Travel, technology, and theory : the aesthetics of ichthyology during the Second Scientific Revolution
Abstract
By investigating the ichthyology of "foreign fishes" in the age of exploration and printing developments before the advent of the camera, aquariums, and Darwin, this article shows that aesthetic theory and romanticism informed and inflected ichthyology during its rapid development between 1780 and 1830. This paper builds on the mutual constitution of art and science during the Second Scientific Revolution and aesthetic ways of seeing that treated beauty as an indicator of scientific truth preceding scientific objectivity, and demonstrates that by 1839, ichthyologists operated in an ontological framework that had integrated fish into nature and located the scientific viewer in a world of natural beauty.
Citation
Kreklau , C 2018 , ' Travel, technology, and theory : the aesthetics of ichthyology during the Second Scientific Revolution ' , German Studies Review , vol. 41 , no. 3 , pp. 589-610 . https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2018.0095
Publication
German Studies Review
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0149-7952Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 by The German Studies Association. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2018.0095
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