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

从DNA测序图到NASA的马头星云图像，今天的科学是高度可视化的，产生了壮观、耐人寻味甚至令人费解的图像。我们认为科学的视觉维度是如此的理所当然，以至于很容易忘记这些图像中的许多涉及对数据的处理和处理，更难以想象的是，视觉资源的结合在科学史上并不是不言而喻的发展。这个网络试图调查科学作为一种视觉追求的起源，在那里，博物学家和自然哲学家与绘图员、画家和雕刻师合作，使用绘画、雕刻、表格和模型作为理解自然的手段。特别是，它侧重于早期皇家学会的活动，以调查17世纪英国如何出现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案例研究，因为它是一个对知识可视化感兴趣的集体机构：它的哲学交易经常包括插图，它支持各种图文并茂的出版物，并且在学会的档案和其他地方保存了大量的图片材料。它的许多研究员也是艺术鉴赏家，当时英国正在发展丰富的印刷文化。通过将英国和国际科学史学家、艺术和视觉文化史学家聚集在一起，并通过让年轻一代的学生和学者参与进来，这个网络提出了以下研究问题：图像如何赋予自然学家和自然哲学家形成创新想法和发展新实践的能力？是否有任何证据表明，集体“看/画”适合英国皇家学会的协作理想？出版图像的过程是怎样的？作者、编辑和艺术家在图文并茂的科学书籍的出版过程中扮演了什么角色？一些会员对美术和鉴赏的兴趣是否影响了他们画画的方式或判断为协会制作的图像的有效性？有可能区分“艺术”和“科学”形象吗？如果研究员们认为使用图像来理解自然，有什么问题或限制？到网络结束时，我们希望了解科学努力如何变成一个积极和具有挑战性的过程，使自然界中通常用肉眼看不见的结构和过程变得可见。

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.