Artful instruction: pictorializing and printing artistic knowledge in early modern Germany
- Author
- Jaya Remond (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- In the early sixteenth century, a new genre of epistemic and artistic objects appeared in southern Germany. For the first time, art manuals, ranging from instruction booklets to model books, put craft know-how into pictures and stabilized it in print. These slim and user-friendly art primers were made by artists for artists, at least in theory. They were designed to teach basic drawing skills, including simple geometry, perspective, and human proportions, and to circulate patterns. However, the manuals also taught how and where to look: their objective, then, was to develop a certain optical acumen through intense visual absorption. By examining some examples of the genre authored by such prominent figures as Sebald Beham or Erhard Schon, this article addresses questions on the teachability and display of artistic knowledge in the wake of Albrecht Durer. It argues that sixteenth-century German art primers thematize, aestheticize, and embody modes of transmission and self-presentation in the ways they showcase practice. Despite their pedagogical ambitions and claims to be closer to practice than Durer's didactic model, early modern art manuals in fact created an ideal and condensed version of artistic knowledge: rather than mediating practice, they show what their authors understood practice to be. In the process, they powerfully championed the cognitive authority of pictures, and influenced the shape and format of later drawing manuals.
- Keywords
- artists' manuals, Kunstbuchlein, artistic pedagogy, artistic practice, early modern Germany, draftsmanship, prints
Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8742439
- MLA
- Remond, Jaya. “Artful Instruction: Pictorializing and Printing Artistic Knowledge in Early Modern Germany.” WORD & IMAGE, vol. 36, no. 2, 2020, pp. 101–34, doi:10.1080/02666286.2019.1631732.
- APA
- Remond, J. (2020). Artful instruction: pictorializing and printing artistic knowledge in early modern Germany. WORD & IMAGE, 36(2), 101–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2019.1631732
- Chicago author-date
- Remond, Jaya. 2020. “Artful Instruction: Pictorializing and Printing Artistic Knowledge in Early Modern Germany.” WORD & IMAGE 36 (2): 101–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2019.1631732.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Remond, Jaya. 2020. “Artful Instruction: Pictorializing and Printing Artistic Knowledge in Early Modern Germany.” WORD & IMAGE 36 (2): 101–134. doi:10.1080/02666286.2019.1631732.
- Vancouver
- 1.Remond J. Artful instruction: pictorializing and printing artistic knowledge in early modern Germany. WORD & IMAGE. 2020;36(2):101–34.
- IEEE
- [1]J. Remond, “Artful instruction: pictorializing and printing artistic knowledge in early modern Germany,” WORD & IMAGE, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 101–134, 2020.
@article{8742439,
abstract = {{In the early sixteenth century, a new genre of epistemic and artistic objects appeared in southern Germany. For the first time, art manuals, ranging from instruction booklets to model books, put craft know-how into pictures and stabilized it in print. These slim and user-friendly art primers were made by artists for artists, at least in theory. They were designed to teach basic drawing skills, including simple geometry, perspective, and human proportions, and to circulate patterns. However, the manuals also taught how and where to look: their objective, then, was to develop a certain optical acumen through intense visual absorption. By examining some examples of the genre authored by such prominent figures as Sebald Beham or Erhard Schon, this article addresses questions on the teachability and display of artistic knowledge in the wake of Albrecht Durer. It argues that sixteenth-century German art primers thematize, aestheticize, and embody modes of transmission and self-presentation in the ways they showcase practice. Despite their pedagogical ambitions and claims to be closer to practice than Durer's didactic model, early modern art manuals in fact created an ideal and condensed version of artistic knowledge: rather than mediating practice, they show what their authors understood practice to be. In the process, they powerfully championed the cognitive authority of pictures, and influenced the shape and format of later drawing manuals.}},
author = {{Remond, Jaya}},
issn = {{0266-6286}},
journal = {{WORD & IMAGE}},
keywords = {{artists' manuals,Kunstbuchlein,artistic pedagogy,artistic practice,early modern Germany,draftsmanship,prints}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{101--134}},
title = {{Artful instruction: pictorializing and printing artistic knowledge in early modern Germany}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2019.1631732}},
volume = {{36}},
year = {{2020}},
}
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