The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine: The Kunstkammer and the Evolution of Nature, Art and Technology

by Horst Bredekamp, Allison Brown (Translator), Anthony T. Grafton (Introduction)

Overview

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558760936
Publisher:	Wiener, Markus Publishers, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/08/2019
Series:	Cultural and Museum Studies Series
Pages:	156
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Horst Bredekamp, author, is the author of ten books and numerous articles, many of them translated into several languages.

Allison Brown has translated German scholarly books and essays since 1988. Her main fields of interest include history, art, and the social and political sciences, especially women's and cultural studies. She has an MA in translation science and is certified by the state of Berlin to translate official documents into English.

Anthony T. Grafton, is the author of Defenders of the Text, Forgers and Critics, and numerous other books.

Table of Contents

Preface to the American edition

Preface to the German edition

Translator’s Note

Introductio

The Question of Movement

The Historical Chain

Research and Vision

The Playfulness of Natural History

Twins of Progress

Afterword on the Present

Notes

Index of Names

Editorial Reviews

“It is a book without a superfluous sentence. One wishes to ask the author for a sequel.” —Die Zeit

“Bredekamp’s achievement goes well beyond bringing peculiar collections of obstruse constructions and ambitious alchemy to the attention of art historians. By explaining the sources of pictures of the baroque era, he also succeeds in making plausible a world of ideas in which the museum was not yet a locus of highbrow diversion, but a means of gaining insight into the essence of the world. A superb essay.” —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. The bizarre inventory of the Kunstkammer—ranging from minerals to exotic plants and animals, statues, and machines—was intended to illustrate the mechanistic order of the universe. Such collections confirmed a belief in the continual evolution of man’s god-like power of creativity. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace. “Horst Bredekamp’s elegant, erudite book sheds a flood of new light on the relations between art, science, and scholarship in early modern Europe. Deftly using a vast range of visual and textual sources, Bredekamp establishes the forgotten connections between enthusiasm for the antique and the discovery of nature, classical erudition and technical innovation.”—Anthony T. Grafton

From the Publisher

Bredekamp (art history, Humboldt U.) explains the sources of pictures of the Baroque era and offers insights on the relationships between art, science, and scholarship in early modern Europe, in this analysis of the Kunstkammer, displays of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the 16th to the 18th centuries. He combines analysis of images with interpretation of texts in a new account of the development of aesthetics and natural history of the period. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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