<strong>Development</strong> <strong>of</strong> Scientijc <strong>Illustration</strong>rstand <strong>the</strong>stance, hechine. Wehe picturebr not any-as we as-. Our first:h Ramellition in hispay hole in:n used tost did notear-driven: artist didion to <strong>the</strong>,n for <strong>the</strong>Woodcut from Tu Sbu Ji Cheng, Peking, 1726. Harvard Yen Ching Library, Cam-Zpictures <strong>of</strong> indigenous technical and scientific subject matter. <strong>The</strong> Chineseillustrator was expected to be decorative, not didactic in his representations <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong> objects described in <strong>the</strong> verbal texts.26One might wonder what Wang Cheng himself thought when he first examined<strong>the</strong> 'page pro<strong>of</strong>s" <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> illustrations for his book. Like <strong>the</strong> mandarin
SAMUEL Y. EDGERTON, J R.he was, this author seems not to have considered <strong>the</strong> artist as his intellectualand social equal. At least he did not share with him his own knowledge <strong>of</strong> how<strong>the</strong> Western machines were supposed to work. Indeed, members <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Chinesemandarin class generally considered <strong>the</strong> mechanical arts to be socially\demeaning. <strong>The</strong>y enjoyed <strong>the</strong> results <strong>of</strong> a clever water pump, but <strong>the</strong> matter <strong>of</strong>its building should be left to laborers who would not be expected to appreciate*This paper, whilean extension <strong>of</strong> that gl<strong>Renaissance</strong> Artist 1:ptavrcs (New York,inspirations in both eSunley Smith, and Nhospitality and genet(in Rome.1. Two recent pap(Eugene S. Ferguson.pictures. In Europe, on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, quite a different attitude was shared byI imany aristocrats such as Galilee's own patron, <strong>the</strong> Grand Duke Ferdinand I1<strong>of</strong> Tuscany, Francis Bacon in England, and Thomas Jefferson in America, thats Iknowledge <strong>of</strong>. technical matters was an upper-class social duty. In fact, <strong>the</strong>deluxe illustrated books we have been examining, such as Ramelli's, could be 827-36. and Bert S.afforded only by <strong>the</strong> rich. I propose that this developing European attitude <strong>of</strong>nought for Techno1sympathy for science and <strong>the</strong> mechanical arts was both incited and encouragedHistory <strong>of</strong> Techno101surveys <strong>of</strong> scientific 1by <strong>the</strong> illustrations in <strong>the</strong>se sixteenth-century printed books. In China, as wenens,' BPttm fur Ithave noted, <strong>the</strong> visual arts <strong>of</strong>fered no encouragement to technology and scienceGesch~hte des tecbniat all. Never, as far as I know, do we have a case where a Chinese designed awhile considerably mmachine solely by means <strong>of</strong> pictures as did Taccola, Francesco di Giorgioignorance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>Martini, Leonardo, and Ramelli, or used pictures to solve problems <strong>of</strong>engineers for makingviews.' only later aFanatomy as did Vesalius. Separate geniuses <strong>of</strong> art and science <strong>the</strong> Chinese hadliterature as <strong>the</strong> singuaplenty, but never in China was genius for both art and science combined intidy, 0. Benesch, 'one person like Francesco di Giorgio or Leonardo. Scientist 31 (1943): 31<strong>The</strong> relative states <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> arts and <strong>the</strong> sciences in <strong>the</strong> oriental civilizations 1600 (New York. 19during <strong>the</strong> sixteenth and seventeenth centuries <strong>of</strong>fers a veritable laboratory forworking on r book abetween <strong>Renaissance</strong>studying and isolating factors which promote or impede scientific and techformeron <strong>the</strong> WOO~Cnological growth in any society. What happened or did not happen in <strong>the</strong>se2. A rare exceptioloriental civilizations while <strong>the</strong> Jesuits were bombarding <strong>the</strong>m with foreign<strong>the</strong> <strong>Renaissance</strong> 'Dinideas may reveal insights even <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> origins <strong>of</strong> our own Western scientific York. 1962). 121-82.revolution. Art historians, science historians, and even perceptual psycholo-3. ~ edso e Erwin 'gists with fluency in <strong>the</strong> Eastern languages should devote research to <strong>the</strong> school4. see especidytranslated from <strong>the</strong>textbooks in China, Japan, and <strong>the</strong> progressive Islamic countries from <strong>the</strong><strong>Renaissance</strong> Techno]seventeenth through this century, to discover just when, and how much, West- N.Y., 1972). 36-58.em-style illustrations replaced <strong>the</strong> native in <strong>the</strong>se books. My hunch is that such<strong>Renaissance</strong>: Cvloresearch will reveal some ratio between <strong>the</strong> influx <strong>of</strong> Western pictorial forms(Turin. 18741, originand <strong>the</strong> rate <strong>of</strong> expanding industrialization and adaptation to modem science in ...(Turin, 1841);TKeUer, A Tbeatcr<strong>the</strong> Eastern nations. If this could be proven, <strong>the</strong>n, indeed, we might infer a Enginerring in <strong>the</strong> 8similar relationship also existed in <strong>Renaissance</strong> Europe. At least we should have5. MXS~~U CIagta prima facie case that Galileo could not have done what he did in MingDynasty China. He needed precisely <strong>the</strong> kind <strong>of</strong> visual education, <strong>the</strong> familiaritywith <strong>Renaissance</strong>-style pictures in contemporaneous textbooks, only availbwches(Leipzig, 191able in <strong>the</strong> school rooms <strong>of</strong> sixteenth-century western Europe.When <strong>the</strong> documents are finally in, and <strong>the</strong> so-called Third World hasreached full scientific and technological parity with <strong>the</strong> West, it mjly well beunderstood that one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fundamental problems revolutionary peoples had tosolve, transcending <strong>the</strong> polarized politics <strong>of</strong> capitalism and communism, was<strong>the</strong> psychological adjustment to <strong>the</strong> peculiar visual conception <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> naturalworld first set forth by <strong>the</strong> artists <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> European <strong>Renaissance</strong>.7. See A. R. HaModrm Technoloohurgogne (1345).'9. See. for insm227. no. 5 (1972): 8la. Taccola's ma
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