

Francesco Fontana (1580-1 656), a Neopolitan The microscope had been used since early in the lawyer, made numerous astronomical observations century, however. Galileo is said to have been the and published them in 1646 in his book, Novae first to study an object with a microscope in either Coelestium Terrestriumque Rerum Observationes. This late 1609 or early 161 0.°° Charles Singer has stated

book also contained four pages of recent micro- that this “microscope” was nothing more than an scopial investigations.*° Christiaan Huygens (1629-— inverted telescope, a fact confirmed by one of 95) discovered a satellite of Saturn in 1655 and in Galileo's pupils.°° We do know that between 1620 1659 published Systema Saturnium, one of the most and 1624 Galileo was doing more than this, conimportant works on telescopic astronomy to structing microscopes (occhialinos) for the purpose appear during the seventeenth century. In 1647 of “observing minute objects closely.”>/ Johannes Hevelius (1611-87) published Seleno- In 1625 Federico Cesi, Francesco Stelluti, and graphia Sive Lunae Descriptio, “the first treatise devot- Francesco Fontana published illustrations of a ed to the telescopic appearance of the moon.”2° microscopic study of a bee.*® Their microscope Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712) closed the was manufactured by Galileo, who had by this time

century with numerous discoveries and ereatly established an instrument-making shop in his raised the level of telescopic astronomy.”/ home.” Thomas Moffett’s /nsectorum Sive MiniThese same astronomers were also making use morum Animalium Theatrum was published in 1634. of another optical instrument, the camera obscu- Although the drawings appear to have been made ra. The mathematical astronomer Erasmus Rein- with the aid of a microscope (and of such a quality

ae GIANTS OF DELFT that the work has been called “the Vesalius of the _ to investigate diverse fields. For him the artist was a insect world”), Helmut Lehmann-Haupt says this transmitter of the true and accurate data of visual

is not so, since the manuscript was finished at the observation. A hundred years before Galileo, end of the sixteenth century, when the microscope Leonardo spoke of the act of observation as a was not yet a practical reality. He does, however, process that engaged the mind as well as the eye. concede that Moffett may have used some type of For Leonardo, a painter who “draws without reainstrument such as a magnifying glass.*° son” would be “like a mirror that reproduces within Gioanbatista Odierna published a treatise on the _ itself all the objects which are set opposite to it with-

eye of a fly in 1644 entitled locchio della Mosca. out knowledge of the same.” Throughout all of Athanasius Kircher (1601-80), like Fontana, Leonardo’s studies of man and nature we see this included an inventory of recent microscopial work theme of saper vedere (knowing how to see).*7 One in his Ars Magna Lucis kt Umbrae of 1646.4! In 1656, of the aids he used in his diligent examination of Pierre Borel (1620-71) published his Observationem nature was an instrument called “Leonardo’s winMicroscopicarum Centuria, which was “the first book dow.”*° In a drawing titled Draftsman Using a Transdevoted exclusively to microscopic observations.”** parent Plane to Draw an Armillary Sphere, Leonardo Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), a major figure shows his device being used to draw a curved object.

in Dutch history and father of the great seven- This image is a beautiful visual display of the traditeenth-century scientist, Christiaan Huygens, tional conjunction between cartography and paintobtained a microscope made by Cornelis Drebbel ing. At once we see the cartographer’s problem of (1572-1633) and in the early 1620s wrote enthusi- transposing the curvature of a sphere onto a twoastically to his parents regarding its possibilities.’ dimensional map as well as the artist’s conundrum By the 1650s, his son, Christiaan, had constructed of depicting the fullness of reality on canvas. several compound microscopes, but his serious Leonardo was also knowledgeable regarding astrowork in microscopy was not to begin until late 1677, labes and quadrants and illustrated a cross-shaped when he took an interest in Leeuwenhoek’s work.**_ measuring staff as an artistic aid similar to the The optical/investigative revolution Galileo ini- “Jacob's staff” of Levi ben Gerson, later perfected by tiated with his telescopic discoveries did not occur Gemma-Frisius for use in terrestrial and astronomi-

all at once. The new philosophy championed by cal measurement. Leonardo probably used an these investigators with its concomitant accep- astrolabe or one of this family of devices to aid him tance of instrumentation had been evolving for in creating his map of the city of Imola.*” However, several hundred years, and its parallel develop- in spite of making use of instrumental systems to ment can be seen in the arts. As Kenneth Clark aid him in his work, Leonardo felt that they were to said when discussing the transformation that took be used as checks, not as creative aids.” place in landscape painting during the early part Leonardo most probably took his window conof the fifteenth century: “But about the year 1420, cept from Alberti, who in turn may have been some change in the action of the human mind __ inspired by “Ptolemy’s grid.” Samuel Edgerton has

demanded a new nexus of unity, enclosed space. pointed out that both Filippo Brunelleschi In a very extended sense of the term, this new way (1 377-1446) and Alberti, as native Florentines, of thinking about the world may be called scientif- had access to Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, which conic, for it involved the sense of relation and com- tained gridded charts for depicting the curvature parison, as well as the measurement on which _ of the earth along with what Edgerton says is the science is based. But it antedates the real rise of first written description of linear perspective.”!

science by almost two hundred years.”* The credit for “discovering” perspective is generTo be sure the flowering that occurred in the sev- ally given to Brunelleschi, a Florentine architectenteenth century had its roots in soil tilled two hun- engineer. Recent research suggests this occurred dred years earlier by the fertile imaginations of men _ no later than 1413. Brunelleschi was well educated such as Jan van Eyck (b. before 1395-d. 1441) and for an artist, having been instructed in reading, Leonardo. Leonardo used mechanical aids, experi- writing, and mathematics. By trade he was a gold-

mented with the camera obscura, and described smith, but before he reached thirty years of age, the eye by comparing it to that instrument.*° This he began to become involved in architectural mattype of inquiry came naturally to Leonardo, a man _ ters. He was also conversant with standard surveywhose breadth of knowledge and curiosity led him ing techniques that no doubt aided him in the

1 / INSTRUMENT-MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES Zo

creation of preparatory architectural drawings as using mirrors, reflective surfaces and an empirical well as his perspectival interests. This knowledge perspectival system in much the same manner. of surveying may have also spurred his interest Although van Eyck, in his Portrait of Giovanni (?) in the optical properties of mirrors.°? It was Arnolfini and His Wife, does not use strict centralBrunelleschi’s technical skills and his background — point perspective in the same manner as his Italin mathematics that enabled him to take the early ian contemporaries, he is generally aware of and perspectival techniques of artists such as Giotto Di attentive to perspective principles. It has been Bondoni (c.1267-1337) and Duccio Di Buonin- proposed that van Eyck used a convex mirror to segna (active 1278-1319) and fashion them into a_ construct the perspective in the Arnolfini double

coherent plan with scientific consistency.°” portrait.°> A convex mirror does appear in this Brunelleschi's interest in perspective, surveying, painting. It is placed on the back wall between the and instrumentation may have led him to be the — subjects of the painting. Like some all-seeing eye,

first artist to make use of a room-type camera it presents the reflection of the contents of the obscura for the creation of a painted image. room, including what may be an image of the Brunelleschi, in addition to perspective tech- artist along with a fourth unidentified person. In niques, used mirrors and trompe UVoei effects in his another painting, Madonna with Canon George van

“peepshow” experiments, the most famous of der Paele, van Eyck displays the latest in optical which was a view of Florence’s Baptistry. Shigeru technology in the form of the elderly canon’s eye-

Tsuji has taken this a step further and theorized glasses. Continuing this ocular-reflective theme, that Brunelleschi in fact used the central portal of van Eyck presents a reflection of the Madonna the Cathedral opposite the Baptistry as a room- and Child in St. George’s helmet. On the saint’s type camera obscura and that “the first to see and buckler we also see the reflected image of van

to employ in painting the image of exterior Eyck wearing a red turban and standing at his objects as delineated in a room through a hole _ easel.°” contrived in the wall could well be Brunelleschi.”** R. H. Wilenski believes that van Eyck may have ‘Tsuji argues that it was Brunelleschi’s experimen- used two mirrors to paint the Arnolfini double tation with the room-type camera obscura that led portrait and that when he wrote on the back wall

to his development of linear perspective. above the mirror “Johannes de Eyck fuit hic,” he It was left to Alberti, though, to codify perspec- meant what he said, or rather that he “was here,”

tive a generation later. Trained at Padua and at the back of the room.” Erwin Panofsky, disBologna as an architect, Alberti moved to Flo- cussing van Eyck’s portraits, has noted that the rence in 1428 where he became friends with — eyes of the sitters focus outward to the viewer. He Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, and Masaccio. believes this is the result of van Eyck’s use of a mirAlberti’s work on perspective was first published ror to examine his own face.°! A. Hyatt Mayor has in Latin in 1435 as De Pictura and in Italian in 1436 suggested that the sense of integration and monuas Della Pittura. Throughout, Alberti emphasized mentality we see in van Eyck’s paintings may be the need for artists to have a thorough grounding _ the result of the artist’s use of eyeglasses.°? There in the sciences and mathematics.”” In De Pictwra is more to van Eyck’s genius than the employment Alberti applied Ptolemy’s grid to painting and of mirrors or simple lenses, but they obviously defined the picture plane as “an open window _ played a part in the development of his style. through which the subject to be painted is seen.”°° The first explicit representation of the use of a Alberti called this a “velo” and it is known today as mirror in connection with portraiture is shown in Alberti’s veil. Fellow artists such as Masaccio, Man- the work of a French miniaturist entitled Marcia tegna, Piero della Francesca, and Uccello eagerly Paints a Self-portrait. After van Eyck a number of took up Alberti’s codification and applied it with — artists painted self-portraits that show obvious debt spectacular results. Brunelleschi’s involvement in — to the use of a convex mirror. These works are by

surveying and Leonardo’s use of astronomical Jean Fouquet (c.1420-c.1481), Hans Holbein devices exemplify the interest that many early per- (1497/98-1543), and Francesco Parmigianino spectivists took in the techniques and tools of (1503-40). There is also a copy by Lucas Furte-

measurement.°’ nagel of Hans Burgkmair’s (1473-1531) Self-portrait At the same time that these Italian artists were with His Wife, in which a hand-held convex mirror exploring instrumental systems, Jan van Eyck was _ plays a prominent part.

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1 / INSTRUMENT-MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 25

Many of van Eyck’s northern contemporaries his interest in instruments, was also a pioneer in and successors also made use of convex mirrors. the creation of celestial maps, some of which were They were used as an aid to help compress compo- owned by Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).’! Burgi, a cositions onto small panels and were to be found in inventor of logarithms with Napier, also invented a many workshops of the time.°? Convex mirrors are perspective machine which he presented to given a prominent place both compositionally and Rudolf II.

symbolically in works by such major artists as A generation after Durer, Hans Holbein came Robert Campin, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, on the scene and established himself as an outand Quinten Massys.*! In two other paintings—by standing portraitist. Holbein was born and Derik Baegert, St. Luke Painting the Madonna, and _ trained in Augsburg and was doubtless influenced Quinten Massys (or a follower of), St. Luke Painting by the same forces that acted upon Durer. Augs-

the Virgin and Child—we are presented with St. burg, along with Nuremberg, was a great center Luke, the patron saint of painters. In each paint- for publishing and instrument making.’° Holing, we see a convex mirror prominently displayed, bein’s involvement with the latest scientific develan allusion to the mirror as one of the artist’s indis- opments and accompanying instrumentation is pensable tools, so ubiquitous that it became a “vir- _ reflected in his painting of 1533, The Ambassadors.

tual attribute of the painter.”°° No wonder then, The painting is a portrait of two French ambasthat in Cesare Ripa’s /conologia, Perspective was sadors to England, Jean de Dinteville and Georges shown with a mirror and that both Alberti and _ de Selve. For our purposes, what is of interest are Brunelleschi encouraged the use of mirrors in’ the numerous objects on the table between these paintings.°® Alberti followed his own advice and two distinguished courtiers, a cornucopia of sciexecuted a self-portrait with the aid of a mirror.°’ —_ entific/ mathematical apparatuses.

Durer was the first northern artist to take up Richard Foster and Pamela Tudor-Craig have Italian Renaissance perspective ideals and explore provided us with a detailed description of these them fully. In his Underweyssung der Messung (‘Trea- instruments.’* We begin with the terrestrial globe

tise on Measurement) he showed several instru- on the lower shelf, possibly made by Gemma-Friments or “machines” an artist could use to help © sius. It represents what was then the state of the art master perspective, including a fixed version of in cartography. The book in front of the globe is Alberti’s Veil. Three years later, Durer’s Four Books by Peter Apian (1495-1552), a professor of mathon Human Proportion was published shortly after his ematics and astronomy at Ingolstadt University. death. The book included diagrams of the human’ ‘The year before the painting was executed, Apian body and face overlaid with grids. The Dutch car- published two major works as well as a book on

tographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-98) owned a comets, Ein Kurtzer Bericht, in which he first Latin edition of this book and its “topographical announced his discovery that the tail of a comet concept” was probably put to use by Ortelius as always points away from the sun.” well as by Gerardus Mercator (1512-94) in devel- On the table we also find a celestial globe, again oping his “Mercator Projection.”°® We thus see most probably by Apian, as well as a cylindrical sunthe interrelationship of art and science come full dial, a wooden astrolabe, a white quadrant, a torcircle in the orbit of Ptolemy, Alberti, Durer, quetum (a device for determining the position of

Ortelius, and Mercator. celestial bodies), and a decagonal sundial. The sun-

Durer’s interest in “instrumental systems” dials are described so accurately that the dates and should not be surprising since he came from times to which they are set can be ascertained. Nuremberg, a center for the production of scien- These instruments are so finely rendered and pretific instruments. Durer also had a background in sented in such convincing detail that Foster and metalwork.® Diirer’s relation to instruments and Tudor-Craig are of the opinion that Holbein must mensuration was recognized by no less a scientist have had the real objects in his possession while than Kepler. In De Stella Nova, Kepler likened the completing the painting. They theorize that Holfame of his assistant, the instrument maker Jobst bein’s source for obtaining these valuable cutting-

Burgi (1552-1632), to that of Durer, a parallel edge scientific instruments was none other than made not only for the purpose of comparing the Henry VIII’s personal astronomer and instrument abilities of these two men but also to point out the maker, Niklaus Kratzer (1486-1550). Holbein was overlap in their interests.’/? Durer, in addition to friends with Kratzer, had painted his portrait, and

26 GIANTS OF DELFT may have even done some of the art work on Krat- During the seventeenth and eighteenth cenzer’s short astronomical treatise. Like Durer, Hol- turies, several commentators reported that Gerard bein was involved with the science of his day and Dou (1613-75), a Leiden painter, used a magnifythe broader humanist climate in which it was set. ing glass or convex mirror to achieve his meticuFoster and Tudor-Craig are of the opinion that lous detail. His technique was so refined that he Holbein’s connection to instrumentation goes made his own brushes and sat still at his easel until beyond mere description and that he may have the dust settled before proceeding to paint.®” It used a camera obscura as an aid in the creation of has been suggested that Dou may have inserted a his lifelike portraits.’° This is likely in view of Hol- concave lens into a screen that he set up between bein’s obvious familiarity with scientific instru- himself and the object to be painted.®! Wilenski ments, his Augsburg background, and the Durer _ thinks it likely that Vermeer, Fabritius, Samuel van influenced technical-instrumental artistic heritage Hoogstraten (1627-78), and Pieter Janssens Elinhe was heir to, as well as his relationship with both = ga (1623-before 1682) all used a device similar to

Apian and Kratzer. Dou’s and that they, along with other Dutch artists, Another artist influenced by this same tradition experimented with mirrors or other mechanical was the Swiss engraver, Jost Amman (1539-91). contrivances as aids in composing and painting Amman was an illustrator who worked in Nurem- _ their pictures.*

berg for many years. He engraved Wenzel Jam- Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was a Dutch nitzer’s Perspecttva Corporum Regularium, a book that artist of varied interests who trained with a glass portrayed geometrical bodies in perspective. It has painter and worked in his older brother’s mirror been theorized that Jamnitzer, a goldsmith and store. His View of the Dam in Amsterdam, possibly

instrument maker specializing in astronomical painted with the aid of a convex mirror, had an instruments, may have used an instrumental instrument (eyepiece) attached to it from the end method for the construction of these geometrical of which the painting was to be viewed. His A View bodies.’” Amman in fact engraved a portrait of Jam- of the Herengracht, Amsterdam bears a striking resem-

nitzer showing him using just such a perspective blance to Fabritius’s View in Delft in that it has the machine. The portrait is dated c. 1565, three years same type of wide-angle view. Wheelock thinks that before the publication of Perspectiva. Amman also paintings such as these may have been created did another engraving showing an instrumental with the aid of a convex mirror or a concave lens.*° technique for drawing a townscape. This apparatus Houbraken thought van der Heyden executed his is no doubt from the same family of instruments paintings with the aid of some type of device and used by: Alberti for his map of the city of Rome; Joshua Reynolds, upon seeing van der Heyden’s

Leonardo for his map of the city of Imola; and paintings, commented that “Dutch pictures are a numerous astronomers such as Gemma-Frisius for representation of nature, just as it is seen in a cam-

making astronomical measurements. “® era obscura.”** We do know that van der Heyden In the seventeenth century, Dutch artists, the had a mechanical aptitude. Amsterdam was the spiritual successors to van Eyck and Durer, took up first European city to have street lighting as a in full the promise that instruments and mechani- result of glass lanterns and oil lamps invented by cal devices held for artists. Vermeer made use of _ this painter.®°

the camera obscura, lenses, mirrors, and perspec- Heinrich Schwarz, in an article on Vermeer and tival rules. Carel Fabritius (1622-54), an artist who the camera obscura, theorizes that van der Heyinfluenced Vermeer, left behind a small oeuvre, yet den may have made use of the camera obscura in large enough to show he was keenly interested in painting his city views. He points out the sharp optics and its applications to painting. Fabritius’s foreshortening in the paintings as evidence of this View in Delft of 1652 is a small panel painting of a as well as van der Heyden’s mechanical backwide-angle view that gives us some indication of ground. Schwarz thinks it more than coincidence the nature of his investigations into perspectival that van der Heyden’s still lifes remind one of Vereffects. Walter Liedtke feels it was once part of a meer’s style.®° perspective box, while Arthur Wheelock believes Another Dutch artist who probably made use of that Fabritius created the painting with the aid of the camera obscura was Johannes Torrentius a double concave lens and that it was meant for (1598-1644). When Constantijn Huygens showed

viewing in a flat format.’ a camera obscura that he had brought back from

1 / INSTRUMENT-MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 27

London to Torrentius and another artist, Jacques devices such as the camera obscura or with conde Gheyn IT (1565-1629), Torrentius disclaamed ceptual metaphors such as linear perspective any knowledge of the instrument. Huygens and de would have created an “optical sensitivity” foreign Gheyn were not entirely convinced and suspected to the scholastics.%° that the source of the “convincing quality” of Tor- Hoogstraten was another Dutch artist fascinated rentius’s art was in fact the camera obscura.®’ De with perspective, illusionism, and optical devices. Gheyn for his part very probably used a magnify- Hoogstraten wrote a treatise on painting entitled ing glass to produce his finely rendered drawings — /nleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, Anders

of insects and flowers.*® de Zichtbaere Werelt (Introduction to the Academy

Georg (Joris) Hoefnagel (1542-c.1600) made of Painting; or the Visible World). This book was what have been called “microscopically accurate” published in 1678 and was the first treatise on drawings for Rudolf II’s Court at Prague. Between painting produced in the Netherlands since 1575 and 1582 Hoefnagel completed an illustrat- 1604.°* Hoogstraten commented on the camera ed four-volume atlas of natural history for Rudolf obscura and its potential for application to paintII.5° That Hoefnagel may have made use of a mag- ing in the /nleyding: “I am certain that vision from nifying lens is not surprising in light of his associa-__ these reflections in the dark can give no small tion with Rudolf’s Court and his Kunstkammer in | light to the sight of young artists; because besides

Prague. Rudolf’s Court, like many others of the gaining knowledge of nature, so one sees here mid to late sixteenth century, encouraged various what main or general [characteristics] should kinds of scientific investigations using the instru- belong to truly natural painting.””? Hoogstraten ments and other mechanical aids found in these also created perspective boxes or “peep-boxes”

collections.” which gave three-dimensional illusionistic views of Johannes Goedaert of Middelburg was another interiors. These peep-boxes had the same theoretmajor painter who published a three-volume study ical underpinnings as Brunelleschi’s illusionistic of insect development. Edward Ruestow has presentation of the Baptistry in Florence.?° argued that naturalistic miniature painting such as Pieter Claesz (1597/98-1660) was a Dutch stillGoedaert’s likely encouraged “an early recourse to life painter who, in his Vanilas Stall Life, promithe lens.”?! Ruestow asserts that Goedaert used a nently displayed a glass ball that reflects both him magnifying glass (Middelburg was home to two of — and the rest of the room. This image carries on the

the three men who laid claim to the invention of tradition begun by van Eyck, Campin, Christus, the telescope) and also mentions what he calls a Memling, and Massys of using the mirror to problematic claim that the first published instance extend the space of the painting both “outside the of the use of the microscope was Jacob Hoef- picture” and “into that of the viewer.”®’ In a mannagel’s 1592 engravings of his father’s (Georg — ner similar to van Eyck’s Arnolfini double portrait,

Hoefnagel) insect studies. Claesz has his reflective surface perform double

Esaias van der Velde (c.1591-1630), a Dutch duty as the image contained within it not only landscape painter, may have used the camera _ reflects the room but also reveals his self-portrait obscura as an inspiration for View of Zierikzee. This and in this manner is a variant of those self-porpainting can in turn be seen as a direct precursor traits by Fouquet, Holbein, and Parmigianino. It to Vermeer’s peerless View of Delft, a painting gen- has been suggested that a circular still life by Torerally agreed to have been made with the aid ofa rentius, Sézl Life, Allegory of Temperance, was pro-

camera obscura.’* To be sure, Vermeer used the duced using a circular, convex mirror.”® In this camera obscura as a technical and expressive aid painting, Torrentius also implies a dual meaning in a number of his paintings and was well aware of as he uses the same circular format we see in the the various optical effects created by it and other paintings by Fouquet, Holbein, and Parmigianino. optical devices. These effects would have been ‘Torrentius, however, presents us with a portrait of familiar to an investigator well versed in the use everyday objects and at the same time depicts an and function of devices such as mirrors, lenses, image of the room as a reflection in one of these and the camera obscura. Straker’s point regarding same objects. the salutary effect of artistic concepts on Kepler’s Vermeer also made use of reflective surfaces in ability to properly frame and answer optical issues two of his paintings. In Allegory of Faith, he disapplies as well to artists. Their experience with — played, although barely, part of the room in which

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the painting was set in the glass sphere above the | son, Vermeer continues his subtle practice and tanfemale figure. Philip Steadman has shown that this _ talizes us with a partial reflection of his easel and

image represents not only parts of the room but stool as well as a section of the back wall of the also what may be a dim reflection of the room-type — room.*”

camera obscura Vermeer used as an aid in creating At the same time that Dutch art and science was his paintings. In another painting, The Music Les- reaching its zenith, a Spanish artist was making his

1 / INSTRUMENT-MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 29

own statements about seeing the visible world, phers used inventions such as the telescope and about the process of vision. That artist was Diego microscope to aid them in their own pursuit of Velazquez (1599-1660). His grand statement or instrument-aided perception. The critical fact that pictorial thesis was Las Meninas, painted in 1656, allowed both artists and scientists to rely on instruthe same year Christiaan Huygens was announcing ments was a realization that human senses could to the world his discovery ofa moon of Saturn and be mechanically augmented and that this augmenthe same year Vermeer changed his artistic focus tation could reveal reliable information about the from mythological and biblical scenes to genre — natural world. Of course, this step was not possible

scenes with optical overtones. Velazquez, like until the eye was accepted as a piece of optical Leonardo before him, was concerned with the machinery or an instrument in and of itself. Kepler overall process of vision and not just the effects completed this mechanization of vision with the that could be obtained from a single technique | publication of Ad Vitellionem paralipomena and Diop-

such as linear perspective. trice. Hooke acknowledged this transformation As a student of vision, Velazquez was well aware when in Micrographia he spoke of “an enlargement of the latest advances in painting as well as optics. of the dominion of the senses” and “the adding of

This is not surprising since Velazquez’s home, artificial organs to the natural.”!" Seville, had close ties to Italy and the Netherlands To natural philosophers such as Hooke and due to the Indies trade and was an important pub- Bacon, a “hands on” approach to science was lishing center during the sixteenth century as well required. Experimentation and observation were as a good part of the seventeenth century. At the — the keys as mechanical devices were used to investurn of the century, Seville issued scientific publi- tigate and reproduce nature’s effects. These same

cations at twice the rate of other European coun- effects could then be observed through instrutries.'°° There was a great interest in both ment-aided vision. At the same time artists realized perspective and optics in Seville at the end of the the need to investigate nature’s effects in order to sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth cen- better describe reality on canvas, to create a new turies and one book on optics published in 1613, kind of “optical sensitivity,” and pursue new Arle y Uso de los Antojos (The Art and Use of Tele- expressive possibilities. From Giotto to van Eyck to

scopes) by Licenciado Benito Daza y Valdes, Leonardo to Durer and finally to Dutch artists of describes experiments with spherical mirrors and the seventeenth century, this fascination with the camera obscura.!°! At the time of his death, nature and her effects is self-evident. It is not surVelazquez’s inventory contained a wide range of _ prising that artists such as Vermeer, Fabritius, van books on perspective, optics, and related fields. He der Heyden, and Hoogstraten investigated the also owned various instruments including at least nature of seeing with instruments like the camera ten mirrors and what was probably a camera obscu- obscura in order to modulate and/or augment ra. Indeed, Velazquez was a “man fascinated with — their artistic vision. As children of their time, as visual science and its instrumental corollaries.”!°* members of their scientific/cultural milieu, we As is evident, during the sixteenth and seven- could hardly expect them to do less, or any differteenth centuries, both scientists and artists made ently. It should cause no wonder that these artists

use of instruments in their search for knowledge. looked to instrumental adjuncts to aid them in Both camps conducted what could generally be — their work.

called a program for the accumulation of instru- The next chapter will focus on four individuals ment-mediated knowledge. The artists’ use of lens- who conducted parallel programs for the accumues, mirrors, the camera obscura, and perspective lation of instrument-mediated knowledge. These laws were all a part of their program for represent- four optical investigators—Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, ing reality, part of the artistic arsenal that Martin van Eyck, and Vermeer—all sought to “enlarge the

Kemp calls “instrumental systems for the imitation dominion of their senses,” and by doing so, of nature.”!° At the same time, natural philoso- enlarged man’s understanding of the world.

Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, van Eyck, and Vermeer THE FRUITS OF OBSERVATION lenses, mirrors, and perspectival devices such as

AND TECHNIQUE string and chalk techniques used by architectural

painters.* Van Eyck made use of mirrors in creatI will now look at the working procedures of four ing his ineffable compositions and also put the optical investigators. Two of these men, Vermeer newly discovered rules of perspective, albeit in an and Leeuwenhoek, did all or most of their produc- empirical manner, to use in the service of his art.

tive work during the seventeenth century. Beyond this, he also employed a newly invented Leeuwenhoek, an indefatigable observer and_ device, so closely related to his handiwork, that its reporter, has been called the father of microbiolo- use as an instrument literally dissolves into and ey.' The third member of this group, Galileo, wasa becomes a part of the canvas. This tool was oil scientist, inventor, and man of letters. Galileo’s abil- painting itself. Although van Eyck did not discover ities as an observer nonpareil are nowhere better oil painting, he did perfect its use to such a degree exemplified than in his astronomical work, where that he is often associated with its invention.? Later he excelled not as a mathematical astronomer but in this chapter, I will discuss how van Eyck utilized as a telescopic observer." It is the telescopic astron- oil painting in much the same manner that Veromy Galileo carried out during the early part of the meer used the camera obscura, to “broaden the seventeenth century that is pertinent to this discus- scope of the eye,” to augment his vision and the sion. Van Eyck, a technical and conceptual ground- expressive possibilities of paint.® breaker, was one of the first painters to take up All of the above researchers used instruments to those issues of observation and representation that see differently, to see images and effects unapparwere central to the concerns of Vermeer, Leeuwen- ent to the naked eye. What took each of them to hoek, and Galileo. A Renaissance man one hun- the next level and into the class of creative genius dred years ahead of his time, he was court painter was the third element they had in common, their to Philip the Good, a diplomat, and a scholar of employment of technique. The word technique theology with interests in paleography, geometry, applies equally well to both the arts and sciences. alchemy, architecture, and archeological research.’ The New World Dictionary defines it as “the method These investigators had three elements in com- of procedure... or way of using basic skills, in renmon. Each man was a supremely diligent and _ dering an artistic work or carrying out a scientific

acute observer of reality. Secondly, they all or mechanical operation.” employed instruments as artificial organs to sup- Almost every treatment of Leeuwenhoek’s work

plement the natural senses. Galileo took a newly discusses his “methods of manipulation” or invented instrument, the telescope, refined it, and “method of observing.”’ His technique regarding

brought it to bear not upon earthly objects but the microscope gave such superior results over upon the moon, planets, and stars. Leeuwenhoek such a prolonged period of time that he has mismanufactured his own single-lens microscopes takenly been called its inventor on numerous and used them to make extensive investigations of occasions. Van Eyck’s technique was referred to by

his “little animals.” Vermeer left no record of his Vasari as “the secret and method of colouring in working procedures and, characteristically, made oil.”® He advanced the process of oil painting to no overt references to instrumental systems in his such a level that he has often been called its invenpaintings. His paintings do, however, resonate so tor. Vermeer carried on the legacy of van Eyck’s strongly with optical themes that historians gener- technique and used oil painting in such a refined ally agree he made use of the camera obscura, manner that his creations echo van Eyck’s in their 30

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER 31 exquisite gradations and blendings of tone and historian summed up the general opinion regardcolor. In addition, Vermeer made use of devices ing Leeuwenhoek’s lens-making technique when such as lenses, mirrors, and most importantly, the he commented that “Leeuwenhoek must certainly camera obscura, but achieved unequalled effects be acknowledged as one of the master lens-makers in spite of the fact that some of his fellow Dutch _ of all time.”!*

artists were using these very same instruments. While some historians emphasize the excellence Vermeer’s advantage stemmed from his ability to of Leeuwenhoek’s lenses when discussing his sucapply superior technique to both his style of paint- cess, others have pointed to additional factors. G.

ing and to his use of these instrumentalities. H. Parker, in a study of Leeuwenhoek’s microGalileo took a new invention, the telescope, and _ scopes, finds it significant that Leeuwenhoek stated

applied such a powerful new technique to its on several occasions that he “possessed methods of improvement, production, and use that he will be manipulation which placed him personally at an forever acknowledged as the founder of the disci- advantage over others.” Parker feels that Leeuwen-

pline of telescopic astronomy. At this point I will hoek’s superiority came from some method of look at each researcher individually and his manipulation or technique of observation that has

method of working. forever remained a secret. On several occasions

Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft in 1632, the son _ this great examiner referred to other “methods” of of a basket weaver. When he was sixteen, he was’ observation, the particulars of which he refused to sent to Amsterdam where he worked for six years reveal. Parker concludes that Leeuwenhock’s sucfor a British textile merchant, William Davidson. It cess stemmed not only from his skill in the creation has been conjectured that Leeuwenhoek’s time in of lenses but also from some form of indirect illuAmsterdam may have proved beneficial in at least mination of the subject to be studied.!° Leeuwentwo ways. While working in the textile industry, he hoek’s great biographer, Clifford Dobell, was the would have made extensive use of a hand lens to _ first to suggest this particular technique while disinspect cloth and this probably sparked his even- cussing the microscopist’s many references to his tual interest in microscopy. Additionally, Leeuwen- “particular method of observing.” Dobell came to hoek’s experience with textiles may have later led the conclusion that Leeuwenhoek discovered a

him to read Hooke’s Micrographia, which con- method of dark-ground illumination, “possibly

tained plates of cloth samples.° inspired by observing the motes in a sunbeam” and

Amsterdam’s second influence would most _ that his secret for viewing very small objects was surely have come from the glassworks where “some simple system of dark-field lighting, used in Leeuwenhoek could have learned the rudiments combination with his ordinary microscopes.”!® of grinding and polishing lenses.'° During the Leeuwenhoek did not necessarily require darkcourse of fifty-plus years as a practicing micro- ground illumination to achieve his results but may scopist, Leeuwenhoek constructed more than five have used his regular microscopes in the usual way hundred simple microscopes, which he used to’ with the aid of a coverslip. After experimenting discover protozoa and bacteria, investigate some with simple microscopes (using both blown glasses two hundred and fourteen animal types, conduct and ground lenses), one reviewer concluded that classic researches on blood corpuscles and capil- it is possible to explain Leeuwenhoek’s success lary circulation, and carry out studies in the fields based on three variables: his use of the coverslip, of anatomy, histology, physiology, embryology, his keen eyesight, and his “skill in preparing his botany, and chemistry.!! To call Leeuwenhoek’s objects.”!’ To be sure, Leeuwenhoek’s eyes constiinstruments “simple” is certainly a misnomer in tuted superior optical instruments. He could see light of the fact that his technique for creating the longitudinal lines on the wing of the silk moth, lenses was vastly superior to that of any of his con- something his draughtsman, who must have been temporaries.'* One of these lenses, the well-known a skilled observer in his own right, failed to do,.'* Utrecht lens, is not far from the theoretical limit. Z. C. von Uffenbach, the German dliarist, also The surfaces of Leeuwenhoek’s lenses are “nearly wrote that Leeuwenhoek asserted he could make a acceptable by modern standards” and even his naked-eye determination as to the direction of the

least successful lenses are better than those pulsebeat at the wrist.!% described by Hooke or those made by Christiaan As to Leeuwenhocek’s skill in preparing his specHuygens and his brother, Constantijn Jr!’ One imens, Dobell thought that he was one of the first

ay GIANTS OF DELFT to use sections in studying opaque bodies. F. J. von Haller (1708-77) was unable to accomplish Cole is of the opinion that “Leeuwenhoek’s what was routine for Leeuwenhoek, observing erymanipulative skill must have been astonishing, throcytes (red blood cells) of warm-blooded aniand he may certainly be acclaimed as the pioneer mals.*° Recently, modern researchers have of micro-dissection. He has not told us how this reported that they were unable to resolve erythrowork was carried out, and some of it is sufficiently cytes from human blood using the Utrecht lens. difficult to tax a modern observer who has athand Ford, however, by making the kind of painstaking

all the refinements of modern binocular micro- adjustments and manipulations required by the scopes.”*" Brian J. Ford has discovered the exis- close working distances involved, was able to pro-

tence of specimens prepared by Leeuwenhoek’s duce the clear image of the lobed nucleus of a own hand. They were found in nine specimen polymorphonuclear granulocyte (blood cells) by packets attached to some of Leeuwenhoek’s letters using the Utrecht lens without benefit of stain or kept at the Royal Society. After an extensive review mountant.?’ This episode exemplifies the probof these materials Ford concluded that Leeuwen- lems involved in using the single lens, difficulties hoek’s specimens constitute “technically excellent which deterred even so accomplished a microexamples of preparation” that meet modern-day scopist as Hooke. standards and also establish the Dutch draper as a No wonder then that many commentators both

“technical innovator.”*! then and now have incorrectly concluded that

One of these innovations was the use of staining Leeuwenhoek exaggerated his accomplishments. to improve contrast. To improve detail, Leeuwen- A recent university examination asked students to hoek stained muscle fibers in a brandy-saffron explain “why it was impossible for Leeuwenhoek solution.** Contrast, or lack of it, constitutes a seri- to have observed living bacteria.”** It is a question ous problem for microscopial practitioners. For a_ that tells us much about Leeuwenhoek’s remark-

researcher such as Leeuwenhoek, the use ofa sim- ably productive technique and the enormous ple lens created other problems. The size of the | potential of its amplifying power.

lens necessitated close working distances and I discuss Leeuwenhoek’s technique first resultant fatigue to the eye. Hooke cited this prob- because, to a large extent, it was his “methods of lem as a reason for his discontinuing work with the manipulation” which enabled him to rise far above

simple microscope. As more powerful lenses are the level of a dilettante. Leeuwenhock’s sole employed, the field of view is also restricted. Final- method of expression was the microscope and his ly, the close working distance and small field of success or failure was dependent upon the level of view create illumination problems, especially for sophistication he achieved in its use. The other opaque bodies.”° Overlaid upon these difficulties three members of our quartet, however, had no is the entirely separate issue of how to interpret such dependence upon any particular device and the image obtained once the technical obstacles would have all achieved some level of recognition are overcome. Hooke remarked upon the fact that in their respective fields had they not made use microscopial images can be read in several ways of instrumentation. Vermeer and van Eyck, as when he discussed in Micrographia the “difficulty to painters, were not dependent upon any single

discover the true shape” of objects due to an instrument for success other than the creative inability “to distinguish between a prominency power of their artistic vision. We will see, however, and a depression, between a shadow and a black _ that their desire to “fire their mind’s eye” outward

stain, or a reflection and a whiteness in the and expand their “optical sensitivity” drove them color.”** This issue of interpretation will be taken to experiment with alternative methods of percepup in the next chapter, where we will see Galileo tion and to make use of the expressive possibilities tackle the problem of “multiply readable” images _ this experimentation revealed.

on the surface of the moon. Galileo likewise would still be recognized as one In light of the above it is no wonder that it took of the founding fathers of the science of mechanics the Royal Society, even with the aid of so great a_ even if he had never made use of the telescope. By microscopist as Hooke, three tries before they _ the time Galileo first heard of the telescope in 1609

were able to duplicate one of Leeuwenhoek’s he had been a professor of mathematics at Padua experiments.” Less than fifty years after Leeuwen- for eighteen years and had completed much of his hoek’s death, the great Swiss biologist Albrecht work on motion and dynamics.*9 The fact remains

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER Do that in the summer of 1609 Galileo did become “geometric and military compass,” which was a aware of the newly invented telescope. What he did combination of and improvement upon two sepa-

as a result of this news changed the course of his rate instruments invented by Tartaglia in 1537. life as well as that of telescopic astronomy. There was such a demand for this instrument that Galileo was born near Pisa in 1564 to a Floren- Galileo established a workshop in his home and tine family originally named Bonaiuti. Galileo hired a full-time mechanician, a coppersmith Bonaiuti, an ancestor who died sometime after named Marc’Antonio Mazzolleni. Eventually, 1445, was a celebrated doctor, professor, and Galileo commissioned additional instruments from member of the governing council of Florence. craftsmen in Urbino, Florence, and other cities. In Vincenzio Galilei (c.1520-91), a renowned 1607 Galileo constructed a basic air thermometer.” lutanist and musical theorist, was Galileo’s All this was prelude to May 1609 and the ensufather.’ Like Leeuwenhoek, Galileo was exposed ing ten-month period. Galileo related in Srdereus to the cloth trade at an early age. Galileo’s father Nunczus that it was about this time that “a report participated in the wool business for a short time reached my ears that a certain Fleming had conwith one of his wife’s in-laws, Muzio Tedaldi. When — structed a spyglass by means of which visible

the family moved to Florence in 1572, Galileo was objects, those very distant from the eye of the left behind at Pisa in the care of this relative.*! It is | observer, were distinctly seen as if nearby.” The

quite possible that like that of Leeuwenhoek, Fleming Galileo referred to was probably Hans Galileo’s eventual interest in lenses and their mag- Lipperhey (d. 1619). Lipperhey was a spectacle

nifying power was stirred during this time. maker from Middelburg who had applied to the At the age of ten, Galileo returned to Florence States General of the Dutch Republic for a patent and continued his education first at the nearby on this device on 2 October 1608. Within wecks, Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombroso and then however, two other men, Sacharias Janssen (1588-

at another school in Florence. In 1581 Galileo c.1630) and Jacob Metius (d. between 1624 and returned to Pisa to again live with Tedaldi and 1631), claimed that they had invented the teleenrolled at the university as a medical student. By scope. The government, seeing that the construc1583 Galileo had almost entirely abandoned his tion of this device easily lent itself to duplication, medical studies and was reading Euclid and Aristo- refused to issue a patent to any of the three applitle. Galileo left Pisa in 1585 without a degree but cants. Indeed, the telescope was being displayed at returned just four years later as a professor of math- a fair in Frankfurt at about the same time that Lipematics, and embarked on his scientific career.” perhey was making his application. By spring and Early on in Galileo’s career we see an involve- summer 1609, spyglasses were offered for sale in ment with instrumentation that laid the ground- Paris and Italy.°°

work for his subsequent undertakings with the Obviously Galileo was not alone in his realizatelescope. In 1586 Galileo wrote his first scientific tion that the telescope held great potential. He was treatise, La Bilancetta (The Little Balance). In this not even the first to use the telescope to observe

work, Galileo described a device for determining and sketch the moon. That distinction goes to specific gravities. Although Galileo did not invent Thomas Harriot (c. 1560-1621), who made a drawthe device, he did make valuable technical refine- ing of the moon on 26 July 1609 with the aid of a ments regarding the determination of the position — six-power telescope.*’ What set Galileo apart was

of the counterweight. Galileo’s subsequent the single-mindedness with which he set himself to appointment to the chair of mathematics at Padua the task of improving both the telescope’s power in 1592 heralded what became, at least during his and his ability to correctly observe and interpret first years there, an ever-increasing interest in the images it presented. By early August 1609 he

technology.*” succeeded in creating an instrument that magni-

In 1594 Galileo obtained a letter patent from the fied three times. This was not in itself extraordiVenetian Republic for an irrigation mill. He was _ nary, since spyglasses of three- to four-power could also involved with the development of the pul- be bought in the Venetian Republic at this time. By silogium (a device for measuring pulse rate), an late August, however, Galileo had created an eight-

instrument that was later adapted for medical power telescope. By 30 November he had augapplications by the Italian physician Santorio San- mented his instrument to twenty-power and torio (1561-1636). In 1597 Galileo completed his turned it upon the moon. During the period 30

34 GIANTS OF DELFT November to 18 December 1609, Galileo used this maintain the shape much better than on a small

telescope to make his famous drawings of the one.”“ In spite of Galileo’s penchant for massmoon.”® Between December 1609 and March producing instruments and his reliance on arti1610, Galileo succeeded in making ten telescopes sans such as Mazzoleni, he evidently participated capable of showing Jupiter’s satellites, a feat that personally in the creation of his lenses. Drake has been described by Stillman Drake as “truly points out that although Galileo supplied a great

remarkable.”*? number of lenses to numerous individuals Galileo’s success in creating superior instru- throughout Europe between 1610 and 1620, ments was such that orders for them poured in “there is little doubt he ground these himself.”* from around the world, necessitating the estab- Beyond this Galileo was acutely aware of the lishment, during 1610, of a second workshop sole- importance of obtaining high-quality glass from ly for the production of telescopes at Galileo’s which his lenses could be shaped. Galileo had vishouse in Padua. Whether or not Galileo was aided _ ited glass furnaces early in his career, was familiar in the construction of telescopes after his move to with scientific glassmaking, and appreciated the

Florence is unclear, since he did not take Maz- importance of glass. He therefore expended a zoleni with him and there is no record of any great amount of effort in obtaining high-quality craftsman assistant at Florence.’? At any rate, glass. He first procured it from one of the lens Galileo’s lead in telescope technology was clear grinders of Venice, most probably at Murano, and and decisive. Even Kepler, imperial mathematician finally from Florence at the glassworks established to Rudolf II, could not lay hands on a telescope by Archduke Cosimo I in 1618. It was at the glass-

powerful enough to see Jupiter’s satellites; he works in Florence that Galileo first met the artisan wrote Galileo in August 1610 complaining about Ippolito Francini. Francini was polishing lenses by the poor quality of telescopes available in Prague. 1623 and possibly as early as 1619. It is not sur-

The frustrated astronomer finally observed prising that Francini, who was a pioneer in the Jupiter’s satellites courtesy of the elector Ernst of field of scientific lens making, supplied glass to the Cologne, who lent Kepler a telescope that Galileo exacting Galileo.*° The precision Galileo achieved

had presented to the duke some months earlier.*! in the production of his lenses was recently Michael Mastlin (1550-1631), Kepler’s teacher, brought to light by Vincenzo Greco, Giuseppe was also unable to secure a telescope that could Molesini, and Franco Quercioli. They used an resolve Jupiter’s satellites. Daniello Antonini interferometer to test the lenses of two telescopes (1588-1616), a student of Galileo, likewise failed made by Galileo that are at the science museum in to acquire a suitable telescope in spite of the fact Florence. The test results show that Galileo’s lensthat while in Holland he consulted with its sup- es are of “nearly perfect optical quality.”4’ This is posed inventor, who stated it was not possible to the kind of result, especially in Galileo’s day, that

make such a powerful instrument.” was rarely achieved. For Galileo, it was a common

A key element of Galileo’s advantage, as with occurrence. that of Leeuwenhoek, was his lens-making tech- During this period, Galileo stocked a large supnique. Early on, after experimenting with the spy- ply of lenses at his workshop and, as mentioned glass, Galileo realized that the types of lenses he above, supplied a great number of them to other

needed could not be obtained from spectacle scientists and noble personages throughout makers. He therefore set himself to the task of Europe. In spite of this, it was still difficult for othlearning how to grind and polish his own lenses.*? ers to achieve the same results. Again, as with the

It was not easy to grind and polish lenses to the case of Leeuwenhoek, part of the answer lies in exact shape required, but Galileo apparently Galileo’s superior technique regarding his use of devised some means of checking their curvature. the telescope and his skill as an observer. We get We get some inkling of his methods in a letter he an idea of Galileo’s telescopic technique from a wrote to Cristoforo Clavio regarding his tech- letter dated 7 January 1610 instructing that “the nique. Galileo informed Clavio that “I have made instrument must be held firm and hence it is some lenses much larger, although I then covered good, to escape the shaking of the hand that arisa large part of them, and this is for two reasons: es from motion of the arteries and from breathing, the first is so that I can grind them more accurate- to fix the tube in some stable place. The glasses ly, since on a more spacious surface it is possible to should be kept clean and polished by a cloth, or

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER 35 else cloud is generated there by the breath, humid through the instrument!” One of these occasions or foggy air, or vapor which evaporates from the — took place in April 1611. At that time, Galileo was

eye itself, especially when warm.” in Rome attending a banquet given in his honor A Galilean telescope has a very small field of — by Federico Cesi (1585-1630). Cesi was hereditary

view that makes it difficult to find small objects Marquis of Monticelli and Duke of Acquasparta such as Jupiter and even more difficult to keep who also had ties by marriage to the Medici famithem in the field of view once they are found. The © lies of Florence. In 1603, Cesi established at Rome field-of-view problem was compounded for Galileo _ the first truly modern international scientific sociby the fact that a stable method of supporting the — ety, the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of Lynx-

telescope was not available to him.’ In spite of es). Cesi had been inspired by the work of these difficulties, Galileo’s figures for the periods Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615), an Italian of the satellites of Jupiter have not been much _ physicist and polymath. The Lincean Academy was improved upon. Galileo was also the first person to. a brotherhood of “searchers of the arcane scistop down his objective lens and by this method — ences” and adopted the lynx as their emblem after

further improve the performance of his tele- the impresa for della Porta’s Magia Naturalis. In

scopes.°” the preface to this book, della Porta described the

Like Leeuwenhoek, Galileo did not readily natural philosopher as an investigator “examining impart to others the specifics of his technique with lynx-like eyes those things which manifest regarding lens making or telescopic observation, themselves.” The academy’s name was also a refer-

but would make only oblique references to his ence to the keen-eyed Lynceus of Jason’s Argmethod. In various letters he referred to “the true onauts. In addition to Cesi, the other three method of making them” or of a “certain improve- founding members of the Academy were Johannes

ment in the telescope, and perhaps some other Eck (1577-1 620), a Dutch physician; Francesco invenzione.”°' At other times he would describe his Stelluti (1577-1651), a mathematician and one of instruments only as “excellent” or “superlative.”>” the early microscopists; and Anastasio de Filtis But besides resulting from his instrumental supe- (1577-1608), a student of mechanics. Della Porta riority, Galileo’s singular position as the leader in was added as a fifth member in 1610.

celestial astronomy stemmed from his superior Galileo’s status as one of the new breed of natobservational abilities. Unlike Leeuwenhoek, ural philosophers, combined with his newfound Galileo was not blessed with superior eyesight. fame resulting from his startling observations, What he did share with Leeuwenhoek and other made him a prime candidate for inclusion in the paradigm observers was the ability to use his intel- academy. Galileo was, in fact, made the sixth mem-

lect to make informed interpretations of the ber of the academy during his stay at Rome. The images presented. As he put it, it was a matter of banquet Cesi gave in Galileo’s honor had a numthe observer using “not just the eyes in his head, ber of guests. Present were five future members of but those in his mind as well.”’ For Galileo, the — the academy as well as several university professors refracting power of a keen intellect was as impor- and Jesuit ATOIGASiS oO Aer he banquet, the

tant to his program of observation as were his party went outside to use one of Galileo’s telehighly polished lenses. This translated into an scopes to observe Jupiter's satellites and Saturn’s uncanny ability to observe across a broad range of “companions.” A contemporary report of the categories, ultimately distilling his experience into event related that despite continuing their obseran ability to properly interpret appearances and yations until after midnight, this distinguished

not just “save” them.*? gathering could not reach a consensus as to what

We have seen how Hooke and the Royal Society they saw.°’ Considering the scientific background had difficulty reproducing Leeuwenhoek’s results. of the men present and the pride that the Lincei Likewise, after Galileo’s announcement in Sidereus took in their powers of observation, this episode Nuncius, it was months before other astronomers exemplifies Galileo’s superior observational ability

could confirm Galileo’s results. On at least two as well as his unequalled technique in the hanoccasions, other observers were unable to see dling of the telescope. Jupiter’s satellites despite the fact that they were It has been said that if the “window on the using one of Galileo’s own telescopes and that he world” can be considered the attribute of Italian was present to advise them on how to look art, the mirror must be judged as the attribute of

