ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Clarification through Representation – Images in Early Modern Microscopy

• In Event: How to Visualize the Previously Unknown – A Multidisciplinary Approach

English Abstract

Visual representations of microscopic observations are objects of reflection, objects that visualize the struggle of seeing the previously invisible. Instead of taking the images of early modern microscopy as end products of a research project, this paper treats images as a method, as an integral part of the research process. Two examples will be unpacked in this paper. Firstly, the making of the image: or using the drawing of a line as a tool to clarify what is seen through a microscope. For example, we look at drawings from Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Marcello Malpighi, whether done by the natural philosopher himself or by a draughtsperson, to see how the visualization process was implemented as a process of understanding. Secondly, the use of a drawing or printed image, as a map or a guide, towards seeing more. The images of microscopic experiments that were received by others serve as a starting point to show how those images became maps of navigation for subsequent microscopic experiments.
Both of these examples prove the great importance of images in connection with the early usage of the microscope as an optical instrument. New things were seen, new epistemological strategies had to be developed, understood, and perfected. This paper will show how image-making was essential to microscopic experiments, and how the images mapped experience and guided next experiences.

Author

• Sietske Fransen, Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History