How does one study that which cannot be seen? This question is central to the project ‘Imagining the Earth: prints as evidence in natural philosophical discourse, 1640-1740’. Events such as creation, the Deluge and the end of time cannot be known by using one’s senses, but somehow, natural philosophers managed to form an image of these events. By doing so, prints become empirical instruments in their own right, that serve as evidence for these philosophers’ claims. The act of imagination becomes central to their scholarly practices and early modern ideas about the earth, resulting in a true transformation of our worldview.

This webiste serves as a digital repository for the study’s results. It presents the images and stories of early modern ‘earth theorists’ – and some other things that I have found along the way.

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Project

‘Imagining Earth’ studies the use of prints in research on the history of the earth, between 1640 and 1740. Topics such as the creation and the deluge were highly debated by natural philosophers, as well as by historians and theologians. Images came to play an important role in publications on this topic, as scholars aimed to make the invisible visible and depict that which cannot otherwise be witnessed. Scholars, engravers and publishers such as Willem Goeree, Thomas Burnet and Pieter de Hondt experimented with the use of prints both to elucidate their points as to serve as evidence for their claims. For not only did the amount and intended function of images change, their mode of representation changed as well: what appear to be ‘allegorical’ representations are replaced by seemingly more ‘realistic’ scenes over the course of the seventeenth century.

The project aims to map developments in the representation of the earth in natural philosophical, theological and historical discourse, in order to investigate how prints and the visualization of ideas came to play a central role in the practice of science and scholarship. It moves beyond a conception of prints as mere visualizations or carriers of knowledge, claiming that prints and visualization came to lie at the heart of the natural philosophic process on this topic. The study combines art-historical, historical and philosophical theories to research the historical representation and understanding of the earth, while simultaneously providing innovative insights and methodologies for studying the history of knowledge, prints and images.

This research project is part of the NWO ‘Promoties in de Geesteswetenschappen’ programme. It is conducted at the VU University Amsterdam by Wouter de Vries (rMA). The project is supervised by prof. dr. I.B. Leemans, prof. dr. R.W. Munk and prof. dr. ir. F.J. Dijksterhuis.

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Researcher

Wouter de Vries (1993) is set to defend his PhD Dissertation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research focuses on the interaction of imagination, visuality and knowledge in the early modern period. His current project is funded by NWO Promoties in de Geesteswetenschappen, as well as a Lisa Jardine Grant from The Royal Society of London. His previous projects include a study of the genre of coastal profiles between 1500-1800 and a study into the visual epistemologies of early modern colonial maps at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin).

For more information, please contact me at: wdevries93@gmail.com.

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