Wunderkammer

In Ch.7, Daston & Park emphasize a particular era of art in relation to wonder which they call Wunderkammer. In this historical era the relationship of nature and art is portrayed either mimetically or synthetically. Some artists sought to evoke wonder via artistic mimesis of nature by in some cases painting objects like grapes so realistically that birds tried to eat them. To mimic nature produced wonder because it was fascinating to see which was the Real. Another mode of evoking wonder was to synthesize art with nature. Artists would take natural artifacts and synthesize them into downright bizarre creations, evoking curiosity and wonder. The authors discussed how wonder came about in this synthesis by alluding to some of the philosophical mindsets prevalent at the time. Or, to say it differently, people were astonished by the art of Wunderkammer because it blurred the lines between art and reality, and at times, perhaps as a result of this, it would cause further wonder about the nature of reality itself. Questions like, "could this artifact indeed exist in nature?" could be posed when seeing a collage of marine and land artifacts synthesized into a greater composite. Wood with antlers, shells and leaves...astonishing synthetic creations.

What I find compelling about what is going on in this book, by my read, is the dialectic that exists between the prevailing way of thinking of an age, and the art that co-temporally existed. By seeing these wonder-evoking syntheses of art and nature, one could further synthesize natural and artificial modes of thought. Maybe since these different mediums can fit together to produce a beautiful whole, there are more possibilities of existence than previously thought! And at the same time, perhaps the thought of the times influenced the creation of the new ways of art.