Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art / Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 61 (2011)

Art and science are commonly considered to be two distinct expressions of human culture. This volume of the Netherlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek is devoted to the extremely rich and complex relationship between these two in the early modern Netherlands, a relationship which went much further than the use of linear perspective in painting. Both in theory and in everyday practice, the distinction between 'art' and 'science' was hard to sustain, and often proved to be not that relevant at all. Artists perfected the portrayal of human anatomy, natural historians reflected on the visual representation of previously unknown forms of life, and wealthy citizens possessed cabinets of curiosities in which naturalia and articificalia shared prominence. The case studies in this rich and challenging volume explore such topics as the influence of pictography, theories of vision and colour, the influence of Cartesian natural philosophy on art theory, and the allegorisation of science in Dutch frontispieces, amongst others.