Kusukawa Sachiko
Trinity College, Cambridge.
Arch Nat Hist. 2011;38(2):189-213. doi: 10.3366/anh.2011.0028.
This review surveys recent scholarship on the history of natural history with special attention to the role of images in the Renaissance. It discusses how classicism, collecting and printing were important catalysts for the Renaissance study of nature. Classicism provided inspiration of how to study and what kind of object to examine in nature, and several images from the period can be shown to reflect these classical values. The development of the passion for collecting and the rise of commerce in nature's commodities led to the circulation of a large number of exotic flora and fauna. Pictures enabled scholars to access unobtainable objects, build up knowledge of rare objects over time, and study them long after the live specimens had died away. Printing replicated pictures alongside texts and enabled scholars to share and accumulate knowledge. Images, alongside objects and text, were an important means of studying nature. Naturalists' images, in turn, became part of a larger visual culture in which nature was regarded as a beautiful and fascinating object of admiration.
这篇综述考察了近期关于自然史历史的学术研究，特别关注图像在文艺复兴时期所起的作用。它探讨了古典主义、收藏和印刷如何成为文艺复兴时期自然研究的重要催化剂。古典主义为如何研究自然以及研究自然界中的何种对象提供了灵感，该时期的一些图像能够体现这些古典价值观。对收藏的热爱的发展以及自然界商品贸易的兴起，导致了大量外来动植物的流通。图片使学者们能够接触到无法获取的对象，随着时间的推移积累对珍稀对象的知识，并在活体标本消失很久之后对其进行研究。印刷术将图片与文字一同复制，使学者们能够分享和积累知识。图像与实物和文字一样，是研究自然的重要手段。反过来，博物学家的图像成为了一种更广泛视觉文化的一部分，在这种文化中，自然被视为一个美丽而迷人、令人赞叹的对象。
