The arts of industry in the age of Enlightenment

Abstract

"This book is about the people who did the work. The arts of industry encompassed both liberal and mechanical realms - not simply the representation of work in the fine art of painting, but the mechanical arts or skills involved in the processes of industry itself. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Celina Fox argues that mechanics and artisans used four principal means to describe and rationalise their work: drawing, model-making, societies and publications. These four channels - the central themes of this engrossing book - provided the basis for experimentation and invention, for explanation and classification, validation and authorisation, promotion and celebration, thus bringing them into the public domain and achieving progress as a true part of the Enlightenment." "The book also examines the status of the mechanical arts from the medieval period to the seventeenth century and explains how and why entrepreneurs, mechanics and artisans presented themselves to the world in portraits, and how industry was depicted in landscape and genre painting. The book concludes in the early nineteenth century when, despite the drive towards specialisation and exclusivity and the rise of the profession of engineer, the broad sweep of the mechanical arts retained a distinct identity for far longer than has generally been recognised. The debates their presence provoked concerning the relationship of theory to practice and the problematic nature of art and technical education are still with us today."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents

I. The History of Trades -- II. Drawing: Surveying the Scene, Engineering the Machine -- III. Models: Polite Toys, Useful Tools -- IV. Societies: Participation, Articulation -- V. Publications: Rational Explanation, Visual Exposition -- VI. Empirical Portraits -- VII. Industrious Scenes -- VIII. The Arts Divided?