IPLUSO 23176

History of Scientific Illustration

• ApresentaçãoPresentation

  This curricular unit aims to question phenomena related to scientific illustration, with a critical and speculative attitude. Various images and their authors, from different geographies and eras, will be explored in order to deepen concepts within this field and expand the students' visual culture. In addition to reading texts and observing images and objects, practical illustration exercises will be used.  
• ProgramaProgramme

  Scientific proto-illustration: Upper Paleolithic and early civilizations. Ancient Greece and Rome.  Drawing media and technologies.   The codified world of Medieval Europe and its scientific images. Mysticism and nature in bestiaries. Technologies and materials.   Anthropocentrism in the 16th century Renaissance. ‘Scientific Revolution’ and the illustrated studies of Leonardo Da Vinci and Andrea Vesalius. Paper and printing press on scientific illustration.   Error and serendipity in scientific illustration. The pregnance of mental schemes in drawing. Albrecht Dürer's rhinoceros.   Drawing to know and rule: scientific illustration and colonialism. Visual epistemology: Philosophical journeys and the ethnographic, cartographic and natural world record. Power and exoticism: from cabinets of curiosities to human zoos.   Scientific illustration in the 19th century: from Darwin's drawings to Haeckel's illustrations. Connections between photography and engraving.   The 20th and 21th centuries.  
• ObjectivosObjectives

  This course aims to expand students' knowledge of scientific illustration by discussing the work of different authors, plasticities, eras and geographies. Throughout the sessions, the aim is to deepen students' understanding of the complex relationships between art and science, as well as to promote a critical attitude towards scientific images, through reflection and action that transcends the object and its author, to include the contexts of its commissioning, production, circulation and reception.
• BibliografiaBibliography

  Alexander, J (1992). Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. Yale University Press. Anderson, G.; Dupré, J. & Wakefield, J.G. (2019). Philosophy of Biology: Drawing and the dynamic nature of living systems. eLife (Mar 27)  https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.46962 Bleichmar, D. (2012). Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions & Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment. The University of Chicago Press. Eco, U. (1998). Serendipities. Language and Lunacy. Harcourt Brace & Company. Le Goff. J. (1992). The Medieval Imagination. The University of Chicago Press. Escardó, A, Wiedermann, J. (Ed.) (2024). Science Illustration. A History of Visual Knowledge from the 15th Century to Today.  Tashen. Mancuso, S. (2019). L´intelligence végétale. In: Francis Hallé. Nous les Arbres. Fondation Cartier pour l´art contemporain. Martins, L.P. (2012). Um Império de Papel. Imagens do Colonialismo Português na Imprensa Periódica Ilustrada (1875-1940). Edições 70.  
• MetodologiaMethodology

  This theoretical course includes systematic debate and practical exercises as methodologies. Also worth mentioning is the intention to make some of the exercises done in class tangible in the form of an object/publication.
• LínguaLanguage

  Português
• TipoType

  Semestral
• ECTS

  4
• NaturezaNature

  Mandatory
• EstágioInternship

  Não