36 GIANTS OF DELFT Northern art. No artist better exemplifies this is amusing to think that both these instruments association than Jan van Eyck. Born about 1395, were to be invented some 175 years later, in the van Eyck most likely came from either Maaseyck or Netherlands—so that the beholder is compelled Maastricht in eastern Flanders. One document _ to oscillate between a position reasonably far from refers to him as “Jan of Tricht.” Van Eyck spent the picture and many positions very close to it.” °° most, if not all, of his professional life as a court In his analysis, Panofsky draws our attention to painter. The first documentation we have regard- the Arnolfini double portrait and the fact that Gioing van Eyck is dated 24 October 1422, where he is vanni’s face, though smooth in overall appear-

referred to as “meyster Jan de maelre.” From 1422. ance, retains enough detail so as to blend to 1425, van Eyck worked for John of Bavaria, harmoniously with the rich particulars of the furCount of Holland, decorating his palace at The trimmed garments and the dog’s hairs. ‘This theme Hague. Upon the count’s death in 1425, van Eyck is carried on in van Eyck’s Madonna with Canon became “peintre et varlet de chamber” (painter George van der Paele, where the hand of St. George, and chamberlain) to Philip the Good, Duke of though complex in detail, joins seamlessly with the Burgundy. Van Eyck was to remain in the duke’s polished metal armlet.°!

service until his death. This same counterposition of near and far, par-

Although the title van Eyck held was shared by ticular and whole, can be seen in the Madonna many servants, he occupied what must have been with Chancellor Nicolas Rolin. The Eyckian oscillaa special position. Between 1426 and 1430, he _ tion is evident as the viewer is first drawn into the embarked upon a number of journeys in the ser- chamber and then out into the landscape beyond, vice of Philip the Good. Two of these trips were | a landscape that has been called one of van Eyck’s

undertaken to take part in marriage negotiations most astonishing creations. The artist first posion behalf of the duke. On another occasion when _ tions us close to the picture and produces in lovthe exchequer in Lille asked that van Eyck’s pen- ing detail the chancellor’s brocade mantle, the sion and salary be reduced, Philip sharply denied beautifully tiled floor, and the exquisite jewelthe request and raised van Eyck’s salary from 100 encrusted crown held above the Virgin’s head. He to 360 livres per year. The duke was also godfather then leads us to a position reasonably far from the to one of van Eyck’s children and presented the interior and presents us with a landscape so conchild with six silver cups. Further evidence of van vincing that it has been variously identified as

Eyck’s status is attested to by the fact that he Bruges, Autun, Liege, Maastricht, and Geneva.” walked directly behind the duke in state proces- By means of this contraposition van Eyck puts sions. Van Eyck signed his pictures, an unusual before us a type of holographic image that allows practice at the time, and also adopted a personal us to move into, out of, and back into the chanmotto, “As best I can,” emulating the nobility’s cellor’s chamber at will. But wherever we place

practice.°® ourselves, a single commonality remains. Whether

A man of varied talents, van Eyck did not limit delineating a distant landscape or the objects in a himself to panel painting. He probably performed nearby room, van Eyck does not present a collecwork for the duke involving interior design and tion of isolated details, but renders a “perfectly decoration, the creation of large wall paintings, integrated universe.”°’ How did van Eyck accomand the polychromy or gilding of sculpture. He _ plish this feat? Panofsky tells us the artist did it by may have also been involved in the creation of means of an “infinitesimal calculus,” formulating tableaux vivants in connection with court festivi- an undifferentiated solution in much the same ties.°? It is, however, van Eyck’s panel paintings fashion that calculus resolves numerical discontithat concern us. In these works, which anticipate nuity by a series of reductions.™ by two hundred years the amplification of sight Van Eyck was the first artist of his age to wield brought about by the telescope and microscope, technique as a tool to help him address the issues we see the reification of those same optical con- of his day, the question of the “two infinites,” the cerns that later occupied Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, celestial versus the earthly, and the dual nature of and Vermeer. Erwin Panofsky was one of the first the world as microcosm and macrocosm. Van Eyck historians to point out this important aspect of van was able to resolve this duality by means of his Eyck’s art. “Jan Van Eyck’s eye operates asa micro- “painterly calculus” as he merged large and small, scope and as a telescope at the same time—and it complex and simple, general and particular into

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one uniformly integrated whole. By doing so, he unevenness or asperity, every common Microanticipated the debates that were to occur two scope discovering numerous inequalities in the hundred years later between the Aristotelians and surface of even the best cut Diamonds, and the the new philosophers regarding homogenous sub- _ finest Ch rystal.”°°

stances. One of these moderns, Walter Charleton, Galileo discovered the nonhomogenous nature while discussing the advantages of the micro- of the moon when he viewed the mountains and scope, said “the superfice of no body can be so valleys on its surface. For Galileo, Charleton, and exactly smooth and polite, as to be devoid of all other moderns, the continuous nature of reality

38 GIANTS OF DELFT was due to a “perceptual blurring” of these promi- exemplar in its field and became the model for nences and depressions. Early in the fifteenth cen- Flemish art during the next hundred years. Some tury the herbalists, Brunfels and Fuchs, along with | think that van Eyck’s secret was the use of turpen-

their illustrators, all sought homogeneity in the tine as a diluent in the binding medium. Whatey-

visible plant forms they studied. They, too, wres- er the answer, van Eyck’s far from simple tled with the problem of how to faithfully show technique produced dazzling results. His bold botanical detail and yet retain an archetypal or velatura method of superimposing layers enabled didactic image that did not become too specific. him to achieve a luminosity that makes his paintVan Eyck, using the enormous refracting power of ings look as though they are lit from within. What-

his painterly vision, anticipated these issues and ever the nature of the vehicle he employed, van resolved them by means of a technique that mir- Eyck’s process allowed him to blend an endless rored nature’s effects, both large and small. number of brushstrokes into a unified whole, thus Van Eyck’s work looked forward to a time when — achieving that “infinitesimal calculus” so particu-

man’s observational powers, augmented by instru- lar to his genius.” mentation, took the forefront in scientific matters. Van Eyck’s “special process” was so regnant it But just as importantly, his work presaged Dutch caused a revolution throughout Europe. It is no art of the seventeenth century and in particular wonder that Vasari thought van Eyck “took delight that of Vermeer. Several historians have called van in alchemy,” or that other historians have since Eyck’s Arnolfini double portrait the first modern considered this a possibility.“! Van Eyck’s techgenre painting and said that it foreshadows Dutch nique, his transmutation of pigment into a mirror genre painting in Vermeer’s time.°® Otto Pacht, of materiality, can indeed be looked at as a kind of comparing van Eyck’s work to that of Vermeer’s, magic or alchemy. The spell it casts is such that describes van Eyck’s reality as a still-life world “in Panofsky, commenting upon the translucency of which a human being is nothing but an eye.”°’ color in a van Eyck painting, said it makes even a This assessment of van Eyck echoes Gowing’s Rubens look like “just a painting.”” description of Vermeer as “all eye and nothing else In an article examining the relation between ...a walking retina drilled like a machine.”®* Van painting and religious meditation during the fifEyck and Vermeer shared the power of observa- teenth century, Craig Harbison has compared this tion, masterful technique, and a willingness to technique of oil painting and its effects to stained take advantage of instrumental adjuncts as part of | glass. He correctly points out that the translucence their respective programs of informed observa-_ created by the oil glazes would have mimicked the tion. To better understand these similarities, I will appearance of stained glass and that the paintings

now turn to van Eyck’s pioneering use of tech- were intended to be seen as stained glass win-

nique, observation, and instrumentalities. dows.’? The magical quality of this effect on a

Van Eyck’s technique of oil painting is so singu- __fifteenth-century viewer would have then acted as lar that Vasari called him its inventor. Vasari tells a visual stimulant in his process of achieving a perus that van Eyck made his discovery while looking sonal religious experience. The effects van Eyck for a varnish that would dry in the shade, thereby and other artists could create were so varied and avoiding the at times damaging process of drying illusionistic that Harbison has elsewhere argued paintings in the sun. According to Vasari, van Eyck that this “invention” helped facilitate the emerdiscovered, after further experimentation, that lin- gence of a whole new class of patrons. These were seed oil and oil of nuts would produce a quick-dry- the middle-class bureaucrats like Nicolas Rolin ing varnish that he thereafter used as a medium who would have been quick to take advantage of for his oils.°? This cannot be a full account of van _ the painter’s ability to create relatively inexpensive Eyck’s breakthrough, since linseed and walnut had paintings that contained lifelike images of pre-

been used as a medium from the Middle Ages. cious objects.” This early technique, however, required drying Van Eyck’s superiority, however, did not arise each layer in the sun before applying the next. solely from his technical ability. Like LeeuwenTherefore, van Eyck did not strictly invent the hoek and Galileo, he combined superior techtechnique of oil painting, but like Leeuwenhoek nique with remarkable observational skill to such and Galileo, took an existing process and refined a degree that his work has been characterized as it to such a degree that his product stood as the the “conquest of the visible world.” Van Eyck,

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER 39

like no painter before him, used his eye as an es eS i 3

instrument to create a three-dimensional reality, — Pe =. ae | renouncing the formulas of this late occurred Gothic painting. a . oR aS | Part of the answer as to why lies in | ! |;ge kao”

Northern painters’ use of the mirror. We have sees eds a om kal seen how artists such as van Eyck, Campin, Chris- i Er pee ae ed tus, Memling, and Massys employed the mirror to 2 ee — Re : a such an extent that it became a virtual attribute. As SS, Z wot they continued to experiment with mirrors andaaa, ee i!\ 8ees eeAol: Le other reflective surfaces, they developed an “optiYea

cal sensitivity” that was quite different from the — "As .” s

methods of their predecessors. Van Eyck and his | a te K 4 Pa i contemporaries were among thereflective first, if surnot Poe the ey SeeA 4 fo fewee a SP first group of artists, to use mirrors, Oooe ee an 3 =o

faces, perspective, and even oil technique itself as : Ws ail ee ns| ; is Bete Xl iq a instrumental adjuncts in their campaign to delin- ees ened i es | ffs: cae tes ree

eate the visible world. Their use of visual tools SPARS dtp 3 c/a «ner we. ee would have altered their conception of the visual Sp mo * pe Pie ry e ) ae cain oo act as something more than a subjective phenom- ¥4 a o e/** Nae ee ee -| 6 GMI a— rll eZ | ea 4BIN J ofazeee

Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660-61. Royal Cabinet of Paintings, Mauritshuis, The Hague.

present-day scholars in mind of optical features adjustments of all sorts, a fine sensibility, and a associated with instruments that would not be © brilliant and individual technique.”!!”

invented for nearly two hundred years. Likewise, Vermeer was to make use of the camera Vermeer’s own natural affinities and abilities throughout his career. Seymour, in his 1964 artiwould have led him down a similar creative path, cle, demonstrated that Vermeer very probably whether or not the camera obscura had been avail- used a camera obscura to help achieve his halaable to him. But it was available and Vermeer put tion of highlights effects in Grrl with the Red Hat. it to use in a most enriching and splendid manner. Noting that the lion-head finial in the right fore-

In an article about Vermeer and his use of the ground is “all but completely disintegrated in camera, John Walsh Jr. commented on this cre- discs of confusion,” he used a nineteenth-century

ative conjunction of man and instrumentation. viewing camera obscura as well as a specially “Inclined almost from the beginning to images of adjusted modern camera to reproduce the specua certain still fixity, and attracted to the subtleties lar effects seen not only on the finial but on the of light, painting little and for his own pleasure, — girl’s blue robe as well. Seymour also pointed out Vermeer had found a tool that suited his tempera- that Vermeer used the diffused highlights to help ment and his interests as a painter. It takes nothing — establish different depths of field.!!% These effects from Vermeer’s achievement to imagine him bent can be seen in The Lacemaker as well as The Art of over the camera obscura; the pictures still had to Painting. It has been noted that Vermeer used the be painted; and for the most part this involved out-of-focus foreground threads in The Lacemaker

46 GIANTS OF DELFT

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Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1665/1666. Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Photograph © 2002 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

to suggest depth, a technique that he also used on in scale between the artist and his model in The the drapery hanging over the table in The Art of Art of Painting.'!° In four other paintings—The Painting. 114 The silhouetted character of the Music Lesson, The Concert, The Guitar Player, and female lacemaker can also be seen as an effect sug- Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid—there is evigested by the camera obscura, as can the contrast dence of Vermeer’s use of the camera as either a

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER 47 compositional aid or as the source from which cer- Pearl Necklace, and Young Woman with a Water Jug: 12]

tain optical effects were suggested.'!® A definitive answer cannot be given in these

In his article, Seymour theorized that Vermeer instances, since there is insufficient data upon initially began experimenting with a room-type or which to base proper projections. “chamber” camera obscura and then proceeded to In spite of some uncertainties, Steadman’s work make use of a portable box-apparatus or cubicu- proves that Vermeer used the camera, at times in a lum camera obscura.'!’ Recently, Philip Steadman very literal and straightforward manner. I believe has provided evidence that Vermeer made use ofa that Vermeer saw geometrical consistency and type of hybrid or large cubiculum camera obscu- _ fidelity to shape and outline as the foundations for ra./!8 In his recent book Vermeer’s Camera, Stead- his paintings. Overlaid upon this veridical strucman reports that by analyzing the two-dimensional ture, however, Vermeer imposed his painterly perspective of Vermeer’s paintings and extra- translation of the camera image in a spectacularly polating from the known sizes of objects such as_ creative and imaginative way. As Steadman himself maps, tiles, and musical instruments within those points out, in many instances Vermeer did not

paintings, he was able to reconstruct the three- make a strict transcription of the camera image dimensional geometry of the rooms in which asig- and was “prepared to depart from appearnificant area of tiled floor appears. This occurs in ances.”!22, Vermeer regularly altered the effects eleven paintings. Steadman thinks that ten of the seen in a camera obscura and had a predilection reconstructed rooms show the same space. Addi- for manipulating his compositions to suit his artistionally, when he carried the angle of view back _ tic aims. through the viewpoint to define a rectangle on the Steadman’s work makes it apparent that Verback wall of the room for each of the eleven paint- meer invested significant time and effort into ings, in six cases (The Music Lesson, The Concert, exploring the camera obscura’s properties and its Lady Standing at the Virginals, The Glass of Wine, The possible application to painting. We can imagine Girl with a Wineglass, and Lady Writing a Letter with Vermeer, working in the dark chamber of his

Her Maid) the rectangle was “almost exactly the room, observing with fascination the camera’s liv-

same size as the relevant painting.” ing pictures. Vermeer may have seen himself as a Steadman concludes that the only way to kind of scientific observer, analyzing the animated explain this ecomcetrical coincidence is to assume tableau the camera presented, subdividing this that Vermeer used a cubicle camera obscura posi- microcosm yet once again with the powerful optitioned at the back corner of his studio, and in cal instruments in his head. But Vermeer did not these six paintings, traced the images that were limit himself to this instrumentality, and I argue projected onto the back wall.'!? Lam convinced by _ that he was a wide-ranging experimentalist who was

Steadman’s analysis that Vermeer probably did eager and willing to explore other tools at hand. trace the projected images in the above six cases. Early in his career, we see Vermeer place figures Vermeer also used the camera to a great extentin in a compressed space with repoussoir elements in the creation of other paintings, although not in the foreground. This arrangement can be seen in the same way. As Steadman admits, in four of the The Procuress, A Woman Asleep, Girl Reading a Letter five other cases where he was able to reconstruct at an Open Window, and Officer and Laughing Girl. the geometry of the rooms (Allegory of Painting, Wheelock has concluded that some of the spatial Allegory of Faith, The Love Letter, and Lady Sealed at distortions in these paintings can be reproduced the Virginals), the viewpoints either lie outside the _ by viewing similar scenes with a convex mirror or room or the projected images on the back wall do double concave lens, and he has successfully recre-

not match the sizes of the corresponding paint- ated an effect similar to that found in A Woman ings.'*° The fifth painting, Woman with a Lule, pro- Asleep by using a convex mirror.!*° It has also been

vided inconclusive evidence because of the suggested that Vermeer may have used a righting uncertainty of the position of the floor tiles. Stead- mirror in his cubiculum camera obscura to correct

man reports that there are five other cases that the viewed image.'*t Wilenski is of the opinion could give projected images at the back wall that that Vermeer frequently used one or even two mirequal the size of the matching canvas. These are: rors to construct his paintings. He proposes that Gul I nterrupted at her Music, Woman in Blue Reading the doorway in The Love Letterwas actual ly a mirror,

a Letter, Woman H olding a Balance, Woman with a and that Vermeer sat with his back to this mirror

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Philip Steadman, Drawing of Possible ee? for Vermeer’s Cubiculum Camera Obscura, from Philip Steadman, Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces (New York, 2001). Used by permission of the author.

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER AY and looked into another mirror that was either contrasting her brightly illuminated form against above or next to his canvas. Wilenski suggests a the dark background, Vermeer makes her the similar arrangement for The Art of Painting. He focus of the painting. contends that Vermeer’s use of mirrors would also In a fourth painting, The Music Lesson, Vermeer account for the contrast of scale effects we see in uses perspective in conjunction with a mirror. In paintings such as Officer and Laughing Girland that this composition, Vermeer used an abrupt conA Woman Asleep, The Music Lesson, Girl With the Red _ trast of scale between foreground and background

Hat, and The Lacemaker were all created with the in concert with the orthogonals of the window

aid of mirrors.!*° frames to draw our eye to the background. The Like van Eyck, Vermeer used perspective as a_ orthogonals of the receding edge of the table also type of visual tool. Jorgen Wadum has proposed _ lead our eye to the vanishing point that lies on the that Vermeer used a pin-and-string method to _ left sleeve of the woman. This structure, along with help construct his paintings. Using x-radiography, other compositional and textural manipulations, Wadum has found evidence of pinholes in thir- allows Vermeer to create a “dynamically charged teen of Vermeer’s paintings.!*° One of these pin- space.” Additionally, the mirror above the virginal holes, the only physical evidence Vermeer left of records the geometry of the room so faithfully that this working method, is still visible in Allegory of Steadman was able to construct, using the reflectfaith. By use of pin and string, Vermeer could cre- ed image, a plan of the section of the room shown ate orthogonals stretching to any part of his can- in the mirror. The mirror, presenting an oblique

vas. The lines were transferred to the canvas by view of the deep space of the room, encourages applying chalk to the string and then snapping the — entry therein.!*° stretched line onto the canvas, leaving a chalk line. We have seen how van Eyck combined perspecThis system would have been similar to those _ tival effects with either a mirror or a reflective sur-

outlined in any number of guides to perspective face in both the Arnolfini double portrait and the drawing that were being published at the time. (It Canon van der Paele Madonna to create the illuis quite possible that Vermeer possessed one or sion of reality. Like van Eyck, Vermeer used the more of these guides, since at the time of his death same devices to draw us into his carefully crafted he owned five folio volumes and twenty-five assort- world. I will pursue this parallel at the end of the ed books, a library that for its time was not insignif- chapter, but now I wish to address the manifestaicant.'*’) This method was widely practiced by the _ tions in Vermeer’s work of that other quality that architectural painters Gerard Houckgeest (c.1600— these two master painters shared with each other 1661) and Emanuel de Witte (c.1617—-92) as wellas as well as with Galileo and Leeuwenhoek—the

other genre artists. boundless capacity for observation.

Throughout his career Vermeer used perspec- Vermeer’s work displays what must have been an tive as a tool to increase the emotional impact of almost obsessive need to paint the infinite variety of his work.!*° In three paintings—Officer and Laugh- material life. Hubert von Sonnenburg thinks that ing Girl, The Art of Painting, and Mistress and Maid— Vermeer’s “consummate observation of optical

Vermeer used perspective to further his artistic effects” resulted in works “characterized by an ends. In Officer and Laughing Girl, Vermeer places _ intensely intellectual analysis of optical realism.”!°°

the soldier’s chair on a much higher horizon line’ P. T. A. Swillens, in his monograph on Vermeer, than the other objects in the room, thus accentu- noted the artist’s ability to veridically depict a variating his presence and giving a greater sense of — ety of visual effects. “In Vermeer’s works of art there

intimacy to the scene. In The Art of Painting, Ver- are countless particulars, which have received

meer places the vanishing point just below the attention for the first time since the growth of model’s right hand in order to draw attention to modern science and which are also explained by it, her. The artist, however, is not set within the same but which Vermeer solely arrived at by intense, perspectival system and as a result is much larger lengthy and serious observation.”!°! The incarnain scale. In the final painting, Vermeer again tion of these optical particulars in Vermeer’s work enhances the contrast between two subjects by puts one in mind of Witz and his representation of torquing his perspective system. Here the mistress the reflecting properties of a body of water. is larger than would be called for in a strict per- Vermeer took care to record the subtle phenomspectival construction. By this device and also by enon of double shadows in numerous paintings.

