ECUSA DC Seminar Series I for a more sustainable future. Representing Science in Early Modern Spain

Spanish art historian Sergio Ramiro gives his second seminar about the ties between art and science in Early Modern Spain in this third edition of ECUSA’s “Seminar Series for a More Sustainable Future.”

Science and art in Early Modern Spain

During the Early Modern Age, artists undertook the representation of the numerous scientific novelties of their time. These images were quickly disseminated in books and prints, thanks to the printing press, as well as in other formats such as paintings or tapestries. But the rules of art maintained their own codes of representation that clashed with the pretended scientific objectivity.

This presentation will attempt to answer several questions: Should we treat 16th and 17th century representations as if they were photographs of their time? Were shapes or colors altered to make them more understandable? Were there limits to the representation of the sources of knowledge in the past? And lastly, do we still modify scientific images today to adapt them to the visual codes of the general public? Anatomy books, drawings of botanical expeditions, maps, paintings and other objects will help us to resolve all these doubts and to look at the works of art of the Early Modern Age with the eyes of another era.

About Sergio Ramiro Ramírez

Sergio Ramiro Ramírez, Ph.D, is a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of History of the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC).

He has also been a a researcher Juan de la Cierva in the Department of History and Theory of Art at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and currently, he is a member of the Research Groups Historia del Arte y Cultura Visual (CSIC), La corte española: arte, artistas y mecenas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), and Historia Cultural de los Siglos de Oro (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).

He had obtained different scholarships to develop research stays in centers such as the Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi in Florence, the Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome (CSIC), the Courtauld Institute in London and the ViennaCenter for the History of Collecting.

His research interests are focused on the artistic patronage at the Courts of Charles V and Philip II, the female artistic agency during the Early Modern Age as well as on the artistic exchanges between Italy, Central Europe and the Hispanic Monarchy during the Sixteenth Century.