Sep 6 2011 — Dec 10 2011
Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge examines how celebrated Northern Renaissance artists contributed to the scientific investigations of the 16th century. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue challenge the perception of artists as illustrators in the service of scientists. Artists’ printed images served as both instruments for research and agents in the dissemination of knowledge. The exhibition, displaying prints, books, maps, and such instruments as sundials, globes, astrolabes, and armillary spheres, looks at relationships between their producers and their production, as well as among the objects themselves. The story of 16th-century technology is enhanced by technology of the 21st, with interactive computers in the galleries, an interactive module on the website, and an iPhone/iPad application in iTunes (check back here soon for an update on availability).

Curated by Susan Dackerman, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums. Organized in collaboration with the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Opening Panel Discussion and Reception: September 6, 2011, 5–8pm.

Symposium: December 2, 2011, 5–8pm (evening program), and December 3, 2011, 8:30am–6:30pm (day program).

For more special programming related to the exhibition, such as tours, talks, concerts, and Family Days, see the Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge section of our calendar.

Admission note: During Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge, admission to the Sackler Museum galleries will be free on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 3–5pm.

Travel dates:
– September 6–December 10, 2011
    Harvard Art Museums
    Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, MA

– January 17–April 8, 2012
    Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
    Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Cambridge, MA.- The Harvard Art Museums are proud to present "Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe", an exhibition that examines how celebrated Northern Renaissance artists contributed to the scientific discoveries of the 16th century. This exhibition and the accompanying catalogue offer a new perspective on the collaboration between artists and scientists: the project challenges the perception of artists as illustrators in the service of scientists, and examines how their printmaking skills were useful to scientists in their investigations. Artists’ early printed images served as effective research tools, not only functioning as descriptive illustrations, but also operating as active agents in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Taking into consideration prints, books, maps, and such scientific instruments as sundials, globes, astrolabes, and armillary spheres, this project looks at relationships between their producers and their production, as well as between the objects themselves.

"Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe" will be on display at the Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum from September 6th through December 10th, before travelling on to Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (at Northwestern University), where it will be on view from January 17th to April 8th 2012.

"Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge" was assembled using the extensive resources of Harvard University. The exhibition shows close links between 16th-century artists and scientists through a wide variety of materials, emphasizing that exchanges of influence could work both ways. Artists and scientists each respected the authority of the other, and each desired to gain legitimacy by association with established, well-known practitioners. Over 200 objects, including prints, books, instruments, reproductions, and facsimiles will be on view throughout the fourth floor of the Sackler Museum. Galleries will be roughly divided into eight sections, and works will represent such themes as astronomy, cartography, anatomy, allegory, zoology, and botany. Highlights include prints of the constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres by Albrecht Dürer, which were made in collaboration with astronomers Johannes Stabius and Conrad Heinfogel in 1515. These were the first of their kind and widely appropriated by artists and astronomers for generations. Also by Dürer is a woodcut of a Rhinoceros (1515), which was the authoritative representation of the animal for centuries, although he never saw one.

Astronomer Johann Schöner’s Brixen Celestial Globe (1522), a beautifully painted globe based on Dürer’s printed celestial maps. Jacques de Gheyn II’s engraving Great Lion (c. 1590), which demonstrates the breadth of his knowledge of nature, and his Portrait of Carolus Clusius (1601), which was made for Clusius’s monumental book of botanical and zoological specimens from around the world, the Rariorum plantarum historia. Hendrick Goltzius’s depiction of the muscle-bound hero in The Great Hercules (1589), which became a study aid for anatomy students. Two inventions by frequent collaborators Hans Holbein the younger and Sebastian Münster: the Sun and Moon Instrument (1534), one of the largest and most complex surviving astronomical wall charts, and the Universal cosmographic map (1532), which, with its flattened and elongated spherical form encompassing all the known continents in both hemispheres, was an innovative depiction of the earth for its time. Heinrich Vogtherr the elder’s 1544 anatomical “flap prints,” showing female and male torsos made of layered and hinged paper flaps that were lifted to reveal internal workings of the body.  Loans on display include items from the following Harvard collections: the Harvard Art Museums; the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments; Houghton Library; Countway Library of Medicine; Botany Libraries; Map Collection, Harvard College Library; and the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Works have also been borrowed from major American and European collections and institutions.

The Harvard Art Museums, among the world’s leading art institutions, comprise three museums (Fogg, BuschReisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler) and four research centers (Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art, the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis). The Harvard Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Integral to Harvard University and the wider community, the art museums and research centers serve as resources for students, scholars, and other visitors. For more than a century they have been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and are renowned for their seminal role in developing the discipline of art history in this country. In June 2008 the building at 32 Quincy Street, formerly the home of the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums, closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, the Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway remains open and has been reinstalled with some of the finest works representing the collections of all three museums. When complete, the renovated historic building on Quincy Street will unite the three museums in a single state-of-the-art facility designed by architect Renzo Piano. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.harvardartmuseums.org  

Sources: Harvard Museums website and Art News