50 GIANTS OF DELFT We can see this in The Music Lesson. Steadman has dow nearest the spectator’s viewpoint. Vermeer constructed a model at one-sixth the full size of the painted the lead bars in lapis lazuli instead of

scene depicted by this painting. Using large dif- black. The bars therefore appear thinner and fusers to simulate north light, he was able to recre- enhance the effect of light folding around ate the same double shadows observed and painted them.'*® In Officer and Laughing Girl, Vermeer with such care by Vermeer.!°? In Woman in Blue paints a highly abstract pattern above the soldier’s Reading a Letter, Vermeer increased the complexity head to represent sunshine reflecting and refractof the shadow to the right of the chair against the ing off the windowpane. It is an optical effect, the back wall by painting in a secondary shadow result- visual by-product of the action of radiant energy ing from what must be another light source.’*” Itis on glass that in all likelihood was observed and a delicate, almost unnoticeable treatment, but one examined through a camera obscura or a widethat speaks volumes regarding Vermeer’s observa- angle lens.!*9 tional powers. This same shadow, which varies in To be sure, Vermeer observed and investigated color from a soft blue tint to a deep blue-black, dis- effects few artists appreciated and his willingness plays yet another aspect of Vermeer’s sweeping to make use of instrumental adjuncts to augment

visual discernment. Von Sonnenburg calls this his creative vision was key to his success in this innovation of “introducing illuminosity and color area. It was, however, his surpassing technique that into each shadow” a “coloristic chiaroscuro.” Ver- allowed him to somehow transmute the optical meer realized that shadows are never simply black nuances of reality into an original and easily reador brown but can display a range of hues modulat- able visual language. Like Galileo, Leeuwenhoek,

ed by the attendant illumination and surrounding and van Eyck, Vermeer’s peerless technique

color,!?* enabled him to see and describe in a most unique The Music Lesson is a fine example of Vermeer’s way. Swillens, examining the curtain in Allegory of ability to put these principles into practice. On the faith, was moved to comment that Vermeer’s care lower part of the back wall, Vermeer paints a_ in reproducing its texture, shine, color, and weave bluish tint, while the upper part of the same wall exemplified “a staggering mastery and dominanearest the windows has a yellow tint that seems to _ tion of technique.”!*°

take on a darker bluish tone farther from the win- The use of complex layering in The Milkmaid dow.'%° Throughout Vermeer’s oeuvre we can see may best represent the pinnacle of Vermeer’s masthese subtle variations played out almost endlessly — terful technique. Wheelock, in Vermeer & the Art of

as part of his intent to precisely render the shad- Painting, has looked at seventeen of Vermeer’s ows cast by different sources of illumination. In — paintings, analyzing the artist’s manner of workOfficer and Laughing Girl, we can again see Vermeer ing. In the bread-and-basket area of The Milkmaid, painting a shadow not simply as black or brown Vermeer started with a rich orange brown proba-

but containing blue, both in the upper corner bly mixed with a combination of lead white and near the map and in the shaded area of the young __lead-tin yellow. Vermeer then laid on dabs of white

girl’s kerchief.!°° and off-white paint and laid over this a glaze of red Vermeer’s sensitivity to light and color effects lake. Vermeer used the red to define the shaded can also be seen in Young Woman with a Water Pitch- areas and the handle of the basket and also to

er. In a technical analysis of this painting, von Son- accent the bread. This same glaze was then nenburg has shown that Vermeer glazed the allowed to seep into the crevices of zmpasio he had window with ultramarine to indicate subdued light painted on the handle. Finally, Vermeer painted and faint shadows. Vermeer left one area free of his signature specular highlights by applying dots the ultramarine, and that is where the fingers can of white paint to the bread and basket. In A be seen behind the pane. Magnification of this Woman Asleep, Vermeer used this same technique area reveals that Vermeer bordered the fingers of complex layering to achieve realistic effects. For with a whitish blue halo, creating a painterly pre- the tapestry on the table he started with a reddish cipitate that “increases the illusion of being seen ocher with orange and a layer of black to define through the glass—an example of Vermeer’s — the blue in the design. Over this base he painted a almost uncanny sensitivity to optical laws.”!8’ This thin layer of natural ultramarine and then added refinement regarding the depiction of optical white highlights. Vermeer handled the rear part of effects is again seen in The Music Lesson in the win- the tapestry differently, to create a type of atmos-

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER 51 pheric perspective effect by “applying rapid focus and materialize his vision. Like van Eyck, he strokes of a thin reddish glaze, probably red lake, used painting technique itself as a type of metaover the reddish ocher base that he then accented instrument to record new visual/optical effects

by wavy black lines.”!#! and achieve new expressive possibilities. Van Eyck It is, however, in Vermeer’s use of diffused high- and Vermeer, both gifted with superior sensitivity

lights that we can best see him distance himself to optical effects, each sought ways to augment from his contemporaries. Although other Dutch and amplify their already superior visual abilities. artists such as Kalf used specular highlights, Ver- Van Eyck’s search led him to develop the circummeer’s use of this effect amounted to a difference ambient process so similar to Hooke’s method in kind, not degree. One example of Vermeer’s regarding microscopial investigation. Frustrated singularity can be seen in the still life on the table by the limitations of existing oil techniques, van in The Milkmaid. Here, by the power of Vermeer’s Eyck “invented” his own. Needing to see the tangtcomplex technique, the small dabs of paint have _ ble aspects of reality in all their infinite variety, he

mutated from mere highlights into an integral developed his eye as an optical instrument and part of Vermeer’s attempt to convince the viewer produced paintings whose naturalism is sufficient that he is looking not at a picture of an object but for scientific analysis. Not satisfied with these

at the object itself. objectifications, he looked to gain new insights

Throughout his career, Vermeer used specular from reflective surfaces, mirrors, and an idiosynhighlights in both innovative and varied ways. In cratic perspective system, all used as instrumenThe Milkmaid, the highlights suggest texture, while tal/visual adjuncts. Vermeer’s explorations led in Officer and Laughing Girl they indicate the mass him to make use of the camera obscura, mirrors, of a brightly lit object. In Girl with the Red Hat, the lenses, perspective constructions, and painting lion-head finial seems closest to reproducing true — technique as tools for amassing and ordering visudiscs of confusion as seen in a camera obscura. In al data. Vermeer, like van Eyck, lavished varied View of Delft, Vermeer uses the highlights to suggest “forms of attention” upon the problem of the the reflection of light off water, while in The Art of | depiction of reality. By doing so, Vermeer hoped Painting and The Lacemaker, he blurs the highlights to “produce new understanding” and thereafter and the focus to suggest depth of field, evocatively incorporated this newfound knowledge into his so in The Lacemaker, as the threads seem to fuse _ paintings.!*9

together, transformed by the power of Vermeer’s In the same way that Vermeer and van Eyck

virtuosity. used methods that allowed them to see and Vermeer varied his technique not only from describe in a manner beyond the reach of others,

painting to painting but within individual canvases Leeuwenhoek and Galileo developed similar paths as well. This is especially evident in the still-life to discovery. Leeuwenhoek made use of multifariareas in paintings such as A Woman Asleep, The ous microscopial techniques in his quest to invesMilkmaid, and The Music Lesson. In each of these — tigate the microcosm. But more than this, like his paintings, Vermeer varied his technique to best artistic counterparts, he showed a relentless deterexpress the texture, mass, and physicality of cloth, mination regarding the process of observation porcelain, glass, fruit, clay, bread, wicker, and _ itself. Leeuwenhoek’s singular tool was the simple

metal. This variation of technique within a single microscope and from this vantage point he in image may be best exemplified in View of Delft. effect varied his forms of attention by means of Within this townscape, Vermeer employed diverse what K. van Berkel has called Leeuwenhoek’s methods in his treatment of the red tiled roof to “concentric method.” “Leeuwenhoek had another the left, the sunlit roofs in the middle distance, the way of working which could be best described as tower of the Nieuwe Kerk, the blue roof of the Rot- the ‘concentric method.’ What this really amountterdam Gate, the yellow roof above the Rotterdam _ ed to was that in his letters Leeuwenhoek returned

Gate, the boat in the lower right, the water, and again and again to the same subject, approaching the near shore. This is a masterful exposition of it each time in a different way without using expeVermeer’s technical virtuosity in all of its multi- riences he had gained previously. He sought to

form manifestations.!* approach a subject in an unbiased manner from Vermeer mastered and made use of diverse various angles. By circling round the truth in this techniques both within and between paintings to way he thought he could arrive at a more accurate

ays GIANTS OF DELFT determination.”!** Leeuwenhoek’s approach led Van Eyck and his contemporaries produced him at one point to have as many as fifty different devotional paintings with an aim to affect the menwood specimens and, in 1688, caused him to kill tal status of the viewer and thereby help induce a

more than a hundred mosquitoes in order to visionary state. | have proposed that van Eyck used obtain mouthparts for observation. One scholar his oil technique in a similar manner to enhance describes Leeuwenhoek’s method as “a program his own optical sensitivity and that this use paralof microscopic research unprecedented in its leled scientific investigators’ use of instruments to

scope and persistence.”!* create artificial states and experiences. Ford has

Galileo also brought a multiplicity of skills to given us a specific example of the use of lenses in bear upon the problem of properly reading the this manner. In Single Lens, he describes experiBook of Nature. He considered the senses as ments he conducted with the Utrecht Leeuweninstruments that could be perfected by man-made hoek lens. He points out that he was able to obtain instruments and further aided by logico-rational photographs that show detail of.75 micrometers in calculations.!*° As a result, he refined his instru- thickness, almost twice the expected resolution. ment-making ability as well as his instrumental He concludes that “a lens can be used to visualize technique. Already a keen observer, he sharpened — structures that are beyond its theoretical capacity his visual skills by becoming proficient in Disegno. for resolution—another reason for my use of the He also had several friends who were artists and lenses to obtain working images, rather than rely-

made use of data they compiled regarding ing purely on hypothetical considerations.” !°? sunspots. In addition, he stressed the importance Ford ’s use of the terms “visualize” and “working of making “oft-repeated observations’ before com- images” 1S particularly revealing. We have already

ing to any concinGnet! seen that Kepler’s mechanization of sight Looking at lenses and optical concerns provides stemmed at least in part from a familiarity with some basis for explaining Vermeer’s creations. Ian techniques developed by artists such as Durer and Hacking, in Representing and Intervening, looks at Leonardo and how this translated into a “visual-

the question of whether or not we “see” with a ization of optical problems” that produced microscope.!*® He points out that the image in a_ inspired results. Leonardo, using three-dimenmicroscope is not produced by the ordinary laws sional drawing “much in the manner of a modern of refraction. Rather, as discovered by Ernst Abbe | slow-motion camera or microscope,”!”! was able to (1840-1905), “What you see, in fact, is best repre- visualize the human body as never before and pro-

sented as a Fourier synthesis of the transmitted duce working images that are exemplars of scienand the diffracted rays. Thus according to Abbe | tific illustration. the image of the object is produced by the inter- Thus we can imagine Vermeer in his studio, ference of the light waves emitted by the principal quietly making use of his contrivances to create image, and the secondary images of the light working images, images that would help him visusource which are the result of the diffraction.”!49 — alize aspects of reality beyond the ken of normal Vermeer’s approach represents what can result vision. In this dark chamber, at this nexus of visufrom a Fourier-type synthesis of “varied forms of alization and aesthetic experience, of sight and attention.” Vermeer’s paintings can be seen as a imagination, we see Vermeer on the brink of artissummation, an integration of both principal and tic inspiration, using the camera closet to visualize secondary images revealed by the camera obscura, and create images beyond the capacity of others to lenses, mirrors, perspective constructions, tech- resolve.!°? nique, and most importantly, the creative lens of View of Delft, probably made with the aid of a the artist’s painterly vision. Many of the optical camera obscura, is a paradigm example of this effects Vermeer employed are not just literal tran- process. It is generally agreed that Vermeer used a scriptions of the camera image or strict perspecti- Camera obscura (probably a room-type camera) to val constructions, but rather are variations of the create this marvelous image. We can locate on old basic optical image presented. Vermeer’s achieve- maps the house where this was done.'”” It is the ment results from his ability to integrate these matter of the extent of Vermeer’s reliance on the basic forms into a new model of reality refracted camera that divides some scholars. Some, like through the prepotent lens of his esemplastic Wheelock, believe that while Vermeer may have

genius. used the camera as a starting point, he did not

2 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, VAN EYCK, AND VERMEER D9 make a literal transcription of the scene. In this philosophy would have demanded a fidelity to realregard, Wheelock has noted numerous modifica- _ ity as the starting point for any work of art—he was tions that Vermeer made to the topography and most concerned with placing a different type of composition of the painting. Vermeer also modi- symmetry over this foundation in order to achieve fied some of the camera’s effects to better suit his a more profound realism.'!°’ Vermeer’s employartistic intent.!°! Steadman believes that while Ver- ment of the camera in this manner—his attention meer did not always copy the camera image point to the nature of perception, his combination of for point, he did not deviate from the source detached observation and involved ideation, of sciimage generated by the camera as much as Whee- entific and _ painterly logic—recalls Mayor’s

lock suggests. !°° description of another artist who dared to blur the

It is the dual nature of Vermeer’s use of the cam- line between science and art. “It does not matter era, his integration of sight and imagination, that that Leonardo lacked the academic system to do generates these differing interpretations. The end what Vesalius and Calcar were later to do as a team, product of Vermeer’s process of creation was both for he had a rarer gift . . . he discovered how to a literal transcription of an instrument-mediated describe nature through a classic compromise panorama and an emotional transmutation of that between a copy of appearances and an abstract diaincipient image into what has been called a “pro- gram of connections understood by the intellect jected actuality.”!°° While Vermeer paid careful... The discipline of difficult seeing enriched his

attention to the empirical authenticity of the art with an intellectual fascination that art has scenes he painted—in fact I believe Vermeer’s core _ since lost by losing contact with science.”!®

Galileo, Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, and Vermeer THE INTELLECT AS LENS irregular mirror that deforms and distorts reflected objects.°

The thought style of the seventeenth century, root- Seeing is a dynamic process that involves an ed in observation and instrumentation, cut across unthinking instrument, the eye, and a thinking all disciplines. The work of Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, instrument, the brain.* We normally overlook the and Vermeer exemplifies this phenomenon. Instru- interaction of eye and brain because the human mental adjuncts, while providing creative insight eye is literally part of the brain. The retina is in

and optical magnification to the biologist, essence a very complex light-sensitive expansion astronomer, and artist, at the same time presented of the optic nerve that is itself an extension of the new challenges. With the discovery that the organ- brain.” Ludwig Fleck has described the effect this ic camera obscura known as the human eye could arrangement has on our attitude toward percepbe augmented by man-made optical devices came _ tion. “We have even lost any critical insight we may the additional realization that simple seeing must once have had into the organic basis of percepbe distinguished from informed observation, lest tion, taking for granted the basic fact that a northe new realities revealed remain an unresolvable mal person has two eyes. We have nearly ceased to terra incognita. Ironically, instruments, while consider this as even knowledge at all and are no increasing man’s range of perception, at the same longer conscious of our own participation in per-

time placed yet one more layer between the ception. Instead, we feel a complete passivity in observer and the reality “out there.” The Scottish the face of a power that is independent of us; a anatomist Sir John Goodsir was still grappling with power we call ‘existence’ or ‘reality.’”°

this same issue nearly 250 years after the dis- Because of this seamless integration, our percovery of the telescope and microscope when he | ception of the world is accepted as a single step, an told his students that these contrivances consti- immediate transmission of the reality “out there,” tuted “additional eyes” whose proper use required a nonmediated process. But a mediating process a “supplementary education.”! The new images does exist. The image received is processed by the and unfamiliar sights presented by these additional mind. This is in spite of the fact that this image is eyes had to be interpreted correctly in order not to never really seen. The strange thing about vision is

become mere obfuscation. that although light rays passing through the lens

The necessity for further instruction about the of the eye form images on the retina, much like a process of making truly informed observations is camera obscura, the picture formed there is never rooted in the fact that man can never apprehend actually “viewed” in the same sense that we are the world directly. As Kant reasoned, we can know — able to observe the scene that appears on the suronly that world which our mental apparatus pre- face opposite the peep-hole in a camera obscura.’ sents to us. Descartes stated the problem in terms There is no “little man” sitting at this juncture to of “res cogitans” (in here) versus “res exlensa” (out interpret the patterns presented. Rather, what we there). Ernst Cassirer felt there was an “index of have is a complex, abstract process involving phorefraction” between the objective and subjective toreceptors, nerve fibers, and bipolar, ganglion, worlds and that the human mind was responsible amacrine, and horizontal cells that somehow turns for managing this interface. Cassirer saw this mod- a spatial pattern into a chemico-electrical signal ulating/distorting capacity of the mind as “the understood by the visual cortex.®

very essence of creative power.” Francis Bacon And yet, the images we see of the world are (1561-1626) compared the human mind to an _ taken for granted as a veridical representation D4

3 / GALILEO, HUYGENS, LEEUWENHOEK, AND VERMEER 55 when in fact they are something else altogether. men in front of them. The more complex or unfaWhen I say something else, I do not imply a mis-_ miliar the figure, the more it resembles the textrepresentation, but rather a construct or map of book example. Johnson Abercrombie concludes reality that, as Cassirer said, is the end product of _ that the solution to this problem is to help the stuthe distorting quality of the mind. E. H. Gom- dents develop more “flexible schematics” so that brich, in Art and Illusion, discusses the process by unfamiliar data can be more easily processed by which we construct these maps of reality. He pre- the individual observer."! sents the theory of the psychologists Bruner and The difficulties associated with drawing unfamilPostman that our perceptual processes can be _ iar objects and the use of mental constructs in the looked at as a series of hypotheses we provisional- process of representation is nowhere better illus-

ly establish about the world, hypotheses that are trated than in the field of astronomy. During either proved or disproved as we experience reali- November and December of the year 1609 Galileo ty. Since we can sometimes fail to disprove a false turned his newly constructed telescope upon the hypothesis, we can be deceived. As a result, the moon and was able to accurately discern and repline between perception and illusion can at times resent its physical features. As I discuss later, it was be blurred.” It is this ambiguous nature of percep- Galileo’s exposure to the artistic tradition of Flotion that Gombrich addresses in his discussion of rence that enabled him to bring to the telescope an artist who tries to make a truthful record of an and the viewing process the appropriate schematindividual form. He says the artist does not begin — ics and hypotheses that allowed him to make accuwith a visual impression but rather a mental con- rate visual interpretations. Galileo was well aware of cept. This concept takes the shape of a schematic the importance of using his mind when observing. form that he can then use as a framework around In responding to the work of a rival, he said: “If which to build his representation. When dealing [Grassi] had used not just the eyes in his head, but with a “nonsense figure,” the artist tries to fit the those in his mind as well... he would have underfigure into the closest analogous schema and then _ stood that the blue of the sky is nothing other than

adjust or correct it as need be. the color of the vaporous medium, and so forth.”'*

Gombrich applies this theory of schema and Thomas Harriot had preceded Galileo by some correction to artists’ attempts to draw unfamiliar six months in using a telescope to examine the or new images. One drawing of a locust from 1556 moon, but his drawing of it is a far cry from is obviously a composite of several animals with Galileo’s insightful, naturalistic illustrations. Harwhich the artist was familiar, including a horse. riot saw the moon’s surface markings but was Gombrich points out that the German word for unable to explain what they signified. He merely locust is Heupferd (hay horse). Another example of called them “the strange spottednesse of the an artist’s mental schema affecting the representa- Moon.” It was left to Galileo to determine that the tion of an unfamiliar object is an engraving (1598) moon’s blemishes represent craters, large moun-

after Goltzius of a whale. The depiction seems tain chains, and valleys.!° It wasn’t until after accurate enough except that the whale has ears. In Galileo published his discoveries about the moon this instance, the artist was misled by the familiar in his pamphlet, Sidereus Nuncius, that Marriot saw schema of a typical head. Even Durer, that master the craters and mountains he had failed to recogof observation, succumbed to this pitfall when fill- nize in 1609. He even drew another lunar picture ing in the details of a rhinoceros in his well-known four months after Szdereus Nuncius was published woodcut of 1515. Gombrich thinks that the rhi- which showed the moon’s craters more clearly.!* noceros’s armored body is taken from Durer’s own —_ Harriot was unable to “see” the lunar surface cor-

imaginings of a dragon, which probably repre- rectly because he had no “theoretical framework” sented the closest schema his mind could evoke. within which to fit the images presented to his Gombrich rightly concludes: “To draw an unfamil- _ eyes.!° Galileo’s publication provided this frame-

iar sight presents greater difficulties than is usual- work. Other philosophers and astronomers fol-

ly realized.”!° lowed suit and in a short time many others began M. L. Johnson Abercrombie says that seeing and to see these previously indiscernible details.

thinking are “inextricably mixed” and points out How did this happen? Why did Galileo see what that student drawings in biology tend to resemble others missed, and why did others realize their the textbook figures more than the actual speci- mistake so readily only after Galileo explained it?

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lection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889. All rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3 / GALILEO, HUYGENS, LEEUWENHOEK, AND VERMEER fa object-hypotheses. Vermeer’s genius lay in his abil- experiments and controls,” put together and reg-

ity to apply his own experimental/concentric ulated by an expert, an experienced individual method to artistic problems and from this synthe- whose knowledge enabled him to see knowingly.*®

size a new image of reality. Experts such as Vermeer, Leeuwenhock, Huygens, It has been said that the work of original artists Galileo, and Hooke were experienced in the art of has a kind of strangeness because they present attentive observation and because of this saw what aspects of reality not previously recognized.’’ This others missed. element of strangeness in Vermeer’s work has The ability of these individuals to reveal to us been noted by several commentators. I believe the aspects of the world not previously evident is due to

source of this characteristic is the fact that Ver- the fact that their act of looking was a “theorymeer was a paradigm observer, like his scientific laden” undertaking. This connection of seeing, counterparts. Like them he established his origi- knowing, mental viewing, and the use of objectnal conceptions by acquiring technical skills, per- hypotheses is perhaps best expressed in Robert forming experiments, amassing observations, and Colodny’s discussion of the meaning of the word then using the lens of his mind to create new “theory”: “In the old Greek, theory, theora, implied

object-hypotheses and schemas.’® vision—a spectacle. A theoretical scientist was in

Vermeer undoubtedly acquired great physical this sense a supreme visionary, a fabricator of picand technical skill in the handling and use of mir- tures of the world, an artisan working with ideas.”®! rors, lenses, and the camera obscura. As Steadman Creative geniuses, visionaries, fabricate original has shown, Vermeer went so far as to construct a__ pictures of the world and by doing so allow the rest

room-type camera obscura in his studio.’? Addi- of us to see more and differently. Leeuwenhoek, tionally, Vermeer’s concentric method provided Galileo, Huygens, and Vermeer shared a common the means by which he compiled the visual data’ procedure of using their intellect as a visual and and experience necessary for carrying out his conceptual lens, a procedure I call “mental lenspainterly experimental program. Finally, his abili- ing.” Their minds had that distorting quality of ty to see differently, to make the kind of gestalt creativity that enabled them to refract new images switches that Huygens and Galileo made, resulted and ideas into a singular vision of reality. They saw from his ability to bring to the process of observa- better because their intellectual and visual subtletion complex and varied visual/mental constructs, — ty allowed them to bring complexity and variety to

constructs that allowed him to explore and _ the process of vision. In the same way that Galileo

describe new areas of reality. made his “transformations,” Vermeer transformed Leeuwenhock’s subject matter consisted of the — reality by painting it. For Vermeer the art of paint-

microscopic world and the tiny organisms he ing was an instrument of knowledge, each paintfound there. Galileo and Huygens explored the ing a part of his own small multiple depicting heavens. Vermeer’s field of study was nothing less _ reality. By applying sight and imagination to everythan our perception of the universe around us. In day reality Vermeer gave us another way of viewing their respective domains, Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, — it. By directing our perception of reality, Vermeer

Huygens, and Vermeer all tried to establish proof allows us to augment our understanding of it and that what they saw was a true picture of reality. to develop true understanding over time as we fabFleck believed that this required a “system of ricate our own pictures of the world.

