Dr. Ad Stijnman: Coloured printed illustrations in medical publications 1500- 1850
- Sep 21, 2018
- 2 min read
Please join us for Dr. Stijnman's presentation of his current research.
October 18, 2018 Thursday 6pm - 8pm
New York Academy of Medicine, Room 440 - 1216 5th Avenue
Colour in illustrations is rarely recorded in library catalogues or by book historians; art historical studies focus on single-sheet colour prints; and studies in the history of medicine rarely consider the implication of colour in illustrations. In these years, the same producers of printed materials used the same colour processes for artistic prints and medical illustrations. Thus, this growing corpus can be identified and understood only using an interdisciplinary approach encompassing printmaking processes, art history, the history of the book and the history of medicine.
This talk represents Dr. Stijnman’s preliminary findings of systematic page-by-page analysis of tens of thousands of early modern (1450–1850) scientific publications. Concentrating on material produced in middle and Western Europe enables the exploration of how changing technologies determined the application of colour. It traces the development of the role of colour in medical illustrations from mere decorative use in sixteenth-century woodcuts to the identification of diseases by naturalistic colouring. Standardized uses of colour emerged in eighteenth-century etchings and mezzotints, for example the depiction of arteries in red and veins in blue, but also that there were alternative colour codes. In doing so, it lays out a new methodology for object-based, interdisciplinary research into book illustrations.
Dr Ad Stijnman (PhD University of Amsterdam, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London) is a scholar for historical printmaking processes, specializing in manual intaglio printmaking techniques. He has lectured and published widely on the subject, including his seminal Engraving and Etching 1400–2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (2012), for which he was awarded the Karel van Manderprijs 2015 for outstanding Dutch art historical publications. Together with Elizabeth Savage he co-edited Printing Colour 1400–1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (2015), which was awarded an honourable mention for best books on prints by the IFPDA in 2016. His curatorial activities include exhibitions on medieval prints, early modern colour prints and Rembrandt etchings on Japanese paper. Dr. Stijnman is currently in NYC working with the Columbia University Making and Knowing Project. Visit Dr. Stijnman's website at https://tulip88x.wixsite.com/ad--stijnman
This event is co-hosted by the New York Academy of Medicine Library & The Guild of Bookworkers, New York Chapter. The Guild Chapter wishes to thank Dr. Ad Stijnman, Arlene Shaner, Historical Collections Librarian of the NYAM Library and Dr. Paul Theerman, Library Director, NYAM.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Comments