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SoSe 14: Alchemy and Art: The Mystery of Transformation

Sven Dupré

Zusätzl. Angaben / Voraussetzungen

in englischer Sprache

Kommentar

Giorgio Vasari in the mid sixteenth century and later Karel van Mander in his Schilder-boeck (1604), portrayed Jan Van Eyck as “a man who delighted in alchemy” whose experiments led to the creation of a binding medium that produced “strong colors which are lustrous without the need of varnish, and which could be blended infinitely better than tempera”. The portrayal of the painter as an alchemist is not as far fetched as one might think as both occupations shared craft processes and materials. Other artists’ interest in alchemy went beyond the practical chemical operations involved in the production of pigments. Peter Paul Rubens, for example, referred to the tria prima of sulphur, salt and mercury (the basic elements of the universe and of Man according the alchemist and physician Paracelsus) to prove the threefold nature and divinity of man. The seminar will re-examine the myth of the invention of oil paint and discuss both the practical and theoretical aspects of alchemy in connection to early modern art and art theory. While such connections have often materialized in a questionable search for alchemical symbolism in paintings, the seminar will approach the visual and decorative arts and the art theoretical texts instead in such a way as to bring out how artists and early modern alchemists shared views of art, nature and knowledge. An essential part of the seminar is a full-day visit to the exhibition Art and Alchemy. The Mystery of Transformation at the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf on June 14. While the seminar is mostly concerned with early modern alchemy and art, the chronological scope of the exhibition reaches from Antiquity to the 21st century. Schließen

Literaturhinweise

Literature: William R. Newman, Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2004; Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2013; Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2004; Sven Dupré (ed.), Laboratories of Art. Alchemy and Art Technology from Antiquity to the 18th Century, Dordrecht, Springer, 2014; Sven Dupré, Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, Beat Wismer (eds.), Art and Alchemy. The Mystery of Transformation, Hirmer Verlag, 2014. Schließen