Giving Vision a Rest

Abstract

The age of great discoveries is marked by sharpened vision through optical lenses that created a new proximity to objects. Inventions such as the telescope or the microscope penetrated realms that had previously been out of sight. How did early modern scientists deal with the mediated immediacy of images their eyes witnessed in the vitreous gaze? The dissection of the world into macro- and micro- images challenged them to model hypotheses to make observed constellations plausible. In the case of the Sienese polymath Teofilo Gallaccini, analogies were created between originally disparate phenomena such as celestial bodies and the human body. René Descartes proved that it took great ingenuity to decode observed meteorological constellations into elementary patterns. Through optical instruments the concept of imagination experienced a revaluation. The creation of daring hypotheses of aesthetic qualities became an integral part of science. So were scientists trying to create a melodious whole through taking a step back from reality? A historically ambiguous instrument that involves an act of distancing can be found in the so- called Claude Glass, used by painters and poets since the 18th century. It consists of a palm-sized, round, convex mirror made of obsidian or carbon, embedded in a case lined with velvet or silk. The captured landscape is altered in its tonality, tinted dark. Is it therefore bound to a melancholic viewer rather than arousing curiosity? Has this optical instrument been largely forgotten because it has not generated new insights? Or can we imagine that obscurity or blindness are beneficial for an imaginative view on the world?