ART 104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Santa Barbara City College, Christian Philosophy, Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer
Document Summary
Marine paintings and the history of shipbuilding. Studying works of art as sources of information for the history of technology. Evaluating artists reliability rather than their skill. Paintings are immediately denuded of any value for style. Depends on the type of ship or boat illustrated and how precisely that job is done. Historians of technology seek in art the lowest level of meaning and interpretation. Dutch artists in the 17th century were highly accurate and precise in their treatment of ships. Virtually all painters took the time to make their pictures reflect precisely what ships looked like and how they worked. Remarkable that not only marine artists but landscape painters and all painters typically chose to make ships look exactly like ships. Their works are the first in european history to be fully reliable and can be used as a source for the study of ship design and construction history.