4 Leeuwenhoek, Galileo, Hooke, and Vermeer THE INTERPLAY OF TEXT AND IMAGE ten words; you might suppose that they understand what they are saying but if you ask them what they

In the last chapter I considered how expert mean by anything, they simply return the same observers, by the method of mental lensing, used answer over and over again.”! This bond of silence their intellect as both a conceptual and visual lens — is evident in the paintings of Vermeer. More than

to bring into focus features of reality that were one author has commented on the stillness and unclear to their contemporaries. In their pub- silence of Vermeer’s paintings. Throughout Verlished works, these investigators used conceptual meer’s oeuvre, writing is represented in various and visual elements, text and image, to convey forms. Books, letters, and maps all form key eletheir discoveries. In his early astronomical work ments in numerous paintings and, as we will see, (Letters on Sunspots, Sidereus Nuncius), Galileo com- reflect Vermeer’s strong belief in the relation bined text and image to advantage. Galileo’s tech- between word and image, ideas and painting.

nique of using the “eyes of the mind” had both During the seventeenth century, the close relaconceptual (logico-rational calculations) and visu- tion of word and image was acknowledged by the al (Disegno) components. We see this same con- widespread acceptance of Horace’s phrase “ut prcjunction of conceptual and visual, text and image, lura poesis” (as is painting, so is poetry). Renaisin Hooke’s Micrographia, Muygens’s Systema Sal- sance theorists believed that painting should have urnium, and Leeuwenhoek’s long series of letters themes and like a play reflect the drama of human with accompanying illustrations directed to the interaction.” Italian artists, by incorporating narraRoyal Society. For seventeenth-century natural — tive elements into their paintings, hoped to rival philosophers, however, text clearly held the key to the descriptive power of poetry and literature. In knowledge. For them, the drawing served to illus- Holland, the Amsterdam history painters pro-

trate the all-important text. Just one hundred duced works described as “painted plays.” Their years before, the works of Leonardo, Vesalius, paintings displayed many of the same elements

Brunfels, and Fuchs featured the power of the evident in contemporary theater and some of image. Their creations, exemplars of illustration, their work is said to represent scenes from specific used the text to explicate the pictures. Text and productions.” image were used in a more equal fashion to com- The Paragone, one of the popular diversions of municate information and provide a comprehen- the Renaissance literati, was encouraged by the sive report. In this chapter, I will examine the conjunction of visual and verbal. The Paragone, or relation of text and image in these works, as wellas comparison of the arts, consisted of debates “in the work of the Flemish/Dutch illuminators, and which ingenious arguments would be adduced to explore their effect on Vermeer’s attitude toward _ prove the superiority of one over another.” Galileo

and use of text in his paintings. Let us begin by took part in one of these discussions when, at looking at the general relation of word andimage, Cigoli’s request, he wrote a letter in June 1612

a relation as old as scripture. . arguing against the superiority of sculpture over Even before the Bible’s association of word and _ painting.’

light, Plato’s Socrates linked words and pictures, The relation between word and image, however, writing and painting, bya common basis of silence. is more than a connection forged by silence or a “The productions of painting look like living conjunction of painting and ideas; it goes to the beings, but if you ask them a question they main- very essence of our ability to think abstractly and tain a solemn silence. The same holds true of writ- communicate. Any attempt to convey our feelings, 72

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER ffs intentions, or meanings to another requires their image as a means of communication. He tracks description, or rather, “picturing” these feelings, the development of printmaking and shows how it intentions, or meanings in words. When a written has developed its own language and “syntax” in or verbal description is graphic it “calls forth a much the same way that the written word develmental image as sharply defined as the visual oped, especially after the invention of the press. impression made by a picture.”? R. L. Gregory has However, in the same way that language imposes investigated the process of vision and perception — limits on description, so too do the conventions of and concludes that pictures and picturing lead to painting and printmaking delimit and even direct abstract symbols and after this to written language. an artist’s vision. Artistic styles cause an artist to

He points out that written languages that can be focus on particular elements of the seen world. spoken are of two kinds. Words can be built up ‘Those features deemed unimportant would, as a either by characters representing syllables or by matter of course, not be included in the artist’s members of an alphabet. In either case, none of statement.”

the symbols lose their picture quality. Early lan- Theorists in other fields have taken up this guages began by drawing pictures of important equivalence of pictorial and verbal representation details of the object or relation in question. When — and applied it to their own programs of investiga-

the concept became too abstract, the pictures tion. Barry Barnes, in his study of learning and could not adequately deliver the meaning. This knowledge generation, argues that the equivabrought on the need for a development of the pic- lence of all representations, pictorial or verbal, tures into formal symbols, and eventually, a struc- should be emphasized. He looks at observing as a tured language. Gregory says that we can still see kind of learning and says it is “an active and a in written language some of the simple picture socially mediated process.” In fact, he feels that forms that were the basis for its development.°® Gombrich’s and Ivins’s accounts of how images are In Art and Illusion, Gombrich inquires into the constructed serve as “informal working model|[s] relation of word and image and relates an experi- for the construction of knowledge.” Barnes agrees ment wherein a figure is flashed on a screen fora with Gombrich and Ivins regarding the linguistic short moment. In this experiment it was found that aspect of painting and thinks that painting conthe label given to the object influenced the schema _ ventions can be meaningful in the same sense as and resultant interpretation. The better the label words.'!° Donald Hoffman has proposed that or description given the object, the better the sub- human beings learn to create understandable visujects did at reconstructing the figure.’ Recent al images despite the infinite ambiguity reality preresearch suggests, however, that in some situations, sents because of innate rules of visual construction

verbal labels can actually interfere with visual that he calls the rules of universal vision. He commemories.® The effect, called verbal overshadow- pares these rules of seeing to Noam Chomsky’s ing, can be seen in Gombrich’s example regarding _ rules of universal grammar that allow the develop-

the sixteenth-century woodcut of the invading ment of language in humans. Hoffman argues that locust called a Heupferd (hayhorse), wherein the — both sets of rules are part of our genetic makeup insect is given the attributes of a horse. Gombrich and permit parallel development of complex applies this notion of description, schema, and _ vision and speech.!! labeling to artists and argues that artists look for In light of this close conjunction of the verbal motifs that they can understand and apply as a_ and visual, what explains the dominance of word result of their particular style and training. Justasa over image until the Renaissance? There are many writer must have a vocabulary to adequately picture reasons, not the least of which is that visual conin words, so too must an artist have a visual vocab- ventions were slower to develop than those estab-

ulary in order to successfully picture in paint. lished for written and spoken languages. As a Artists use a pictorial vocabulary or “language of result, the word gained an advantage it would not symbols” to create their images. For Gombrich, the — easily relinquish. Words—repeatable, portable, language of art uses conventional signs or symbols and malleable in profoundly important ways—

like any written language. came to have magical qualities. !° Consequently, William Ivins, in his study on prints and engray-. the authority of the classical masters became ings, Prints and Visual Communication, similarly supreme. When ancient texts were being discovinquires into the function of the reproducible ered and translated during the Middle Ages, their

74 GIANTS OF DELFT content was accepted as fact even when the state- It was Brunfels’s draughtsman, Hans Weiditz (b. ments did not agree with experimental findings.'* before 1500-d. circa 1536), who suffused the book This began to change about the fourteenth cen- with realistic representations and thereby brought

tury as a general tendency toward naturalism its subject matter to life. The title means “Living emerged in both science and art. This inclination Portraits of Plants” and it was true to its name. ripened into a working theme for investigators Weiditz, born in Freiburg, worked for a time in such as Leonardo. Leonardo trusted in the power Hans Burgkmair’s studio as a book illustrator and of sight as the primary means through which man draughtsman. Weiditz’s debt to Northern naturalcould obtain certain knowledge about nature and ism, especially Durer’s expression of it, is eviher creations. By relying on vision as his main denced by the fact that at times his work has been

source of information and by producing visually incorrectly attributed to the great Nuremberg eloquent images, Leonardo contested the primacy master.!® of the word.!4 For Leonardo and other artists of Twelve years later, Fuchs published De Historia the Renaissance, the written word took no prece- Stirpium at Basel. Fuchs, while maintaining more

dence over the image. In many of Leonardo’s control over his team of artists, ultimately gave works, especially in anatomical studies such as them full credit. In his herbal he included a page Muscles of the Right Arm, Shoulder, and Chest, we see with portraits of Albrecht Meyer, who drew the

him combine word and image in presentations plants; Heinrich Fullmaurer, who transferred the that were revolutionary in design and conception. drawings to the woodblocks; and Veit Rudolph In another drawing (The Superficial Anatomy of the Speckle, who did the cutting.’ Although both Foot and Lower Leg), Leonardo shows the word Brunfels’s and Fuchs’s books are considered the superimposed on the image and at the same time high points of botanical illustration, there are the image superimposed on the text. In these stud- differences between them. Weiditz’s drawings ies we can see the near equivalence that Leonardo are more mimetic in character, displaying the indi-

assigned to word and image, and in fact his textu- vidual characteristics of each plant, while the al commentaries have been characterized as mak-_ delineations of Meyer and his associates tend to a ing a “significant contribution to the evolution of more generalized or iconographical approach.”? scientific prose in the Italian vernacular.”!° Galileo Although these publications took differing was to make his own contribution to scientific approaches to solving the problems inherent in prose one hundred years later; but whereas — scientific illustration, their blending of text and Galileo used the image to illustrate the argument image greatly advanced botanical science. of his text, Leonardo, in spite of his exhaustive use Of course, the newly achieved status of the of text, kept it secondary to his drawings. In image created some friction. Even Brunfels, whose Leonardo’s studies, image and word share com- creation owed so much to the brilliance of its mon space, but the image displaces the word as images as conveyors of information, complained

final authority. that more attention was paid to the “dead lines” of With their emphasis on describing the world in _ illustration than to his writing.*! Fuchs, as we have

visual terms, Renaissance artists developed new seen, did acknowledge the contributions of his symbolic conventions for seeing and representing — artist-craftsmen. He was no doubt aware of the syn-

the seen, and in so doing, set the stage for the ergistic effect that could occur between word and explosion of technical printed books that was to image. In fact, his writing most probably benefited come in the early sixteenth century.'® Once the from this interaction. Without an accompanying printing press became a reality, the image could figure reproducing the subject at hand, an author become the statement, as in the great herbals of — relying solely on written descriptions is limited to Otto Brunfels (c. 1489-1534) and Leonhart Fuchs conventional terms that are subject to different (1501-66). Brunfels’s Herbarum Vivae Licones of interpretations. With the presence of a faithfully 1530 constituted a quantum leap in botanical illus- recorded image, one that is exactly reproducible,

tration. Except for the publication of three Venet- the author not only can be, but must be, more ian herbals around 1400, the Latin Herbarius of precise.7* 1484 and the Gart der Gesundheit of 1485, there had This happy marriage of word and illustration been no other attempts at making reproducible, reached a full flowering in 1543 with Andreas

scientifically oriented plant studies. !/ Vesalius’s (1514-64) definitive work, De Humani

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Leonardo da Vinci, Muscles of the Right Arm, Shoulder, and Chest, c. 1510-11. Windsor, Royal Library (RL 19008v). The Royal Collection © 2002, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

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Leonardo da Vinci, The Superficial Anatomy of the Foot and Lower Leg, 1510. Windsor, Royal Library (RL

19017r). The Royal Collection © 2002, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I.

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER (K| Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem. The Fabrica can be round and gives them a depth and a volume pre-

considered the high water mark in the union of viously unrecordable and thus incommunicaword and image. Before the Fabrica, anatomical _ ble.”*° Vesalius’s description provided depth and

texts existed in much the same state as medieval volume to the human anatomical landscape in herbals. Into the sixteenth century, anatomical much the same fashion that Galileo’s revelations descriptions commonly showed a lack of attention later supplied the lunar landscape with a fullness to realism. The images, crude and inaccurate, and relief never before imagined. were not intended to faithfully reflect the human Soon after Vesalius’s accomplishment, investigaform but rather served to document medical con- tors in other fields produced works using this same

cepts and the verbal pronouncements of physi- conjunction. Conrad Gesner (1516-65), a Swiss cians. The drawings in these works served a more physician and naturalist who trained himself in

symbolic purpose.*° drawing and watercoloring, published the first This changed in 1543. The illustrations in the _ treatise in which illustrations were used as an inteFabrica are a dynamic integration of sinewy detail gral part of a discourse on fossils. Historiae Animal-

and skeletal outline, embodying what has been tum (History of Animals) was published between called a synthesis of “northern scholastic logic and 1551 and 1558 in several volumes.*” Gesner also naturalistic exactitude” and “Italian intellectual planned a similar work on plant life, Historia Plandraftsmanship.”** The author of these drawings is taruwm, but it was never finished. At his death, Gesnot known with certainty, but the artist most often ner left some 1500 drawings of plants and parts of associated with them is John Stephen of Calcar (d. plants on 490 folio pages, at least 150 of which he

circa 1547). Calcar was born in Flanders and drew himself. His drawings show great detail and

trained there, absorbing the northern tradition some present seeds in greatly enlarged form until he moved to Venice. Once there he learned accompanied by notes in ink, enlargements that Titian’s style so completely that at one time the can be seen as direct precursors to the work of kabrica woodcuts were pirated as Titian’s Anatomy. instrument-aided naturalists such as Leeuwenhoek

It has been suggested that Titian hada handinthe and Hooke.*? In 1558 Guillaume Rondelet pubdrawings for the Fabrica or that at the least they lished History of the Fishes with woodcuts so exact-

were produced in his workshop.”° ing that the genus and even species of fish The artist or artists responsible produced depicted can at times be identified.*! images not seen since Leonardo. Many of Leonar- These studies show a definite delight on the

do’s techniques were used, one of the most impor- _ part of the author and illustrator in trying to unify

tant being his idea of displaying the parts of the text and image. The key to these studies is the human body in series accompanied by explanato- active interplay between the object described and ry text.2° The importance of this successful union — the words describing them. The image itself seems of verbal and visual cannot be overemphasized. to speak to us and present its own narrative, placVesalius’s achievement was the result of a never ing a watchful eye on the accompanying text as if before seen conjunction of linguistic and pictorial to say, “Describe me accurately for if you do not I forms made part of a scientific program of investi- will show the falsity of your words.” The meaning gation. Leonardo, while making an aesthetically of describe, to “picture in words,” is brought home elegant and innovative presentation of word and with full force in these works.

image, failed to create a truly coherent scientific At the same time that Leonardo, Brunfels, program. His text, which Mayor characterized asa_ Fuchs, and Vesalius were conducting their visual commentary, never achieved a truly equal partner- explorations, Flemish illuminators were creating

ship with his incomparable drawings.*’ their own vision of the world. Flemish manuscript In the Fabrica, this collaboration is perfected illumination reached a peak in the _ period with the text serving to fully and rigorously explain 1475-1550, and it is no coincidence that this the pictures and the pictures reciprocating by occurred when printed books began to emerge.** illustrating the text so completely that they achieve The Flemish were the first to realistically depict the status of a visual exegesis. William Ivins, com-_ the objects shown on the borders of illuminations.

menting on the fusion of these two modes of They combined naturalistic motifs with texts, description, says that together they provide a kind describing the plant and animal worlds with fideliof stereoscopic view that “throws things into the _ ty. Insects, birds, flowers, pottery, and jewelry were

78 GIANTS OF DELFT

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5yei ———— Seg ye Sara ily contrarernnec ctta | OF __ahbic oudne Wplpital. sec Bad @ if ct nrtons ottroyes aulors contreres conlocrs ct ances bictar [Rpg so Ran 4

ek curs audit bolpital par Cugenrs ct Surtus crleurs ut teen

Ped OM Hh nous pryesde Kone La dedaranon te courts les ventts bert Re a. ye ero we mbics teres pres miafons — EAUETS aye AAs BA, FF|)non avec crdoue al poteite ace wor teHCVIMAGES ce pitt cartulanreee 4ee ‘i

oe, we fourmre Ladcdavine caull 065 dyarges dobrs mretles ct autres fe ae wha

TE N\A fondations donut tedit hofprtal cfr aunellenvet diangie ct ccs Bee

1? git frre 2 auremene te planters cr bubles cues mates i

i BS cone cy apres ett dedant ct ronouncd¢ crt tant dc gra -cnul - Weer i ey CCC: quateebings that ->nr Hornioweables hones 16s eee ee 9 Pde A Dole marines clleusqour Ledre art an gourcenrcneet Ct Ad ae phe

J —_ numttranron dudit Yokprtal dont tes noms fount tls - é es Pps | BM adnel -guariesies -hourgors Ktouriiay ct Courcia A ee SH mentee Achar tegen rae copm- Kalle du floc {Drevace_ | ag

Ween dies Bernard dui hauron Jaquenart Quonu Ordant F : Be eee) Mignon. Chevy vichart-Achan deieldule Lrquaic nurdiet ae ee?

| So, tt iatar moutuiitr: COS SOO eee SSS SOO! ee

DNs se ee, eee a fee, FPR tas Pe eae a,” Og. ie SR )iAA SS Decee wh. geae on ae |%’Meee pee aS .3°%ees fs ooa ea Pa: OY Bea 2 oS eae oe os age, Ot Sern ee eee ee | ReoP) eS ed Southern Netherlands, Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, Cartulary of Saint James’s Hospital in Tournai, c. 1490. Bibliotheque de la Ville de Tournai.

just some of the objects that these artists took such represented episodes that either preceded or folcare to represent faithfully. The illuminators used lowed the main scene chronologically, giving the the borders for other inventive purposes as well. manuscript page a cinematic feel.*’ In addition, Sometimes, such as in the frontispiece to the Car- the illustrators used trompeUoeil effects and also tulary of Saint James’s Hospital in Tournai, the mar- painted landscapes and interior scenes with surgins would consist of scenes, or miniatures that prising realism and depth.

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER 79 Objects such as religious medallions, pilgrim the great Dutch panel painters of the later sixbadges, and jewels were actually sewn or attached teenth/early seventeenth centuries and shared to the pages of Books of Hours. In other instances, many of the same concerns for attention to the the illuminators painted trompeloeil slits through particular. In many of the illuminators’ works, which flowers and other objects seem to pass.°* planes of light and shadow are registered accuThomas DaCosta Kaufmann thinks that these dec- rately and a strong sense of depth and perspective

orations may replicate early customs of attaching are realized in spite of the small size of the the actual objects to these books and that the works.°® L. M. J. De Laisse, in a review of manutrompe-Uoeil images have their origin in these prac-_ script illumination from this period, has closely tices. He further theorizes that trompeloeil images observed the manner of working of these anonyof naturalia (insects and flowers) may represent mous artists. Looking at a miniature of St. Dorothy

other objects that were actually collected and pre- from a manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan served in devotional books. He points out that Library (MS 87: St. Dorothy), he draws a comparithere is evidence for this such as the habit of son between the rendering of the saint and the sixteenth-century Italian botanists of collecting treatment of the wall and notes that the wall’s dried specimens of plants and placing them in authenticity derives from the fact that it “is as true books called herbaria sicca.°? This technique of as the girl.” His remark about this small image making a collection of pressed and dried herbs could just as easily describe paintings by Vermeer was popularized by Luca Ghini, professor of suchas the Dresden Girl Reading a Letter at an Open botany at Bologna during the 1530s and 1540s.°° Window or his great work at Amsterdam, The MilkThe representation of insects, flowers, and plants maid. De Laisse notes that the Dutch illuminators’ in a naturalistic fashion shows how the time was _ love for reality and their concern for the empirical artistically ripe for the production of images such — was not confined to the central images in the man-

as those found in the works of the herbalists. uscripts but extended to the border decorations. The illuminators also applied trompe-UVoeil tech- He describes a Book of Hours of the Royal Library niques to the text itself. In some books the text was in The Hague (MS 131 G.4) as follows: “The marhung in recesses on trompe-Voeil walls, in others the — gins of this Book of Hours contain some of the text was placed in a banderole with curled edges most unusual nature studies of the third quarter of or on a strip of parchment that was attached to the _ the fifteenth century. The miniaturist has painted page with painted pins.°’ They also used numer- the kernel of an open nut and a still more difficult ous other techniques to integrate the depicted — subject, a fly, with a precision that Hoefnagel, the

scenes and border decorations with the text. On painter of insects at the end of the sixteenth cenmany pages, scenes, text, and border decoration — tury, would not despise.”**

combine to present their message in a unified and The works of these anonymous artists can be elegant manner. These works of art are so cohesive seen as forerunners to those of Vermeer and and visually compelling that the ancient picto- Leeuwenhock. The care these unknown individugraphic quality of the words is strikingly evident. als took in realistically rendering light and shade This effect is most clearly seen in the enlarged Ini- _ or the fall of light on a wall bear obvious affinities

tial Letters formed by trees, vines, and plants to Vermeer’s concerns. The meticulous renderabstracted almost beyond recognition into a deco- ings of objects such as plants, flowers, and a fly or rative diagram. It is easy to see how these manu-_ a kernel foreshadow Leeuwenhoek’s interests and scripts, with their beautifully presented visual and mirror the care he took in rendering the strange verbal messages, could influence Northern natu- and unfamiliar forms his microscopes revealed. ralists. The herbals of Brunfels and Fuchs come to The Dutch illuminators, like their counterparts mind immediately with their realistic woodcuts — to the south, were sensitive to the successful fusion

accompanied by explanatory text. In these publi- of scene, text, and border decoration. A page cations, the botanical specimens, previously occu- from the Pierpont Morgan Library (MS M. 917) is

pying the borders, now take center stage. a supreme example of this conjunction. The Farther north, Dutch artists were pursuing a_ theme of fish devouring each other as seen along realistic program even more diligently. Dutch illu- the border is repeated on the floor of the miniaminators of the fifteenth and early sixteenth cen- ture as the tiles reflect an Escher-like image of turies pioneered many of the techniques used by _ pairs of fish interlocked in symmetrical fashion.

80 GIANTS OF DELFT

;‘|¥=a SSS Se ee

fe : A Fae “ Op Se Os ee ee ae \ ; oA 6 , pe) Z pear areca weer mmr eran Lil meena ee = —t ya |

ee ||! R 5 , 4 8 / . fal ae 9 | we , ‘a S Is sy ayi® i 2) hey woSy, a | 9 ! 0k ss 7os wl Tea “S ‘Aca as A [se yea SS ‘| ae i ly || &, as .laag® cay

al Jo ae, 3) 4 0m4ae. % |:| 7aS i} AG ef Wee Ih Gf fit S49 py iit Gnd MNS i x.

| so Se

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| yy Hee, anEn a Ry ee || ||Pac an Ln ee POS es J Pty a Cal ||

"a (SHSESmSESASMS [ie Mes ~s . me, mmearbeattr AW

} A + cine ee pipe Z wR i ar aoe. .

POeApee ll Soe PN dt. Bee amertir lavverrty fap po 9

| SeNaa i | / aee | SP Lee plicter ego pemtinn lee” )A “wus tus pretaten tuam onae Fe |" Me. / j , y LS) | ‘4a vtpometpumiline mutas “S,

f| ae fpendent; ADamm cooaddy ) appear oyprellg je |: yw 7 pres ardignas \.< ; LB Nyoentem dart quanns Hy Mend } yy 4 y oe SRE | 4 ae: ; LathMii: 5 canals }aed Lame: “ys 4 Baia ||| tee yer | lee ne Q a Sos |7 OD ea 4!}y7Ae sfams “Sy Nee ee fe ee

} a y; ) | ge art Rei mre aly jo ry ; apes ryt 22% . 9 an | ‘

r

Master of Catherine of Cleves, Hours of Catherine of Cleves. The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. MS M. 917 p. 266.

The interlocking eels along the border echo the again echo the Initial Letter. The text also blends motif of the tiles and these two shapes bear a_ in beautifully with the overall design of the border strong resemblance to the large Initial Letter S and image and by doing so summons forth its picwith its curving symmetrical shape that begins the ture-making quality. The smaller fish at the bottext. At the corners of the border, the fish tails tom of the border, especially their fins and tails,

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER 81

. 7: - ‘ - ,

Ss ¢ ‘ rz “ . : ; rr ; .yas = | )AK : . ae be: ‘ ¢ &y Oe i" ~~ a we ee See, /, eer > Se Ae Gal fs 5 om I A ii ae ‘ ———— See r Rg a re EE oe were ee ee “ SA Lord 4 eos = me a i“ A Uiwiig . re. 2 i ae. “,

MS King’s 5. f. 13. min. Prophets Slain by Order of Jezebel. By permission of The British Library.

are a visual referent to the individual letters in the — literal connection between the printed word and text above. This is a masterful exposition of visual _ the real world as represented by the image. It is an

interaction. example of the connection between the reality we In a miniature from the British Library (MS © see and the reality or logic of a written argument.

King’s 5: Prophets Slain by Order of Jezebel), a sword The logic and syntax of painting/sight is intercon-

comes out of the picture plane and onto the plane nected to the logic and syntax of the word. The of the text, creating a trompe-Voeil effect. Here is a_ artist cleverly chooses a sword as his device to

82 GIANTS OF DELFT implement this idea of the union of word and __ ter as an object of visual attention, a surface to be image while at the same time the blade is used to looked at.”*’ In Alpers’s analysis, painters such as separate the prophet’s head from his body. Truly ter Borch and Metsu, by inserting representationthe sword is a two-edged instrument, with uses al elements (a letter, a painting, or a mirror) into

within and without the frame of the scene. their paintings, are emphasizing their power of For these artist-illuminators, image and word “making present things that are absent.” Comeshared a common space. It makes sense that Ver- nius’s instructions in letter reading further this meer, following in this synthetic line, would sense of the letter as an object to be looked at. include a discursive element in his paintings. Con- Alpers compares this Dutch focus on the act of tinuing in the tradition of miniaturist/illumina- reading to “close looking.” tors who linked script with illustrations, Vermeer Comenius’s detailed instructions call to mind was careful to include textual references in many Leeuwenhoek’s concentric method of observing of his paintings. These took the form of letters as well as Hooke’s admonition to make “many being read (Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window examinations in several lights and in many posiand Woman in Blue Reading a Letter); of letters deliv- tions.” Alpers mentions Hooke and other natural

ered or in the process of being written (A Lady philosophers in a discussion of the relationship of Writing, Mistress and Maid, The Love Letter, and Lady letters and lenses. She notes della Porta’s referWriting a Letter with Her Maid); of books or manu-_ ence to the use of mirrors to cast words onto a disscripts (The Astronomer, The Geographer, and Allegory tant wall. Della Porta says that in this sense there of Faith); of maps with text printed along their bor- are equivalences between lenses, mirrors, and let-

ders (Officer and Laughing Girl, Woman in Blue ters because they allow one to “secretly see and Reading a Letter, Woman with a Lute, The Art of Paint- without suspition what is done far off and in other ing, and The Love Leiter); of music being read (Girl _ places.” Similarly, Thomas Digges is described as Interrupted at Her Music, The Concert, and A Lady using what must be a telescope to survey the coun-

Seated at a Virginal); and in one instance of text tryside about him, including houses and the con-

written across a clavecin (The Music Lesson). tents of letters lying openly about. Hooke, in The presence of letters in Vermeer’s paintings is Mzucrographia, uses his microscope to view the dot

to be expected, considering the high regard the made by a pen and suggests using a miniaturized Dutch had for script. The Dutch educational sys- text to convey secret messages. For Alpers, this tem, which produced a high rate of literacy, puta interrelation of text, images, imagining, and opti-

premium on handwriting.”” Calligraphy became cal instrumentation is part and parcel of the an art form in the hands of some practitioners and northern impulse to map or to describe the world letter writing was widespread among the middle as opposed to the narrative tendencies contained class. It became so popular that collections of let- in Italian art. Letters are not to be interpreted and ter models were published for those unable to cre- thereby given narrative depth, but rather are part ate adequate compositions.*! This popularity was of an assemblage of representations in the Dutch reflected in the love letter paintings of Gerard ter _ pictorial world.* Borch (1617-81), Gabriel Metsu (1629-67), and I believe that in Vermeer’s case the relationship

Vermeer. These paintings also carried another between text, letters, images, and maps went more prosaic meaning for the Dutch, whose com- beyond mere description. For Vermeer, text and mercial empire established outposts throughout image are two sides of the same coin of knowledge

the world.” acquisition. This equivalence of pictorial and verSvetlana Alpers has considered Dutch letter pic- bal representation can be especially seen in painttures and found an intersection between letters, ings such as Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window lenses, and the interest Dutch artists had in atten- and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. In each case a

tive looking. She directs our attention to John young woman focuses her vision on a piece of Amos Comenius’s (1592-1670) Great Didactic of paper containing the denotative markings of writ1641, wherein he gives a detailed nine-point out- ten language. Looked at in this way, the page of line of how to read a letter. In her discussion of the letter can be seen as an “assemblage of repreDutch letter pictures, Alpers argues that Dutch | sentations” or as an assemblage of pictographs. In artists sought to avoid the “narrative dimensions” — these two remarkable paintings, however, Vermeer of letter writing and instead emphasized “the let- is not dealing with letters as pictorial elements of a

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gen, Dresden.

