Skill, kunst (“art”) and practical knowledge. These essential components constituted the core of the “making” of objects and the “knowledge” of their material and utilitarian properties in the European workshops of the 16th century. In these spaces of animated and collective creativity, artisans manually captured the likeness of living organisms using metals to make molds and life casts (processes that use a living model to create form from a medium respective, such as metal, wax or ceramic) of lizards, worms, frogs and plants. Here, I wonder, who was served by this vernacular knowledge and was it somehow preserved by writing?
Drawing on her research and years of hands-on experience, science historian Pamela H. Smith’s latest title From lived experience to writing: reconstructing practical knowledge at the beginning of modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2022) confirms the intersections between materials, craftsmanship, technique, and the development of scientific expertise in early modern European workshops. At the heart of this publication are concerns such as: How est kunst — “embodied knowledge” as the author evokes — organized in writing and how was it received?
The book uses the French manuscript Mrs Fr. 640 (circa 1579) as a central case study which is now in the National Library of France. Written by an anonymous, Mrs Fr. 640 includes 170 folios of recipes, diagrams, and instructions for working with materials like metals, wax, dyes, making imitation gemstones, preserving insects, and more. Other texts discussed in From lived experience include early modern Kunstbücher Or “Art books” (manuscripts) on medicine, herbs, plants, nature and navigation.
Smith suggests in Part I, “Vernacular Theorizing in Craft”, that artisans, who were sometimes also authors, “thought of lizards” because they used these creatures to perfect their life processes while gaining knowledge. Beautiful ornate metal and stone objects that combine their surfaces with living molds include Bernard Palissy’s Architectural Fragments with Lizards, a Terracotta and Lead Platter with Cast Snakes and Frogs, and Unique Works by other artists like Wenzel Jamnitzer, Adam Kraft and Caspar Ulich.
I found solutions to my question in part 3 of the book called “Reading and Collecting”, which studies the power of kunst because these manuals of technical and artistic expertise have been codified and collected. Smith explains that artisanal methods were not necessarily recorded for utility or education and may even have been distrusted by artisans. On the contrary, it is complex to pinpoint the exact purpose of these little “Art Books” which have been consumed by a variety of readers. Nonetheless, these manuals have survived through time, documenting the experiences of artisans and the nature of their process spaces.
To further critically examine how ‘physical’ ways of doing things constituted a history of knowledge, Smith devoted her time to metal workshops where she reconstructed such procedures. She founded The Doing and Knowing Project at Columbia University in 2014, which offers a translated edition of Mrs Fr. 640 with several collaborators who recreated the material and casting processes from the manuscript. This intensive and collective work is detailed in part 4 of the book entitled “Doing and knowing”. From lived experience draws on project research, revealing that these manuscripts and cookbooks that teach working with materials are nothing less than intimate glimpses into the inventive zones of early craftsmen and modern craftsmen.
So if you ever soften wax to create your special scented candles or try to melt metals to make ornaments and vessels, consider recording the entire creation experience. The ways of doing lead to knowledge and can end up being useful intelligibly, for posterity.
From lived experience to writing: reconstructing practical knowledge at the beginning of modernity by Pamela H. Smith (2022) is published by the University of Chicago Press and is available from the publisher and online retailers.
