"Robert Fulton: Between Art and Engineering"

《罗伯特·富尔顿：艺术与工程之间》

• 批准号: 0957537
• 负责人: Alex Roland
• 金额: $ 1.37万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-04-15 至 2011-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0957537&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Robert; Fulton; Between; Art; Engineering

Robert Fulton went to England in 1786 at the age of twenty-one to study art with Benjamin West, the most famous American artist of the day. After several reasonably successful years with West in London, Fulton went to Devon to paint a series of commissioned portraits, and that marked the beginning of a substantial transformation for Fulton. In six years of traveling through the English midlands, he converted from artist to engineer, a title he claimed in his first publication, A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation (1796). The purpose of this research project is to investigate Fulton's conversion, to understand why he gave up a promising career in art to devote the rest of his life to engineering and invention, culminating in his widespread recognition as the inventor of the steamboat.Fulton has attracted many biographies since his death in 1815, but most fall victim to the nationalism that so often engulfs the stories of "heroic inventors." Americans have been most assiduous and hagiographic in telling Fulton's story, but they have done most of their research in the United States and much less in Europe, where Fulton had spent almost two decades. Europeans have generally neglected Fulton in favor of their own claimants for the title of inventor of the steamboat. The working hypothesis behind this research project is that Fulton's experience in the English midlands in the mid-1790s was the formative period in his professional and personal development, the time when he embraced a view of technology that was flourishing in the British Industrial Revolution and also when his political and ideological views of the world began to develop. These factors and others shaped the rest of Fulton's remarkable career, and only research in local records and artifacts can fully capture what he might have experienced. The results can shed light on the continuing relationship between art and engineering and the motivations that spur creative people to embrace engineering careers.The results of this research will eventually be published as part of a full length biography of Fulton. The biography should have broad appeal well beyond historians of science; it should be of substantial interest to art historians, inventors, engineers, architects, and others.

罗伯特富尔顿前往英国在1786年在21岁学习艺术与本杰明韦斯特，最有名的美国艺术家的一天。在伦敦与韦斯特合作了几年相当成功的岁月后，富尔顿去德文郡画了一系列委托的肖像画，这标志着富尔顿实质性转变的开始。在穿越英格兰中部的六年中，他从艺术家转变为工程师，他在第一本出版物《关于改善运河航行的知识》（1796年）中声称这是一个头衔。这个研究项目的目的是调查富尔顿的转变，了解为什么他放弃了一个有前途的艺术生涯，把他的余生奉献给工程和发明，最终在他作为蒸汽船的发明者的广泛认可。富尔顿自1815年去世以来，吸引了许多传记，但大多数都是民族主义的牺牲品，这种民族主义经常吞噬“英雄发明家”的故事。美国人在讲述富尔顿的故事时最为勤奋和虔诚，但他们的大部分研究都是在美国完成的，而在欧洲则少得多，富尔顿在欧洲度过了近20年。欧洲人通常忽视了富尔顿，而赞成他们自己的蒸汽船发明者的称号。这项研究项目背后的工作假设是，富尔顿的经验，在英国中部地区在1790年代中期是形成期，在他的专业和个人发展，当他接受了一个技术，是在英国工业革命蓬勃发展的时间，也当他的政治和意识形态的世界观开始发展。这些因素和其他因素塑造了富尔顿其余的非凡职业生涯，只有研究当地的记录和文物可以充分捕捉他可能经历过的事情。研究结果可以揭示艺术与工程之间的持续关系，以及激励创意人士从事工程职业的动机。这项研究的结果最终将作为富尔顿全长传记的一部分出版。传记应该有广泛的吸引力，远远超出科学史家;它应该是艺术史学家，发明家，工程师，建筑师和其他人的实质性兴趣。