84 GIANTS OF DELFT larger descriptive assemblage, but rather with the ‘Text became an important element as a conveyor picture-making power of discursive communica- of information in these maps. The cartographers, tion. Each painting, by isolating the subject, draws in their quest to make a coherent and visually us into the contemplative world of the reader. Ver- arresting image, also became skilled calligraphers. meer’s use of composition, color, tone, and light Mercator, whose atlases are notable for the quality comes together so evocatively we can almost see’ of their calligraphy, published a popular writing

the image the letter calls forth in the young manual as well as a handbook entitled On the Letwoman's mind. In the Dresden painting, Vermeer tering of Maps. Hondius also published a writing alludes to this internal visualization by painting the manual in 1594.°° girl’s reflection in the open window. In the small For Vermeer, the image-making power of discircle of letter, letter reader, and reflection, Ver- cursive communication, when tied to the visual meer conjoins text and image in the closed system immediacy of Dutch maps, became a _ potent of his painterly world. By means of a perfectly ren- metaphor for his own use of text and image in dered picture we are given access to the text,a cor- painting. In Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Verrespondence so graphic it in turn produces in the meer juxtaposes a map, a letter reader, and a letter reader’s mind a “mental image as sharply defined in a composition reminiscent of Girl Reading a Letas the visual impression made by a picture.” ter at an Open Window. The map Vermeer has cho-

In Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Vermeer sen is a map of Holland and West Friesland replaces the window with a map. Maps held signif- originally published in 1620 by Balthasar Florisz. icant meaning for Vermeer and for Dutch society van Berckenrode (1591-1644). The next year van

in general. Maps, parts of maps, and/or globes Berckenrode transferred the publishing rights to appear in ten of Vermeer’s paintings. As an art Willem Jansz. Blaeu (1571-1638), who continued dealer Vermeer had easy access to this material, to print the map.°! The Blaeu family was one of since maps were considered works of art and were the great cartographic concerns of the seven-

commonly found in a dealer’s inventory. One teenth century, whose work was well known Amsterdam dealer, Clement de Jonghe (c. 1640— throughout the Netherlands.°* We gain insight 79), who also illuminated maps, sold prints by into Vermeer’s purpose of positioning the girl’s Rembrandt as well as cartographic material. Allof head against the Blaeu-van Berckenrode map Vermeer’s stock came from Amsterdam, the map- from Blacu’s 1663 introduction to his twelve-volping center of the world during the seventeenth ume atlas of the world: “Geography [is] the eye

century.*® and the light of history ... maps enable us to conThe Netherlandish dominance in the field of template at home and right before our eyes things cartography, which lasted for one hundred years, that are farthest away.”°°

began with Ortelius’s publication of Theatrum Vermeer’s letter reader, painted between 1662 Orbis Terrarum in 1570. Ortelius’s work, along with and 1664, holding in her hands a written commu-

that of Mercator, heralded the shift in power from nication that makes “present things that are Italy to Holland.*’ Maps, as emblems of Holland’s absent,” stands before Blaeu’s map, which has simprestige and power, were commonplace in many _ ilar capacity to bring “before our eyes things that Dutch homes. Maps, as descriptions of the world, are farthest away.” Vermeer merges the picturewould have appealed to artists’ sensibilities. It was, making quality of these two elements within the however, the use of text in cartography that drew confines of his own picture by means of a subtle yet

Vermeer’s attention. During the seventeenth cen- powerful compositional arrangement. He places tury, descriptive text was often included within or _ the tip of the young woman’s nose at one corner of alongside the borders of maps. A Dutch cartogra- the map’s descriptive text. Her gaze passes through pher, Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612), is believed to this corner in a diagonal across the text, where it

have begun the practice of placing marginal text comes to rest upon the letter’s surface. Through

alongside the borders of wall maps.*® this mechanism, Vermeer frees the words from the Some maps reported on the progress of military printed page, allowing the message to flow onto campaigns such as the sieges conducted by Fred- the map’s representational surface, permitting us erick Henry on the towns of Breda and Bois-le- to literally “see” the image created in the reader’s Duc. These “news maps” provided maps of the mind. Within the space of a few square centimesieges accompanied by extensive commentary.*9 ters, Vermeer materializes on his canvas, by means

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER 85 of a visual impression, the mental image called obtained the levels of excellence achieved in the

forth by the written description. sixteenth century.°®

Vermeer, however, was doing more than com- Although scientific illustration did reach anothparing the picture-making qualities of cursive, car- er peak in the seventeenth century in the field of

tography, and canvas. I believe he was also microscopial studies, it is a different type of relaexploring their function as a means of transmit- tionship that we see between text and image, artist

ting information. Maps, as a representation of and natural philosopher. The image has become space and our experience of it, are effective tools subservient to the text and in many instances disfor ordering information about the world. The associated from it. Although the artist’s skill and physical world and the objects in it must all occu- observational powers are still essential in renderpy space. Our knowledge of the world and the way ing an accurate representation of the object under

it functions must therefore, at some fundamental scrutiny, there is a loss of that interchange level, be grounded in terms of location, spatiality, between author and artist that was seen in the fifand relative positioning. It is only a short step to teenth and sixteenth centuries. During the Renaisequate the concomitant elaboration of a noetic sance, the artist’s eye was seen as a supreme tool, inner space with the emergence of cognition. but in the seventeenth century it is replaced by the The map thus lends itself to being a useful meta- microscope and the telescope as well as by conphor in relation to concepts as basic as theory, ceptual tools such as mathematics. The artist’s skill mind, knowledge, and language. It has been sug- in observing becomes secondary to skill or techgested that the development of language is tied to nique in the use of instruments. Artists had moved the growth of spatial consciousness, since many of from being active participants in at least some sci-

the cognitive schemas providing the structural entific discoveries to taking a less relevant and foundations of language necessarily have a “strong more passive part in the scientific process. Verspatial component.” Early hominids were able to meer and his peers were no less aware of developconstruct representations of routes, places, peo- ments in the field of science, but because of the ple, actions, and sequences of utterances regard- changes in the way science was done, their involveing these concepts as a result of cognitive maps ment was limited to commenting upon or interand strategies.°° I explore Vermeer’s investigations _ preting the revelations they observed. It is ironic in this regard in the next chapter, but first let us that artists helped set the stage for the scientific return to our discussion of the relationship of text revolution and were then excluded from it as art and image, the emerging seventeenth-century sci- and science went their separate ways. entific method, and natural philosophers’ attitude Hooke’s Micrographia best exemplifies this sepa-

toward this relationship. ration. Hooke, who did his own drawings, reduced

The sixteenth century witnessed the appear- his engraver to someone that he could blame for ance of a range of works based on visual induction. errors.”? In one passage in his preface he states This reliance on observation necessitated a work- that “the shape of the egg itself, the figure pretty

ing relationship between artist and natural well represents (though by default of the Graver it philosopher. Artists, with their expertise in the does not appear so rounded, and lying above the processes of visualization and representation, paper, as it were, as it ought to do).”°? Michael became important participants in the advance of Aaron Dennis has looked at Hooke’s relationship scientific knowledge. However, as the sixteenth with his engravers and the problem of ownership century closed, there was a change in this rela- of the text of Micrographia. Dennis claims that the tionship. With the dawn of the seventeenth centu- very act of printing presented a problem of textury, the mathematics of Descartes, Desargues, and al ownership for an author such as Hooke. He Fermat began to dominate science, while instru- argues that we take for granted the fact that the ments such as the telescope and microscope fur- typesetter will flawlessly transcribe a manuscript

ther separated the artist from observational into print. Where drawings are also involved, we science.”’ Top caliber artists, unable to share com- assume that the engraver accurately copies the mon visual or intellectual ground with natural original drawing. philosophers, drifted away from scientific endeav- Dennis says that both processes must be per-

ors. Not surprisingly, scientific illustration in formed without error to maintain the author's anatomical and botanical publications never again authority. If the mediated nature of text and image

86 GIANTS OF DELFT come to the fore due to mistakes, the authorship is camera obscura must have visually predisposed challenged. In dealing with the problem regarding them to make sense of the images the microscope the images for Micrographia, Hooke resolved it by presented. Because of this preconditioning they claiming his engravers were merely following direc- were able to use, as Hooke put it, “a sincere Hand, tions. In his preface he states that the engraver- and a faithful Eye, to examine, and to record the

artist “pretty well follow’d my directions and things themselves as they appear.”*! In spite of draughts.” By this method Dennis says Hooke _ this, Leeuwenhoek and other scientists of his day “transformed skilled craftsmen into pliant copyists looked upon the artist as merely another tool to be

whose role surfaced only when the author found used in their search for nature’s secrets. Where their work wanting.”°! This is quite a comedown word and image came together in publications by from the position held by Fuchs’s woodcutter, Veit naturalists such as Leeuwenhoek and Hooke, Rudolph Speckle, or even that of Hans Weiditz, there was a failure to synchronize their methods of who in spite of Brunfels’s complaints, was a driving statement. Now the image’s purpose was to illusforce behind Vivae Licones and its lifelike plants. trate the text and remain subordinate to the writHooke’s contemporaries also made use of artists ten message. and in these instances their role was not much dif- Looking to Galileo’s work provides some insight ferent. At times, they were only casually referred to into the approaches taken later in the century by and then not even by name. Leeuwenhoek, who Leeuwenhoek and Hooke. Galileo, in both Szdereus combined drawings of the images he observed Nuncius and in his Letters on Sunspots, used pictures through his single-lens microscopes with detailed — effectively. But after this he stopped using pictures

written accounts in the form of letters to the Royal altogether. Mary G. Winkler and Albert Van Society, used limners to draw many of his figures Helden propose that the explanation lies in and referred to this fact throughout his many let- Galileo’s career aspirations and his attitude toward ters, but never mentioned any of these artists by pictures, mathematical symbols, and words. As a name.®? Clifford Dobell has proposed Willem van philosopher, Galileo wanted to distance himself

der Wilt as the artist who most probably drew from the mechanical and visual arts, professions many of the figures, although there were probably — that were not highly respected. In spite of the fact at least several others who were employed by — that Galileo was well acquainted with Disegno and Leeuwenhoek during his long and productive life. artistic developments, he still felt that the written As instruments emerged dominant during the word was superior to pictures as a means of com-

seventeenth century and science became more munication. Winkler and Van Helden point out theory-driven and abstract, the position of the that Galileo’s written description of the moon is artist continued to diminish. For Leeuwenhoek more graphic than his illustrations.°° They note however, in spite of his seeming indifference to his — that Galileo was perfectly capable of drawing accu-

limners, their value was of utmost importance. I rate and well-rendered representations of the believe that without the aid of a painter trained in moon but purposely chose to distort certain the Northern objective way of seeing, Leeuwen- aspects of his engravings. He did this to ensure the hoek’s path to discovery, to observing the “true — primacy of the text, which for him held the key to form,” would have been severely hampered. Since a lucid and fully comprehensible discourse.®” artists had for some time been interested in devel- For Galileo, effective communication was conoping a program for accurately observing objects, ducted through words, mathematical symbols, and

and because northern artists in particular were diagrams, whose use had been sanctioned in concerned with the straightforward depiction of learned treatises for hundreds of years. Galileo reality, the local pool the great microscopist could knew that in order to separate himself from the draw from was particularly well suited to the task. less respected mechanical and visual arts, his This mind-set did more than prepare the artist; future publications could not contain pictorial it disposed him to see correctly. As we have seen, it representations. Reasoning was the key to discovis the artist’s style that allows him to ask the right ery and to higher social status. It was for these questions as to which aspect of reality is salientand motives that he argued his own reconstruction, or accordingly express his answer in the correct visu- rather reinvention, of the telescope was the result al mode. The willingness of Dutch artists to make of reasoning or the liberal arts, not a mere artifact

use of optical aids such as lenses, mirrors, and the of the mechanical arts.°° Galileo’s attitude is

4 / LEEUWENHOEK, GALILEO, HOOKE, AND VERMEER 87 reflected in his statement regarding this reinven- its own without the text.”* By his method of sepation: “Indeed we know that the Hollander who was | ration and indexing Hooke kept control over the first to invent the telescope was a simple maker of enormous descriptive power inherent in any well-

ordinary spectacles who in casually handling done representation and channeled its efficacy to pieces of glass of various sorts happened to look the written argument. The text acted as the releas-

through two at once, one convex and the other ing mechanism for the information and knowlconcave, and placed at different distances from edge contained within the pages ot Micrographia.

the eye. In this way he observed the resulting Dennis thinks that part of the reason for this effect, and thus discovered the instrument. But I, focus on the word and its more specific narrative incited by the news. . . , discovered the same by power was the fact that the text not only carried means of reasoning.”®? I would add that this “thick, detailed discussions of what was visible emphasis on reason is again demonstrated by through the lens” but also described the “processGalileo’s practice of seeing with the eyes in his’ es required to bring them to sight, processes recovmind. When collecting visual information, Galileo erable only through the written word.” ’* This was made it clear that it was not enough to merely necessary because of Hooke’s use of an instrument, observe. One had to apply reason in order to truly — the microscope, and its concomitant emphasis on perceive and thereby elevate the information gath- technique. Hooke informed the reader that multi-

ered to the level of scientific knowledge. ple viewings of a single object under various lightLater in the century, Hooke published Maicro- ing conditions were necessary to properly perceive graphia and took up Galileo’s legacy of instrument- and represent that object.” It took more than this, mediated knowledge. Whereas Galileo used the however, to convey the full spectrum of knowledge telescope on the heavens, Hooke turned his micro- necessary to properly implement the various techscope toward earthly objects. The full title of his niques for viewing the objects in question. Hooke’s famous work is Micrographia or Some Physiological extensive descriptions of his observational techDescriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glass- niques were necessary in order to establish a proes with Some Observations and I nquines Thereupon. The eram of reproducible experimen ts that could be

book contains 38 pages of copper plate engravings, carried out easily by a broad community of micro-

60 observations, and 246 pages of printed text. scope wsers© )

Hooke combined word and image in this book This emphasis on process or technique stands but in a different manner from that of Leonardo, jin direct contrast to the thinking of Renaissance Vesalius, or even Galileo. The title, Micrographia, observers such as Leonardo, for whom the image was a term that referred to the function of both was the end product of their investigations. In illustration and word as a means of description for Leonardo’s work, the text explicated an image the viewed object.’' Hooke, however, did not com- _ that could stand apart. For Vesalius, the image was

bine word and image on the common space of a at least as important as the text and retained the single page but physically separated these ele- power to independently transmit information. ments. Hooke did this by writing letters onto the This same attitude can be seen in the works of figures themselves. These letters indexed the fig- Fuchs and Brunfels as well as Gesner and Ronures that were numbered rather than named and_ delet. With the close of the Renaissance and the allowed Hooke’s text to refer to the appropriate emergence of modern science, the focus for men image. By refusing to name the objects, Hooke such as Galileo and his successors shifted to the gave superiority to the word. The plates, bound to — written word. Galileo used drawings as visual aids

the written description, remained “profoundly to illustrate his detailed textual reports. Galileo’s incomplete” when viewed in isolation.” Only by concerns focused on the conceptual cosmological reading the text could the reader determine exact- implications his arguments presented, not on the

ly what he was looking at. images themselves. Hooke was most interested in Hooke’s technique allowed the image to remain explaining the process of disciplined seeing and a factor, but neutralized its power and made it espousing his program for creating a standardized dependent upon the word for meaning. This isin) method of observing and communicating the direct contrast to Vesalius’s Fabrica, where the _ results of those observations to other investigators.

image took center stage (it had over two hundred Leeuwenhoek assumed this same. attitude

anatomical illustrations) and could have stood on toward images as he too separated text and image

88 GIANTS OF DELFT and labeled his images with numerals and letters. naturalistic analysis of the subject, but rather Although Leeuwenhoek did not reveal his various focuses on the process of ideation and creation. techniques for viewing objects as Hooke did, he By means of the woman’s reflection, a visual metanonetheless took the same care in making detailed phor for her mental reflection, Vermeer gives us observations and in developing his own system of access to the reader’s process of delineating in the disciplined seeing. Anyone reading Leeuwen- imagination those mental images called forth by hoek’s letters cannot help but be struck by the fact the picture-making quality of words. that he paid unremitting attention to making Likewise, in Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Verobjective observations and to transmitting the meer focuses on the process of visualization, of results of those observations in a consistent and rig- calling images to the mind’s eye. The positioning orous manner. For Leecuwenhock, as with Hooke, of the reader’s head against the map’s descriptive the process of observation was as important as, if text and the powerful contemplative atmosphere not more important than, the images produced. created by the young woman’s concentrated gaze

The technique of thickly detailed narrative both serve Vermeer’s purpose. Like Leonardo, observations used by Hooke and Leeuwenhock, as Vermeer uses a potent combination of graphic well as Galileo’s similar descriptions in Sidereus and denotative elements. Once again, his handiNuncius, resulted from their use of the intellect as work is not meant to serve as a naturalistic repre-

lens, as the conceptual starting point in their sentation or a scientific product. Rather, like process of seeing in a knowing manner. Their writ Hooke, he addresses himself to the process of ten descriptions, each one a type of printed con- observation and communication. Unlike Hooke, centric method, are the denotative equivalent of Vermeer conjoins word and image to display not viewing the same object from different positions only depth of understanding but also the depth of and in different lights in order to obtain the best feeling that can come from a profound integrainterpretation of what is seen. By their reliance on tion of visual and verbal elements when they are these graphic accounts, which amount to a kind of — used to illustrate the act of knowledge acquisition.

word painting, these investigators invoked the pic- Vermeer continues this conjunction of word ture-making quality of words, their power to shape — painting and oil painting, text and image, in two images in the mind’s eye. Making use of images subsequent works. In The Astronomer and The Geog-

and imagery, they nevertheless channeled the rapher, Vermeer portrays natural philosophers in power of visualization through the discursive flow the act of creation. In The Astronomer we see the sci-

of narrative. entist look up from his book to a celestial globe in

Leonardo’s anatomical studies, completed one a triangular composition reminiscent of Woman in hundred years earlier, form a striking counterpoint blue Reading a Letter. In this painting, however, the to these scientific works. In his study of a foot and subject has taken a step beyond observation and lower leg, we can literally see Leonardo’s script call- knowledge acquisition. Here we see picture making before his mind’s eye the images he interweaves _ ing as the wellspring of creation where images and on the same sheet. It is this manner of simultane- ideas, sight and imagination come together in the ous presentation that distinguishes Leonardo’s use mind of the theory maker as he fabricates his pic-

of text and image from that of Leeuwenhoek, tures of the world. Gone is the more passive act of Hooke, and Galileo. In his notebooks, especially in reading where the writer evokes the images. In its the above study, Leonardo uses his drawings as a__ place we see the modulating/distorting quality of kind of visual interlineation, fusing text and image — the astronomer’s mind at work as he views the unito create a sublime imagistic poetry. For Leonardo, verse through the lens of his intellect. The active

visual and verbal, art and science “joined in one nature of this enterprise is represented by the

exploration of the visible world.””” astronomer’s posture with its implied motion as Leonardo’s overlay of image and text brings us well as the fact that his gaze, removed from the back to Vermeer’s merger of text and iconography _ text, is drawn to the celestial globe, a physical manin Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window and _ ifestation of the model forming in his mind.

Woman in Blue Reading a Leiter. In the Dresden In The Geographer the scientist looks up from his painting, Vermeer juxtaposed reflected image and book and the nautical map in front of him. Directwritten message in an overlay similar to Leonar- ly above his head, as if to signify the constructs do’s. Vermeer, however, does not present us with a_ forming in this young investigator’s mind, we see a

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Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, c. 1668-69. Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.

terrestrial globe made by Hondius as a pendant to _ presents, is just as surely a map of reality as is the the celestial version in The Astronomer.’® Signifi- globe on the cabinet or the chart on the table in

cantly, the geographer does not look to the globe front of him. This notion of our perception of but rather gazes out the window to the world reality as map and its manifestation in Vermeer’s beyond. What he sees, the image his visual system oeuvre is the subject of the next chapter.

Vermeer and Mapping THE LANDSCAPE OF REALITY maps, especially those portrayed in Officer and Laughing Girl, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, and

Vermeer’s small oewvre pays conspicuous attention The Art of Painting are so fully realized, so vivid,

to the field of cartography and its productions. that | am reminded of Panofsky’s comment that Maps or globes figure prominently in nine of Ver- van Eyck’s color technique makes even a Rubens meer’s paintings, while a tenth painting (A Woman _ look like “just a painting.”” Comparing Vermeer’s Asleep) shows part of an unidentifiable map. The versions to those by contemporaries such as de

nine paintings are: Officer and Laughing Girl, UHooch (A Woman Drinking with Two Men) or Woman In Blue Reading a Letter, Woman with a Lute, Ochtervelt (The Musicians) makes their iterations Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, The Art of Paint- look like just paintings of maps. ing, The Astronomer, The Geographer, The Love Letter, Vermeer’s interest in maps resulted from severand Allegory of Faith. Vermeer’s attention to carto- al factors. Holland’s position as a seafaring power,

graphic objects is so arresting that Thore-Burger, requiring up-to-date nautical and land maps proin his 1866 article, was moved to comment on Ver- viding accurate information, ensured the general

meer’s “mania for maps.” More recently Kees development of cartographic science in the Zandvliet, after reviewing Vermeer’s cartographic Netherlands. In addition, the change from woodreproductions, referred to him as a “connoisseur cuts to copperplate engraving as the medium for

of cartography.”! map printing provided a great advantage to

Vermeer’s renderings are so accurate that James Netherlandish artisans who were skilled metalWelu has matched every map and globe painted by workers. As a consequence, map production came Vermeer to at least one original.? These represen- to be centered in Amsterdam by the 1590s.’ A tations are so detailed and convincing that The Art number of map publishers often began as art dealof Painting has been used as a type of painted doc- ers or engravers. One such art-dealer-publisherument to argue for the existence of the depicted engraver was Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587-1652), map four years before the first original example whose house published the map in Vermeer’s The

was discovered.°® Art of Painting. Visscher was a recognized artist Welu, who has extensively reviewed the maps _ who provided some of the illustrations for his own and globes in Vermeer’s oeuvre, has made similar maps. Other artists who had a serious interest in

use of a Vermeer painting in regard to the dating mapping included Pieter Pourbus (1510-84), of a particular map. It is the map of The Seventeen Pieter Saenredam (1597-1665), and _ Pieter Provinces by Huyck Allart (fl. c. 1650-75), displayed Bruegel (c. 1525-69). Bruegel, who associated in Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher. The with the leading intellectuals in Antwerp, was a only known example of Allart’s map is dated 1671. friend of Ortelius. Ortelius’s influence can be seen

Welu, rather than change the date generally in Bruegel’s panoramic landscapes that show curassigned to Vermeer’s work (c. 1664-65), con- vature on the horizon.” One historian has gone so cludes that another state of the Allart map must far as to characterize Bruegel’s oeuvre as a kind of

have been published before 1671, sometime “theatrum orbis terrarum” in the manner of between 1600 and the date of Vermeer’s painting. Ortelius’s own collection of maps produced in The globe rendered in both Allegory of Faithand 1570, the year after Bruegel’s death.'? Another The Geographer is so faithful to the original that Antwerp artist, Georg Hoefnagel, traveled with Welu has been able to determine that it is the sec- Ortelius and produced topographical drawings for ond of three states issued by Hondius.° Vermeer’s the geographer.!! 90

5 / VERMEER AND MAPPING 9] This connection between art and cartography have been used as a metaphor for language and goes back some time. We saw earlier how both _ have also been implicated in the development of Brunelleschi and Alberti may have been inspired language. Mental maps of real world spatial relato develop their perspectival systems after reading tionships involving routes, places, actions, and peo-

