Jan van Eyck‘s Workshop. Engraving by Jan van der Straet: Nova Reperta, 1584, plate “oil color.” Deutsches Museum, Bildstelle.

Current Research Topic

Art and Knowledge in Pre-Modern Europe

Do artists produce knowledge? Current debates on the validity and significance of ‘artistic research’ and divided opinions at universities and art academies on the ‘doctorate in the arts’ show that the question is as pressing today as it was in the early modern period. In Den Hof en Boomgaerd der Poesien (1565) the Ghent painter and poet Lucas de Heere was in no doubt that knowledge brought him honor and virtue: “Although I do not have the riches of Croesus, / I have (I dare to say) something. / Namely knowledge, which is highly prized, / From which riches flow and honor is done, / Which ennobles me, this one can prove.” But what kind of knowledge did early modern artists like De Heere consider as part of their remit? A new Max Planck Research Group investigates how early modern artists invented, appropriated, conceived, categorized, and transmitted knowledge. By Sven Dupré. more