Cabinets of Curiosities and the Rise of Gallery Painting – The Public Domain Review

The early collectors’ cabinets were both quasi-encyclopedic and essentially aesthetic, with no real boundary between the natural and the unnatural, the secular and the religious. To the extent that there was an organizing principle, it was to maximize impact by playing disparate objects off one another: the desired effect, as science historian Lorraine Daston writes, “was one of cornucopia and surprising variety, a visual tribute to the exuberant creativity of nature and art.” The natural philosophy of that time was broad enough to encompass everything that would later crystallize into different areas: the arts, the sciences, theology. The KunstkammerIts contents were broadly interpreted for study, a stage for contemplation in the most general sense of the word. The space was also a way to showcase the taste, wealth and discernment of the collecting connoisseur. Possessing natural objects, scientific instruments and visual arts, writes scientist Marlise Rijks, meant possessing “the knowledge that these objects stood for.” The earliest known depiction of a cabinet – a 1599 woodcut illustrating the natural history collection of the Neapolitan pharmacist Ferrante Imperato – shows Italian connoisseurs pointing to specimens collected around the world.