Ptolemy’s description of it in Cosmographia.'* Ptole- ple would have been instrumental in the my compared geography or mapping the world to development of cognitive schemas underlying delineating a human head.!* Diirer’s treatise, Four primitive speech.”° Books on Human Proportion, included diagrams of a The long-standing relationship between cartoghuman head on which were overlaid Albertian- raphy and art, arising from their parallel concerns type grids, a “topographical concept” that would regarding the logical ordering of objects within

have appealed to Ortelius, who owned a Latin edi- space, provides the final permutation of pairs tion of Durer’s book. Durer’s system would have from these three means of communication. Picbeen of great use to mapmakers, especially Merca- tures and language, maps and language, and maps

tor, who first published his map projection system and pictures can be contrasted and compared in 1538, just ten years after Durer’s book first because they share elements basic to man’s nature

appeared.!4 as a thinking/reflective being. They each have the Kim Veltman, while acknowledging the close capacity to make representations, order space, relationship between cartography, perspective, transmit knowledge, and accordingly fire the view-

and art during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- er-recipient’s imagination. These variables conturies, has suggested that astronomy should be cerned Vermeer to a significant degree. Maps, considered as part of the context for the develop- globes, letters, books, sheet music, and text (The ment of perspective. Veltman points out that Music Lesson) are displayed prominently in ninePtolemy’s descriptions of a planisphere and an_ teen of Vermeer’s paintings. If we consider View of astrolabe contain the basic elements of linear per- Delft as a type of exercise by Vermeer in blurring

spective and further notes that Brunelleschi, the line between painting and mapping, the total Uccello, Alberti, and Durer all had ties to astrono- _ is twenty.

my. Furthermore, astronomy and geography have Vermeer was fascinated by the inherent dualibeen traditionally linked. Erastothenes’ geograph- ties evident in maps and this played a prominent

ical researches were entirely dependent on the role in his paintings. This duality arises in part branch of astronomy involving shadow projec- from the combination of pictorial and nonpictoritions.!° This affiliation continued in the work of al elements evident on any map.*! The nonpictorthe cartographer Willem Blaeu. Blaeu, whose pro- ial elements of maps include conventional signs ductions encompassed the fields of cosmography, and symbols such as letters and numbers or graphuranography, hydrography, chorography, and __ ic devices such as Russia’s hammer and sickle. His-

topography, studied with Tycho Brahe for six torians of cartography commonly compare months in 1595/96 on the island of Hven.!® As we cartographic science to written language and have seen, painting and astronomy were to con-_ speak of maps as a “complex language” that can be tinue their fruitful relationship in the work of read like art or music or an ancient or modern lan-

Galileo and Huygens. guage.** Maps can be read like a letter and at the Vermeer’s interest in mapping stemmed from same time provide a representation in the manner more than just historical, economic, or political fac- of a painting.

tors. For Vermeer and his countrymen, painting, These two ways of presenting information on maps, and language shared mutual functions. maps have been characterized as denotative and Maps, pictures, and written communication were — graphic.** Arthur Robinson says that the nonpicall important modes of knowledge acquisition, torial elements of maps, which he calls map marks, sharing a near equal status.!’ We have seen Grego- are very different from words in that they attract ry propose that the first written languages started as_ attention to themselves, whereas words cause the a type of picture-writing employing pictograms that reader to focus on their referents. To Robinson eventually became cuneiform characters.!® Pictori- map marks are highly opaque. *4 If we look at al representation has also been characterized as a paintings such as those by Vermeer, where paint kind of language with its own syntax, useful as an strokes blend invisibly to create the artist’s referinformal model of knowledge acquisition. !* Maps ent, namely the painting’s subject, paint marks,

wz GIANTS OF DELFT like words, can be strongly nonopaque. What is of pointing out the dangers of drink and the virtue of interest to this discussion however is the fact that moderation.?’ Wheelock has argued, partly based

pictures, maps, and words can break through on technical examinations of the painting, that these boundaries and reflect differing degrees of Vermeer may have also intended to refer to the opacity. Maps, with their pictorial and nonpictori- iconographic tradition of melancholia, with the al elements, show a unique flexibility in this area, girl’s attitude possibly resulting from an unhappy a flexibility that Vermeer exploited for his own love affair. An important clue to Vermeer’s mean-

expressive purposes. ing comes from part of a painting that, like the

In addition to this mutability regarding pictori- map in Officer and Laughing Girl, is directly above al and nonpictorial components, maps, as a curi- the young woman’s head. Wheelock has identified

ous fusion of art, craft, and science, present the painting fragment as part of an image reprethemselves as both decorative objects and func- senting an emblem related to faithfulness and

tional conduits for the transmission of informa- deceit in love.*° tion, as either an “object of art” or a “scientific So here we see Vermeer, making use of a paintreport.”*> Although some historians have attempt- ed image as a kind of visual key opening the ed to separate the history of cartography into dec- doorway into the psychological world of the orative and scientific phases, during Vermeer’s young woman. Vermeer continued this theme in century the cartographic productions of the his next painting, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Netherlands displayed a unique blending of tech- Window. As I discussed at the end of the last

nical brilliance and artistic virtuosity.7° chapter, Vermeer grants us entry into the young

The two-sided nature of maps as decorative/ woman’s inner world not by means of a human picture-making objects and as scientific reports artifact, but through her reflected image in the provided Vermeer with a visual metaphor for window. Vermeer’s combination of letter, letter paintings as maps, as picture-making objects that reader, and reflection provides a more active can also be seen as documents transmitting quan- undercurrent than that displayed in the earlier titative information. In a work completed circa’ painting. In spite of the apparent stillness and 1658-60, Officer and Laughing Girl, Vermeer began quietude that permeates the Dresden composihis use of maps as a meaningful element in his tion, we can sense the powerful flow of commucompositions. The map displayed, the Blacu-van nication and mental communion between letter Berckenrode map discussed in the previous chap- writer and letter reader as the correspondence ter, was a favorite of Vermeer’s, appearing again in produces an image in the woman’s mind. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter and The Love Letter. Vermeer’s interest in the power of words and

The technique Vermeer used in delineating the painted images to create pictures in the mind, to map gives it a tangibility that, combined with its convey his painterly intentions, found a resonance prominent position, causes it to dominate the in objects like the Blaeu-van Berckenrode map composition. The placement of the map above the depicted in Officer and Laughing Girl. It is in this girl’s head is a device that Vermeer was to use painting and with this map, that Vermeer first puts (with slight modifications) in subsequent “map _ cartographic material to use as a kind of material-

paintings.” In the later paintings (Woman in Blue ization of the human cognitive landscape. In a Reading a Letter, Woman with a Lute, Young Woman deceptively straightforward arrangement, Vermeer with a Water Pitcher, and The Art of Painting), Ver- places the officer in the foreground with his back

meer settles on positioning the young woman to us, presenting him in silhouette. The young either directly over the lower left corner of the woman, bathed in sunlight, looks intently at the

subject map or just off to one side. soldier, who returns her gaze. The girl, soldier, and In the Frick canvas, Vermeer is continuing a map form a triangle whose connections are reintheme he began with A Woman Asleep and Girl forced by the map rod at the bottom and the open Reading a Letter at an Open Window. In these two — window that links the edge of the map with the solpaintings, Vermeer is beginning his exploration of — dier’s hat and head. The shape of the window also

the mental world of his subjects. The young echoes the front edge of the hat’s brim that again woman in A Woman Asleep has usually been inter- links the soldier to the map. Even the negative preted as a drunken girl. The painting has thus — space between soldier, girl, and map, with its broad been understood to have moralizing implications, triangular shape, reinforces their relationship.*°

5 / VERMEER AND MAPPING 93

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Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Copyright Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, New York.

6 / VERMEER, RAPHAEL, AND HUYGENS 109

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Raphael, View of Parnassus and partial view of the School of Athens, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Vatican City. Copyright Alinari/Art Resource, New York.

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and the room called the “Stanza della Segnatura.” Raphael intended to depict the crystalline Raphael painted part of his famous fresco cyclesin spheres and the zodiacal constellations as they this room between 1509 and 1511.°° In the lower would appear from God’s point of view in heaven. part of the vault of this room Raphael frescoed He painted the constellations around the perimefour rectangular corner panels onto the convexes _ ter of the globe. In his discussion, Edgerton credof the four spandrels. There, placed between Par- its Nancy Rash-Fabbri as the first modern scholar nassus and the School of Athens, and above the door- to note the constellations in Raphael’s fresco. way is a panel showing Astronomy (or Astrology as Rash-Fabbri hypothesizes that Raphael, by showVasari calls her) personified as the semidivine Ura- ing Urania gazing down at the constellation Pegania.°° Samuel Edgerton, in The Heritage of Giotto’s sus, was making a direct reference to the election Geometry, tells us that this panel shows Astronomy of his patron, Pope Julius II. The election or Urania, “looking from outside at the geocentric occurred at 9:00 P.M., 31 October 1503, “when cosmos enclosed in a crystalline sphere.” Accord- indeed Pegasus would have been highly visible in ing to Edgerton, Raphael used an armillary sphere the evening sky.”°> Edgerton agrees that Raphael as inspiration for his depiction of the universe as it placed Pegasus directly under Urania’s gaze. Howwas then understood with the earth in the center ever, he thinks that Rash-Fabbri’s precise astrologsurrounded by the crystalline spheres that also ical dating cannot be sustained and that Raphael's

enclosed the planets and stars.°/ positioning of Pegasus was a general reference to

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Raphael, Astronomy (Urania, Prime Mover), detail of Ceiling Vault, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Vatican City. Copyright Alinari/Art Resource, New York.

6 / VERMEER, RAPHAEL, AND HUYGENS 111 its prominent location at Rome’s latitude from than Vermeer himself. Vermeer’s baptismal date is September through November 1503. As Edgerton recorded in church records as 31 October, the says, “Since Pope Julius had been elevated under same date as Pope Julius’s election, the date Pegasus, the mythological sign of immortality, he Raphael may have been commemorating. Vercould look forward to a dynamic and prosperous’ meer, a well-educated convert to Catholicism, reign. Thus did Raphael pay an astrological com- would have been aware of the significance of this

pliment to his patron.”°° date. In this regard we should look to the young If we look at Vermeer’s painting, the similarity man standing to the left in Vermeer’s painting, in pose between his astronomer and Raphael’s The Procuress. This image has generally been Urania is striking. If we also look closely at the thought to be a self-portrait.’! If this is true, I Hondius globe toward which the astronomer is believe this young man bears as much resemlooking, there is an even more striking similarity. blance to the countenance of the astronomer as Of course, the obvious parallel is that like does Leeuwenhoek, whose likeness we can see ina Raphael’s Urania, Vermeer’s astronomer is look- portrait by Jan Verkolje. ing at a representation of the zodiacal or celestial Vermeer was very likely aware of Raphael’s fresconstellations. The connection is even more spe- co cycles and the meaning behind them. Italian cific than this. Vermeer’s rendition of the globe is art had a strong influence on European art and so detailed we can make out the constellations especially on the Dutch during the sixteenth and

depicted on its surface. The astronomer’s thumb seventeenth centuries.’ Vermeer’s early work is placed directly on Aquila, just below the image | shows such an Italianate influence that at one time

of Lyra, which is facing us. The constellation the historians thought he spent his youth in Italy astronomer is framing between his thumb and _ studying Italian masters. Later scholarship has index finger is unfortunately just out of sight. determined that in spite of the “overwhelmingly However, if we look at celestial maps of the time, Italianate” character of Christ in the House of Mary we can determine the object of the astronomer’s and Martha and Diana and Her Companions, Vergaze. One such map is a celestial map of the north- meer did not necessarily go to Italy, since their was ern hemisphere by Albrecht Durer. Another is a a strong trade in Italian art in Holland during the star map by Joan Blaeu, one of Hondius’s major middle of the seventeenth century.’ Vermeer had competitors. A glance at either of these maps __ sufficient connections to Amsterdam dealers to clearly shows the object of the astronomer’s gaze. assure him access to the works of various Italian It is the constellation Pegasus, the same constella- masters. “4 Additionally, we have evidence that Vertion at which Raphael’s Urania gazes so intently. meer was expert in Italian art. In 1672 he and Clearly, Vermeer modeled his astronomer after another Delft artist were called to The Hague to Raphael’s Urania and meant this figure to act ina __ testify regarding the authenticity of twelve painttwofold capacity. The astronomer not only repre- ings ascribed to Italian masters.” Vermeer would sents man seeking spiritual guidance, but also rep- have had no trouble obtaining or seeing repro-

resents man, through the natural sciences, ductions of Raphael’s frescoes. The fresco cycles discovering with wonder God’s great works. While would have been available to him as a result of it may be that a contemporary naturalist personal- numerous sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ly known to Vermeer such as Leeuwenhoek or engravings.” even Christiaan Huygens may have been the Vermeer made yet another reference to astronmodel for the astronomer, I believe Vermeer also omy in The Astronomer. As pointed out by Welu, intended this figure as a more general representa- Adriaen Metius’s book is opened to the first two

tion of Urania, Muse of Astronomy. The pages of book 3. The left side of the page illusastronomer, as Urania’s incarnation on earth, isa_ trates the cartwheel astrolabe, invented by representation of the scientist/ philosopher who, Metius.’’ What is left unsaid is that Adriaen’s whether he is an astronomer such as Huygens, or younger brother was Jacob Metius, one of the a naturalist such as Leeuwenhoek, gazes in awe at’ three men who laid claim to the invention of the

God’s works.” telescope. Albert Van Helden, in his article The Looking at Vermeer’s painting, it can be specu- Invention of the Telescope, has provided important

lated that the model for the seeker of knowledge information regarding the circumstances surwho gazes thusly at God’s creation is none other rounding the telescope’s invention. Although Van

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Index Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Abbe, Ernst, 52, 122-23 Baxandall, Michael, 107 Accademia dei Lincei, 35 Bedini, Silvio, 130n. 45 Accademia del Disegno: Galileo and, 58 Benesch, Otto, 120

Ackerman, James S., 137n. 58, 139n. 54 Berckenrode, Balthasar Florisz. van, 84

obscura, 21 Berkel, K. van, 51

Ad Vitellionem paralipomena (Kepler), 29; and camera Berckhout, Pieter Teding van, 105

Agent Intellect, 122 Berkeley, George: New Theory of Vision, 124 Albers, Josef, 136n. 6 Birth of the Virgin (Altdorfer): and small multiples, 116 Alberti, Leon Battista, 127nn. 51 and 55; Della Pittura, 20, 23; Blaeu, Joan, I11

De Pictura, 20, 23; and linear perspective, 22-23; and Blaeu, Willem Jansz., 84; and Brahe, 91

mirrors, 25 Blaeu-van Berckenrode map: and Officer and Laughing Gul,

Albinus, Bernhard: and normative images, 100 92; and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, 84

Allart, Huyck: The Seventeen Provinces, 90 Bloom, Terrie, 133n. 15 Allegory of Faith (Vermeer), 27, 47, 49, 50, 66, 82, 90, 139n. 76 Blunt, Wilfrid, 98, 136n. 17

Alpers, Svetlana, 82, 138n. 13 Bolts, T. Y. Kingma, 129n. 12 Altdorfer, Albrecht: Birth of the Virgin, 116, 118; and small Borch, Gerard ter: and love letter paintings, 82 multiples, 116 Borel, Pierre: De vero telescopii inventore, 107; Observationem ambiguity: of perception, 122-24; in Vermeer’s work, 123 Microscopicarum Centuria, 22

Amman, Jost, 26 Bradbury, Saville, 129n. 14

Amsterdam History Painters, 72, 135n. 73 Brahe, Tycho: and Blaeu, 91; and Durer, 25

Apian, Peter: Lin Kurtzer Bericht, 25 Broos, Ben, 105

Apotheosis of St. Ursula (Carpaccio), 117, and small multiples, Brown, Robert, 129n. 26

116 Bruegel, Pieter, 101; and Ortelius, 90

Arber, Agnes, 139n. 55 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 27; and camera obscura, 127n. 54; and archetypal images: in Vermeer’s work, 99-101 linear perspective, 22—23; and mirrors, 25

Arnolfini double portrait (van Eyck), 23, 36, 38, 40, 49, Brunfels, Otto, 72, 87; Herbarwm Vivae Licones, 74, 86, 98; and 131nn. 76, 81, and 84. See also Eyck, Jan van, Portrait of mimetic versus didactic imagery, 74, 98, 130n. 64,

Giovanni (?) Arnolfint and His Wife 136nn. 17 and 20; and text and image, 74, 79

art: and science, 120 Burgi, Jobst, 25

artists: and natural philosophers, relation of, 85 Burgkmair, Hans, 23, 24; and Weiditz, 74 Art of Painting, The (Vermeer), 16, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 66, 82, Burrells, W.: and Galilean microscope, 126n. 36 90, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 103, 105, 107, 115, 116, 119, 132n. Bush, Douglas, 104 129, 136n. 3; and Huygens, 16, 116-19; as painted

document, 90; and Raphael, 115-16 Calcar, John Stephen of, 136n. 25; and the Fabrica, 77

Ashworth, William, 122 camera obscura: and astronomy, 21, 103; to augment vision, Astronomer, The (Vermeer), 16, 17, 82, 88, 89, 90, 95, 103, 29; cubicle type, and Vermeer, 47; and diffused 104, 105, 107, 208, 111, 113, 115, 119, 123, 139n. 76, highlights, 44, 51; and discs of confusion, 44-51; and

140n. 35; and Raphael, 16, 107-11 effect on Dutch artists, 86; effects, in Vermeer’s

atlas makers, 98 paintings, 44-47, 99; Holbein and, 26; human eye as, 21, 22, 54; image, as map, 123; as instrumental adjunct,

Bacon, Francis, 19, 29, 54 52-53, and Officer and Laughing Girl, 94; room-type, 23, Baegert, Derik: Si. Luke Painting the Madonna, 25 103; use of, by artists, 23, 26—29, 103; and Vermeer, Barbaro, Daniele: La Pratica della Perspettiva, 43, 116 26-27, 29, 43-47, 71, 102-3, 104, 121-24, 131nn. 100 Barnes, Barry: and learning and knowledge generation, 73 and 102, 132nn. 104, 105, and 126; and View of Delft,

Barrett, William, 121 52-53; as visual and creative aid, 44; visual effects of, 44 15]

152 INDEX Carleton, David, 127n. 58 and instrumental adjuncts, 51; Madonna and Child with Carpaccio, Vittore: Apotheosis of St. Ursula, 117; and small Saints Michael and Catherine, 40; Madonna with Canon

multiple, 116 George van der Paele, 23, 36, 40, 49; Madonna with Carter, David, 41 Chancellor Nicolas Rolin, 36, 37,41; and mirrors and

cartographic science: in the Netherlands, 90, 92 lenses, 23, 27, 39-40, 127n. 58, 128n. 97, 131nn. 76 and cartography: and painting, 91-92, 94-97; Vermeer’s interest 81; observational abilities of, 38-40; oil technique of, as

in, 104—5. See also mapping, maps “infinitesimal calculus,” 36, 38, 41; oil technique of, as

Cassini, Gian Domenico, 21 instrument, 30, 36-38, 41, 42, 52; oil technique of, as Cassirer, Ernst, 54, 55, 133n. 2 optical device and conceptual tool, 41, 42; perspective Cesi, Federico: and Accademia dei Lincei, 35; and technique of, 23, 40-41, 131n. 84; Portrait of Giovanni (2)

microscope, 21 Arnolfint and His Wife, 23, 36, 38, 40, 49 (see also

Chomsky, Noam: and rules of universal grammar, 73 Arnolfini double portrait); portraits by, as maps, 94; Si. Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (Vermeer), 95, 103, Barbara, 39

111 eye: as camera obscura, 21, 22, 54

Christus, Petrus, 25; and perspective, 40

Cigoli, Lodovico: and Galileo, 58 Fabritius, Carel: View in Delft, 26 circumambient process: van Eyck and, 51; Hooke and, 42 Finding of Moses, The. and The Astronomer, 107, 115, 141n. 64

Claesz, Pieter: Vanitas Still Life, 27 Fleck, Ludwig, 54, 135n. 178

Clark, Kenneth, 22 Fontana, Francesco: Novae Coelestium Terrestriumque Rerum

Clavelin, Maurice, 134n. 44 Observationes, 21

Clio, Muse of History, 95, 97; and relation to Urania, 115-16 Ford, Brian J., 100, 101, 121, 128n. 9, 129n. 21, 133n. 150;

Cohen, I. B.: and Galileo’s transformation of sense data, 60 and Leeuwenhoek specimens, 32; Single Lens, 52

Cole; Fi: ].:32 forms of attention, varied: by van Eyck, 51; by Galileo, 52; by Comenius, John Amos: Great Didactic, 82 Vermeer, 51-52. See also concentric method

concentric method, 88; Galileo and, 52, 100; Hooke and, 64, | Fouquet, Jean: and convex mirror, 23, 27, 128n. 98 98, 100; Huygens and, 61, 100; of Leeuwenhoek, 51-52, Four Books on Human Proportion (Durer): and cartography, 25,

64, 98, 100, 120; Vermeer and, 17, 65, 66, 71, 100 9] Concert, The (Vermeer), 46, 47, 82, 103 Fourier synthesis: microscope image as, 16, 52; Vermeer’s

Constable, John, 65, 121, 135n. 71 paintings as, 52; Vermeer’s use of, 121

convex mirror: as artistic aid, 23—25 Fournier, Marian, 105, 106, 126n. 33

Costaras, Nicola, 144n. 25 Frau Welt [Lady World]: and The Art of Painting, 118-19, 143n. 96

Daston, Lorraine, 98, 100 Fuchs, Leonhart: De Historia Stirpium, 74, 98, 139n. 73; and

Davis, Margaret Daly, 116 mimetic versus didactic imagery, 74, 98, 130n. 64, Delaisse, L. M. J., 79, 13’7n. 38 136nn. 17 and 20, 139nn. 55, 73; and text and image, Delsaute, Jean-Luc, 128n. 4 72, 79, 87, 136n. 22; text and image in De Historia Dennis, Michael Aaron, 85, 86, 87, 125n. 4, 137n. 71 Stirpium, 74

Descargues, Pierre, 65, 102, 105, 120, 135n. 70 Fullmaurer, Heinrich: and De Historia Stirpium, 74 Diana and Her Companions (Vermeer), 103, 111 Furtenagel, Lucas: Copy of Hans Burgkmair’s Self-portrait with

disciplined seeing, 64, 87, 88 Fis Wife, 23, 24

Disegno: Galileo and, 52, 60, 133n. 13

Dobell, Clifford, 86 Galilei, Galileo: and Accademia dei Lincei, 35; and Drake, Stillman, 130n. 50 perception, 101; and art technique, Renaissance, 58-59; Dou, Gerard: and instrumental adjuncts, 26, 127n. 81 Accademia del Disegno, 58; and ambiguity of

Drebbel, Cornelis: and camera obscura, 43, 103; inventions and Cigoli, 58; and concentric method, 52, 100, 120,

of, 126n. 43; and microscope, 22, 103; 121; and conceptual schemas, 60; De visu et coloribus, 58; Duarte, Diego: and Huygens family, 105 and Disegno, 52, 58, 60, 120, 121, 133n. 13; education, Durer, Albrecht, 111; Hour Books on Human Proportion, and 33: and instrumentation, 33; intellect as lens, 35; and mapping, 25, 91; and instrumental systems, 25; The Kepler, 20; La Bilancetta, 33; lens-making technique, 34; Northern Celestial Hemisphere, 112; Underweyssung der and Leonardo’s Trattato della pittura, 134n. 36; Letters on

Messung, 20, 25 Sunspots, 72, 86; and mechanics, science of, 32; and

mental constructs, 55, 56, 60; and mental lensing, 71; Edgerton, Samuel Y,, Jr., 22, 111, 127n. 51, 133n. 13, 134n. and microscope, 21; and the Paragone, 72; Platonism of,

40; The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry, 61, 109 133n. 157; repeated observations, in astronomical work,

Elinga, Pieter Janssens, 26 57; and Saturn, 60, 134n. 49; Sidereus Nuncius, 20, 33,

Elkins, James, 127n. 58, 131nn. 71 and 84 35,43, 55,56, 57; 58, 60, 72, 86, 88, 103, 137n: 67; sight

Eyck, Jan van, 121, 130n. 64; Altarpiece of the Lamb, 40, 41, 42; and imagination, use of, 121—22; telescope construction,

and circumambient process, 51; Crucifixion, 39, 40; eye 130nn. 43 and 45; telescope construction, early, 33-34; of, as microscope and telescope, 36; Ghent Alltarpiece, 39; telescope technique of, 31, 34-35, 130n. 50; telescope

INDEX 153 technology, lead in, 34; text and image in scientific 29; and instruments, 19; and normative description, 98;

publications, 86-87, 88 Micrographia, 19, 29, 31, 32, 64, 72, 82, 85, 86, 87, 98,

