Widerstreitende Naturkonzepte in Kunst, Dichtung und Wissenschaft im Italien des 17. Jahrhunderts
Dienstag, 14. Juli 2015, ab 13.45 Uhr
Galileo Galilei vergleicht die Natur mit einem Buch, dessen Sprache verstanden werden muss, um es lesen zu können. Rezente Studien wie Pamela Smiths The Body oft the Artisan oder Opher Gals Baroque Science haben uns darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie intensiv Künstler der Frühen Neuzeit sich für die Arbeit und Resultate der zeitgleichen Wissenschaftler interessierten, und auf welche Weise sie diese dann in ihre Kunst übertrugen. Das Thema der Tagung ist es daher, auf diese Ausgangsproblematik zu reagieren und sich die Frage zu stellen, ob das Verhältnis von Kunst, Literatur, und Wissenschaft in ihrer Untersuchung der Natur wirklich in einen so harmonischen Dialog eingebettet war, wie es oft geschildert wird.
(English Version below)
Galileo Galilei famously paralleled the world to a book that can be read by those who know how to read it. According to Galilei, nature expresses herself in the language of geometry, a metaphor adopted by Hans Blumenberg to underscore the claim of early modern scientists as gatekeepers to an exclusive understanding of nature. This exclusivity, which has been the core of the metanarrative of the “scientific revolution,” has been relativized by authors such as Opher Gal, Raz Chen-Morris and Pamela Smith, who draw close parallels between the endeavors of seventeenth-century artists and scientists, both being faced with similar dilemmas and struggles in understanding nature.
The study day, “Who can read the book of nature?” organized in collaboration with the Forschungsschwerpunkt für Historische Kulturwissenschaften Mainz aims to take a close look at interactions between scientists, poets, and artists, tracing different concepts of nature including also the period preceding the seventeenth century. Participants will explore the relationship between artists and scientists, and whether they considered each other as friends or competitors in “reading the book of nature”. We are interested in proposals that address questions such as: Did early modern artists themselves consider science as a discipline privileged in the understanding of nature? Did artists reflect on different ways of understanding nature? Did poets resign themselves to a poetic, allegorical understanding of nature? What happens to the different disciplines and their specific canons, if nature writes her book in one language only?