The Origins of Science as a Visual Pursuit: the case of the early Royal Society

从DNA测序图到美国宇航局马头星云的图像，今天的科学是高度视觉化的，产生了壮观、有趣甚至令人困惑的图像。我们把科学的视觉维度视为理所当然，以至于很容易忘记，许多这些图像都涉及到对数据的大量处理和操纵，更难以想象的是，视觉资源的结合在科学史上不是一个不言而喻的发展。该网络旨在调查科学作为一种视觉追求的起源，博物学家和自然哲学家与绘图员、画家和雕刻家合作，并使用绘图、雕刻、表格和模型作为理解自然的手段。特别地，它聚焦于早期皇家学会的活动，以调查17世纪英国如何出现了一个将知识可视化的集体企业。早期的皇家学会是一个很好的研究案例，因为它是一个对可视化知识感兴趣的集体：它的《哲学汇刊》定期包括插图，它支持各种插图出版物，丰富的图片材料保存在该学会的档案馆和其他地方。在英国丰富的版画文化正在发展的时期，它的许多研究员也是艺术鉴赏家。通过汇集英国和国际科学历史学家、艺术和视觉文化历史学家，并让年轻一代的学生和学者参与进来，该网络提出了以下研究问题：图像如何赋予博物学家和自然哲学家形成创新思想和发展新实践的权力？有没有证据表明集体“观看/拍照”适合皇家学会的合作理想？图像出版的过程是怎样的？作者、编辑和艺术家在插图科学书籍的出版过程中扮演了什么角色？一些研究员对美术和鉴赏力的兴趣是否影响了他们为协会绘制或判断图像有效性的方式？有可能区分“艺术”和“科学”图像吗？如果有的话，研究员们认为用图像来理解自然会有什么问题或限制？在网络结束时，我们希望了解科学努力如何成为一个积极和具有挑战性的过程，使自然界中通常人眼看不见的结构和过程可见。

From a chart of DNA sequencing to NASA's image of the Horsehead Nebula, science today is highly visual, producing spectacular, intriguing and even baffling images. We take the visual dimension of science so much for granted that it is easy to forget that many of these images involve much processing and manipulating of data and it is even more difficult to imagine that incorporation of visual resources was not a self-evident development in the history of science. This network seeks to investigate the origins of science as a visual pursuit, where naturalists and natural philosophers worked with draughtsmen, painters and engravers and used drawings, engravings, tables and models as a means of understanding nature. In particular, it focuses on activities of the early Royal Society in order to investigate how a collective enterprise to visualize knowledge emerged in seventeenth-century England. The early Royal Society is an excellent case study because it was a collective body with an interest in visualizing knowledge: its Philosophical Transactions regularly included illustrations, it supported various illustrated publications, and a wealth of pictorial material has survived in the Society's archives and elsewhere. Many of its Fellows were also connoisseurs of art in a period when a rich culture of print was developing in England. By bringing together UK and international historians of science and historians of art and visual culture, and by involving a younger generation of students and scholars, this network asks the following research questions: How did images empower naturalists and natural philosophers to form innovative ideas and develop new practices? Was there any evidence of collective "seeing/picturing" appropriate for the collaborative ideal of the Royal Society? What was the process of publishing images, and what roles did authors, editors and artists play in the publication process of illustrated, scientific books? Did the interest in fine art and connoisseurship of some of the Fellows affect the way they drew or judged the validity of images produced for the Society? Is it possible to distinguish between 'artistic' and 'scientific' images? What were the problems or limitations, if any, perceived by the Fellows, of using images in understanding nature? By the end of the network, we hope to understand how scientific endeavour came to be an active and challenging process of making visible the structures and processes in nature that are normally invisible to the human eye.