Galilei, Vincenzio, 33, 58, 134n. 24 120, 123; microscopic images, problems of

Galison, Peter, 98, 100 interpretation, 32, 64; text and image in Micrographia, Gassendi, Pierre: and telescopic astronomy, 21 85-88; and working objects, 98

Gemma-Frisius, Reinerus: and astronomical measurement, Houbraken, Arnold, 127n. 81 26; and camera obscura, 21; and Jacob’s staff, 22, 58 Huygens, Christiaan, 29, 118, 120, 141nn. 40, 53, 56, 57, and Geographer, The (Vermeer), 17, 66, 82, 88, 89, 90, 95, 103, 58; and ambiguity of perception, 101; and The Art of 104, 105, 107, 115-16, 123, 139n. 76, 140n. 35, 143n. 97 Painting, 116-19; and Cartesianism, 135n. 57; and

Gerson, Levi ben: and Jacob’s staff, 22 concentric method, 61, 100; De Circuli Magnitudine Gesner, Conrad: Historiae Animalium, 77; Historia Plantarum, Inventa, 106; De Saturnit Luna Observatio Nova, 61, 66,

77; and text and image, 77, 87 107, 141n. 59; and mental constructs, 64; and mental

Gheyn, Jacques de, 27 lensing, 71; and microscope, 22, 31; and microscope

Ghini, Luca: and herbaria sicca, 79, 137n. 36 image, 123; and repeated observations, 61; and Saturn’s Girl Interrupted at Her Music (Vermeer), 47, 82, 102 appearance, 61-64; small multiple of Saturn, 61, 116; Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (Vermeer), 17, 44, 47, Systema Saturnium, 21, 61, 62, 63, 66, 72, 107, 116,

66, 79, 82, 83, 84, 88, 92, 94, 103 134nn. 52 and 54; and Vermeer, 106—7

Girl with the Red Hat (Vermeer), 45, 46, 49, 51, 99, 102, 103 Huygens, Constantin, 105, 141n. 40, 144n. 24; and camera

Girl with the Wine Glass, The (Vermeer), 47 obscura, 43, 103; and microscope, 22, 103

Glass of Wine, The (Vermeer), 47 Hyatt Mayor, A., 23, 53, 77, 100, 102, 139n. 67 Goedaert, Johannes: magnifying lens, use of, 27

Goldstein, Thomas, 95, 139n. 48 illuminated manuscripts. See manuscript illumination Gombrich, E. H., 57, 122; Art and Illusion, 55, 73 infinitesimal calculus, of van Eyck, 36, 38, 41 Goodsir, Sir John: and instrument-aided perception, 54 informed observation, 54, 57; Vermeer’s use of, 66 Gowing, Lawrence, 38, 44, 99, 100, 102, 103, 123 instrument-aided perception, 29, 54-57, 60-65, 66-71;

s’Gravesande, G. J., 99, 139n. 67 Vermeer and, 107

Gregory, R. L., 122, 134n. 20; and object-hypotheses, 57; and instrumental adjuncts, 54; artists’ use of, 29; Dutch artists

relation between pictures and language, 73 and, 43; van Eyck and, 51; Galileo and, 121-22; Vermeer

Grene, Marjorie, 124 and, 43, 50-51, 66, 107, 121-24. See also instrumental

Grew, Nehemiah, 21 systems Guild of St. Luke, 15, 106 instrumental systems, 15, 29; Dutch artists’ use of, 26-29; Guitar Player, The (Vermeer), 46, 99 Leonardo and, 22; Vermeer’s use of, 26-29. See also instrumental adjuncts

Hacking, Ian, 122, 124, 129n. 15, 143n. 22, 144n. 23; instrumental technique, 30-31

Representing and Intervening, 52 instrument-mediated knowledge: acquisition of, by artists

Hanson, N. R., 97, 134n. 48 and scientists, 15, 29

Harbison, Craig, 38, 41 intellect, as lens, 16, 57, 61, 65, 71, 88 Harriot, Thomas, 33, 55, 57; Drawing of the Moon in the First Ivins, William, 136n. 12; Prints and Visual Communication, 73;

Quarter, 57 text and image in the Fabrica, 77

Van Helden, Albert, 61, 86, 112, 129n. 36, 135n. 57, 137nn.

59 and 67; The Invention of the Telescope, 111 Jacob’s staff: Gemma-Frisius and, 22, 58

herbals, 74, 79, 98 Jamnitzer, Wenzel: Perspectitva Corporum Regularium, 26 Hevelius, Johannes: Selenographia Sive Lunae Descriptio, 21 Janssen, Sacharias: and invention of microscope, 103; and

Heyden, Jan van der: and instrumental systems, 26; View of invention of telescope, 33, 103 the Dam in Amsterdam, 26, 143n. 19; A View of the Johnson Abercrombie, M. L., 55, 140n. 78

Herengracht, Amsterdam, 26 Jupiter: satellites of, observed by Galileo, 35

Hoefnagel, Georg (Joris), 79; magnifying lens, use of, 27;

and Ortelius, 90 Kant, Immanuel, 54, 133n. 2

Hoffman, Donald: and rules of universal vision, 73 Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, 79, 127n. 70 Holbein, Hans, 23, 25, 27, 128n. 98; The Ambassadors, 25, Kemp, Martin, 29 104, 140n. 33; and camera obscura, 26, and scientific Kepler, Johannes: Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, 21, 29, 126n.

instruments, 25-26 32: and artistic visualization, 20; and camera obscura,

Hondius, Jodocus: and marginal text on maps, 84; and 20-21, 126n. 32; De Stella Nova, 25; Dioptrice, 20, 21, 29, terrestrial globe in The Astronomer, 89, 90, 105 43, 103; and Durer, 20, 127n. 70; Epitome, 142n. 64; and Hoogstraten, Samuel van, 26, 116; and camera obscura, 26, Galileo, 20; Harmonice Mundi, 129n. 30; Mysteriwm

29; Inleyding, 27, 115, 143n. 12 Cosmographicum, 141n. 64; and Platonism, 134n. 26; and Hooke, Robert: circumambient process of, 42; and telescope, 34, 125n. 12 concentric method, 64, 98, 100; and disciplined seeing, — Kircher, Athanasius: Ars Magna Lucis kt Umbrae, 22

64, 87, 120, 135n. 64; and instrument-aided perception, Kluckert, Ehrenfried, 131n. 76

154 INDEX knowledge: paintings as instruments of, 71, 95, 123 mental lensing, 15, 17, 71, 72

knowledge, instrument-mediated, 15, 29 Mercator, Gerardus, 91; Mercator projection, 25; On the Kubovy, Michael: The Psychology of Perspectwve and Renaissance Lettering of Maps, 84

Art, 20 Metius, Adriaen, 107, 111-15, 138n. 16; /nstitutiones Astronomicae © Geographicae, 105

Lacemaker, The (Vermeer), 45, 49, 51, 99, 102, 103 Metius, Jacob, 111-15, 138n. 16; and invention of Lady Seated at a Virginal, A (Vermeer), 47, 66, 82, 99 microscope, 103; and invention of telescope, 33, 103

Lady Standing at a Virginal, A (Vermeer), 47 Metsu, Gabriel: and love letter paintings, 82

Lady Writing, A (Vermeer), 82 Meyer, Albrecht: and De Historia Stirpium, 74 Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid (Vermeer), 46, 47, 66, 82,99 Micrographia (Hooke), 19, 29, 31, 32, 64, 72, 82, 85, 86, 87,

language: picture-making power of, 84-85, 88, 92, 94, 97 98,120, 123 Leeuwenhoek, Antony van: and ambiguity of perception, microscope: early use of, 21-22; van Eyck and, 36; image, as

101; and artist/illuminators, 86; concentric method of, Fourier Synthesis, 16, 52; image, as map, 122-23; and

51-52, 64, 82, 98, 100, 120; and dark-ground new philosophy, 19; and normative description, 98; illumination, 31; and disciplined seeing, 88; and Dutch simple, development and use by Leeuwenhoek, 31-32; illuminators, 79; and Huygens, 141n. 53; lens-making technical problems of, 32, 64; technique, in

technique of, 31, 129nn. 10, 12, 14, 15, and 21; and Micrographia, 87 mental lensing, 71; micro-dissection technique, 31-32; microscopists, classical, 21 and Micrographia, 128n. 9; microscopial technique of, microscopy: publications on, effect on Vermeer, 105-6 30-32, 129n. 26; municipal positions, 106, 141n. 50; Milkmaid, The (Vermeer), 44, 50, 51, 79, 99, 103

range of research, 31; text and image in work, 86, mirrors, and reflective surfaces: artists and use of, 23-29; van 87-88; and Vermeer, 15-18, 102-3, 106, 119, 141n. 51; Eyck and Northern artists and use of, 39-40; Vermeer

and working objects, 98 and use of, 47—48

lens, intellect as, 57, 61, 65, 71, 88 Mistress and Maid (Vermeer), 49, 82, 132n. 129 lenses: and artists, 23-29; Galileo and, 33-35; Leeuwenhoek Moffett, Thomas, 21—22; Insectorum Sive Minimorum

and, 30-32; Vermeer and, 47 Animalium Theatrum, 21-22

Leonardo da Vinci, 29, 120, 121; anatomical studies by, 133n. Monconys, Balthasar de: Voyages, 102

151; and camera obscura, 20; Drafisman Using a Monte, Guidobaldo del: Perspectivae Libri Sex, 58 Transparent Plane to Draw an Armillary Sphere, 22; and Montgomery, Scott, 39, 40 instrumental systems, 22; and knowledge acquisition, Montias, John M., 42, 43, 106 123; Muscles of the Right Arm, Shoulder, and Chest, 74, 75; Mo-tzu (Mo Ti), 144n. 24 and small multiple, 135n. 76; The Superficial Anatomy of the | Music Lesson, The (Vermeer), 28, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 82, 91,

Foot and Lower Leg, 74, 76; text and image, in anatomical 103, 105, 140n. 4 studies, 74, 77, 87-88; Treatise on Painting, 127n. 50

Liedtke, Walter, 26 naturalism: in science and art, 74 Lipperhey, Hans: and invention of microscope, 103; and natural philosophers: and artists, relation between, 85

invention of telescope, 33, 103 Neoplatonism: Vermeer and, 104, 133n. 157

Love Letter, The (Vermeer), 47, 65, 66, 82, 90, 92

object-hypotheses: paintings as, 65; role in perception, 57,

Malpighi, Marcello, 21 60; and Saturn’s appearance, 61; Vermeer’s use of, Mantegna, Andrea, 20, 23, 60; Archers Shooting at Saint 66-71 Christopher, 20 Odierna, Gioanbatista: Vocchio della Mosca, 22

manuscript illumination: Dutch, 79-82; Flemish, 77-82 oeuvre. Vermeer’s, as small multiple, 17, 18; Vermeer’s, as map: camera obscura image as, 123; microscope image as, super atlas, 18, 101

122-23 Officer and Laughing Gul (Vermeer), 18, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51,

mapping: and painting, 122; as perception, 97; quality, of 65, 82, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 132n. 129

pictures, 94, 97 oil painting. See technique

maps: cognitive landscape of human mind and, 92, 94; oil technique. See technique duality of, 91, 92, 95; and knowledge acquisition, 94; O'Malley, C. D., 136n. 25 and knowledge transmission, 85, 91; and language, 85, optical way: of Vermeer, 99, 103 91; picturing quality of, 94; as portraits, 94-97; in Ortelius, Abraham: and Bruegel, 90; and Durer’s Four Books

Vermeer’s oeuvre, 84, 90-97, 101 on Human Proportion, 25,91; Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 84; Massys, Quinten: St. Luke Painting the Virgin and Child, 25 and Vermeer’s oeuvre as super atlas, 101 Master of Catherine of Cleves: Hours of Catherine of Cleves, 80,

Master of the Dresden Prayerbook: Cartulary of Saint _James’s Pacht, Otto, 38

Hospital in Tournai, 78 Pacioli, Luca, 127n. 55

mazzocchio, 116, 143n. 89 painting: and cartography, 91-92, 94-97; as instrument of mental constructs: Galileo and, 55, 56, 60; Huygens and, 64; knowledge, 71, 95, 123; as language, 73, 91; and

Vermeer and, 71 mapping, 91, 122; mapping quality of, 94

INDEX 155 paintings: as documents, 92; as experiments, 65, 121, 124; as seeing, and knowing, 57 object-hypotheses, 65; as transformations of reality, 71 Selm, Burt van, 104 Panofsky, Erwin, 23, 36, 38, 40, 42, 58, 90, 130n. 64, 134n. 26 Seymour, Charles, 44, 45, 47, 102, 103, 120, 132n. 126, 139n.

Paragone. Galileo and, 72 60, 140nn. 4, 26

Parmigianino, Francesco, 23, 27, 128n. 98 Sheehan, William, 57

Pegasus, constellation of, 119, 143n. 98; and The Astronomer, Sidereus Nuncius (Galileo), 20, 33, 35, 43, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60

109-11 sight, and imagination, 16, 53, 71, 88, 121-22

Pegasus, winged, 142n. 69 simple microscope, 31-32; technical problems, 32. See also perception, ambiguity of, 55, 122-24; in science, 101; in microscope

Vermeer’s work, 101 Sirigatti, Lorenzo: La Pratica di Prospettiva, 58, 59

perception: as mapping, 97; as mediated process, 54-55; and _—_ Slatkes, Leonard J., 107

object-hypotheses, 57, 60; as process, 88, 123-24; and small multiple: of Saturn, by Huygens, 61, 107, 116; of

schemas, 55, 56, 60, 64 Saturn, and Vermeer, 107, 116; Vermeer’s oeuvre as, 66 perspective: Petrus Christus and use of, 40; as visual tool, 49; Snyder, James, 94, 101

as visual tool, by van Eyck, 40-41 Sonnenburg, Hubert von, 49, 50

picturing quality: of maps, 91, 94, 97 Speckle, Veit Rudolph: and De Historia Stirpiwm, 74 Piero della Francesca, 23, 60, 116 Steadman, Philip, 28, 48, 66, 127n. 54, 128n. 98, 132nn. 105,

Pirenne, M. H., 135n. 77 126, 129; Vermeer’s Camera, 47, 49, 50, 53 Pont, Giovanni du: and Galileo, 126n. 35 Stelluti, Francesco, 21

Popper, Karl, 97 Straker, Stephen, 20, 27, 125n. 16

Porta, Giambattista della, 35, 129n. 36, 131n. 96, 137n. 45; Swammerdam, Jan, 21

Magia Naturalis, 35 Swillens, P. T. A., 49, 50, 65, 66

portraits: as maps, 94-97 Systema Saturnium (Huygens), 21, 61, 62, 63, 66, 72, 107, 116, Procuress, The (Vermeer), 44, 47, 66, 95, 103, 111, 113 134nn. 52 and 54; Vermeer and, 66, 107, 116 Prophets Slain by Order of Jezebel, 81

Ptolemy: Alberti and, 22, 91, 127n. 51; Brunelleschi and, 22, technique: as creative tool, and Galileo, 121-22; van Eyck’s,

91; and comparison of mapping to portraiture, 91, 95, as meta-instrument, 41, 42; van Eyck’s, as optical device 138n. 13, 139n. 48; Cosmographia, 22, 61, 91; Huygens and conceptual tool, 41, 42; van Eyck’s, of painting,

and 61; perspective method of, 22, 61, 91 36-38; microscopial, of Leeuwenhoek, 31-32; microscopial, in Micrographia, 87; oil painting, to focus

Raphael: Astronomy (Urania, Prime Mover), 110; and Stanza artistic vision, 51; telescope, of Galileo, 34-35; della Segnatura, 109; Urania and Vermeer’s The Art of Vermeer’s, of painting, 50-51, 124 Painting, 115-16; Urania and Vermeer’s The Astronomer, telescope: development and use, by Galileo, 32-35; van Eyck 107-11; View of Parnassus and partial view of the School of and, 36; and new philosophy, 19; and seventeenth-

Athens, 109 century astronomy, 21

Rash-Fabbri, Nancy, 109 text and image: in Dutch manuscript illumination, 79-82;

Reeves, Eileen, 134n. 36 equivalence of, 73; in Galileo’s work, 86-87, 88; in

Reinhold, Erasmus, 2] herbals of Brunfels and Fuchs, 74, 79; to illustrate

repeated observations: Galileo and use of, 57; Huygens and knowledge acquisition, 88; in Leeuwenhoek’s work, 86,

use of, 61 87-88; in Leonardo’s anatomical studies, 77, 87-88; in

repoussoir. in Vermeer’s paintings, 66 maps, 84; in Micrographia, 85-88; relation to perception, Ripa, Cesare: Iconologia, 25, 116, 143n. 7 72-73; in scientific publications, 85-88; in Vermeer’s

Robinson, Arthur, 91, 97 paintings, 72, 82-84, 88; in Vesalius’s Fabrica, 74—77, 87;

Ronchi, Vasco, 125n. 10 in Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, 94

and image, 77 Fabrica, 77

Rondelet, Guillaume, 87; History of the Fishes, 77; and text Titian: and the fabnica, 136n. 25; Titian’s Anatomy and the

Root-Bernstein, Robert, 65 Torrentius, Johannes, 128n. 98; and camera obscura, 26-27;

Ruckers, Andreas, 105 Still Life, Allegory of Temperance, 27, 28

Ruestow, Edward, 27, 129n. 26 transformation: of reality, by Vermeer, 71; of sense data, by Galileo, 60, 71

Saenredam, Pieter: and mapping, 90; personal library of, Treip, Mindele Ann, 115

104 trompe Voeil: in Flemish manuscript illumination, 78-79, 81

Saint Praxedis (Vermeer), 103 Tufte, Edward, 61, 100, 134n. 54, 139n. 75

Sarton, George, 136n. 22 Turnbull, David, 138n. 21, 139n. 52 Saturn: observed by Galileo, 60, 134n. 49 Turner, A. Richard, 132n. 143 Scheiner, Christoph, 21; Rosa Ursina, 21, 43

schemas: role of, in perception, 55, 56, 60, 64 Uccello, Paolo, 23, 60 Schwarz, Heinrich, 26, 102, 103, 104, 131n. 102 Urania: crown of, as small multiple, 116; as depicted by

science: and art, 120 Hoogstraten, 115, 142n. 84; as depicted by Raphael,

156 INDEX 110, 115; and Frau Welt, 119; and philosophy, 142n. 86; Virginal, 47, 66, 82, 99; A Lady Standing at a Virginal, 47; and relation to Clio, 115-16; and Vermeer’s The Art of A Lady Writing, 82; Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, Painting, 115-16; and Vermeer’s The Astronomer, 107-11 46, 47, 66, 82, 99; The Love Letter, 47, 65, 66, 82, 90, 92:

Utrecht lens, 31-32, 52, 133n. 150 The Milkmaid, 44, 50, 51, 79, 99, 103; Mistress and Maid, 49, 82, 132n. 129; The Music Lesson, 28, 46, 47, 49, 50,

Valentiner, W. R., 120 51, 82, 91, 103, 105, 140n. 4; Officer and Laughing Girl,

Vasari, Giorgio, 38; and Accademia del Disegno, 58 18, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, 65, 82, 90, 92, 95, 94, 95, 97, 99, Velazquez, Diego: and instrumental systems, 29; Las Menznas, 132n. 129: The Procuress, 44, 47, 66, 95, 103, 111, 713;

29 Saint Praxedis, 103; View of Delft, 27; 44, 45, 51, 52, 91, 99,

Velde, Esaias van der: View of Zierikzee, 27 102, 103; A Woman Asleep, 47, 49, 50, 51, 66, 92, 94, 103;

Veltman, Kim, 91 Woman Holding a Balance, 47, 66; Woman in Blue Reading Leeuwenhoek, 114 Woman with a Lute, 47, 66, 82, 90, 92,95; Woman with a

Verkolje, Johannes (Jan), 111; Portraat of Antony van a Letter, 17, 47, 50, 65, 66, 82, 84, 88, 90, 92, 94, 95;

Vermeer, Johannes: abstraction in paintings, 99; and Pearl Necklace, 47, 66; Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, ambiguity of perception, 101; archetypal images, in 47, 50, 66, 90, 92, 95, 99 paintings, 99-101; and camera obscura, 26-27, 29, Vesalius, Andreas: De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, 60, 43-47, 71, 102-3, 104, 121-24, 131nn. 100 and 102, 74-77; text and image in the Fabrica, 74-77, 87 132nn. 104, 105, 126; and camera obscura, cubicle type, View of Delft (Vermeer), 27, 44, 45, 51, 52, 91, 99, 102, 103 47; and camera obscura, effects in paintings, 99; and Visscher, Claes Jansz., 90, 95, 116; Wall Map of the Seventeen

camera obscura, as instrumental adjunct, 52-53; and Provinces, 97 camera obscura, room type, 52; and cartography, 104-5; — Visscher, Nicolaus Claesz., 139n. 42 and Clio/Urania, 115-19; concentric method of, 65, 66, — Vos, Reynier Jansz., 42, 105 71, 100; and development of object-hypotheses, 66-71;

and Dutch illuminators, 79; Fourier synthesis, use of, Wadum, Jorgen, 49 121; and Huygens, 106-7, 116; and Huygens’s small Walsh, John, 45 multiple, 107, 116; and informed observation, 66; and Wedderburn, John: and Galileo’s microscopial work, 126n.

instrument-aided perception, 107; and instrumental 35 adjuncts, 50-53, 66, 107, 121-24; and instrumental Weiditz, Hans: and Herbarwm Vivae Ficones, 74; mimetic style

systems, 26-28, 30; and Italian art, 111; and of, 74, 98, 139nn. 54 and 73 Leeuwenhoek, 15-18, 102—3, 106, 119; and lenses and Welu, James A., 90, 104, 105, 107, 111, 116, 118, 138n. 4,

mirrors, 47-48; and love letter paintings, 82; maps in 139n. 76 paintings, 90-97, 101; mental constructs, use of, 71; and = Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr., 26, 44, 47, 50, 52-53, 92, 93, 99,

mental lensing, 71; and microscopy, 105-6; musical 102, 104, 115, 116; Vermeer © the Art of Painting, 50 interests, 105; as natural philosopher, 120-22, 142n. 82; Wilenski, R. H., 23, 47, 49 and Neoplatonism, 104, 133n. 157; and normative Wilson, Catherine, 123, 131n. 95 description, 99, 100; observational ability of, 49-50; Wilson, Charles, 137n. 40 oeuvre, as small multiple, 17, 66; oeuvre, as super atlas, Winkler, Mary G., 86, 137nn. 59 and 67 18, 101; and optical way, 99, 103; paintings as Fourier Witelo: and diligent examination, 57 synthesis, 52; painting technique, 30-31, 50-51, 124, Witz, Konrad: Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 40; St. Christopher,

144n, 25; painting technique, to focus artistic vision, 51; 40, 49 perspective, as visual tool, 49, 132nn. 126 and 129; and Woman Asleep, A (Vermeer), 47, 49, 50, 51, 66, 92, 94, 103 reflective surfaces, 27-28; repoussovy, in paintings, 66; Woman Holding a Balance (Vermecr), 47, 66 and Systema Saturnium, 66, 107, 116; text and image, in Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (Vermeer), 17, 47, 50, 65, 66,

paintings, 82-84, 88; and working images, 52, 100. 82, 84, 88, 90, 92, 94, 95 Works: Allegory of Faith, 27, 47, 49, 50, 66, 82, 90, 139n. Woman with a Lute (Vermeer), 47, 66, 82, 90, 92, 95 76; The Art of Painting, 16, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 66, 82, 90, Woman with a Pearl Necklace (Vermeer), 47, 66

92,95, 96, 97, 99, 103, 105, 107, 115, 116, 119, 132n. word and image. See text and image 129, 136n. 3; The Astronomer, 16, 17, 82, 88, 89, 90, 95, working images: Leonardo and, 52; Vermeer and, 52, 100. 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 111, 113, 115, 119, 123, 139n. See also working objects 76, 140n. 35; Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, 95, working objects: atlas makers and, 98; and microscopial 103, 111; The Concert, 46, 47, 82, 103; Diana and Her illustration, 98. See also working images Companions, 103, 111; The Geographer, 17, 66, 82, 88, 89,

90, 95, 103, 104, 105, 107, 115-16, 123, 139n. 76, 140n. Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (Vermeer), 47, 50, 66, 90,

35, 143n. 97; Girl Interrupted at Her Music, 47, 82, 102; 92, 95, 99 Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, 17, 44, 47, 66,

79, 82, 83, 84, 88, 92, 94, 103; Girl with the Red Hat, 45, Zandvliet, Kees, 90, 105, 139n. 46 46, 49, 51, 99, 102, 103; The Girl with the Wine Glass, 47; Zuylen, J. van, 129n. 10 The Glass of Wine, 47; The Guitar Player, 46, 99; The Lacemaker, 45, 49, 51, 99, 102, 103; A Lady Seated at a