Healthy feet between theory and technique: (re)constructing Camper’s ideal shoe

Marieke M.A Hendriksen

doi:10.18352/studium.10174

Abstract

This article shows how the (re)construction of objects based on historical, textual sources can give us insight in how such sources may have functioned in their original context. In addition, they make us reflect critically on the development of their long-term reception history, and – through a ‘material turn’ in the history of science – can lead to a ‘historical turn’ in contemporary craft training. The connection of Camper’s 1799 text on shoemaking with the early modern obsession with regimen allowed it to retroactively become the theoretical foundation of a field that relied almost exclusively on practical, technical instruction and the development of material literacy until the early twentieth century.

Highlights

This article shows how theconstruction of objects based on historical, textual sources can give us insight in how such sources may have functioned in their original context
Professor of anatomy Petrus Camper definitely wandered a little from his last when he published his treatise on the best shoe (Verhandeling over Den Besten Schoen) in Jacob Voegen van Engelen’s edited volume ‘Cabinet of Medicine, Natural History, and Oeconomy’ (Genees- Natuur- en Huishoudkundig Kabinet), and turned the tables by telling shoemakers how to do their work.[2]
In this article I show that theconstruction of objects based on historical textual sources can give us insight in how such sources may have functioned in their original context and lead us to reflect critically on the development of their long-term reception history

Summary

Introduction

This article shows how the (re)construction of objects based on historical, textual sources can give us insight in how such sources may have functioned in their original context. Professor of anatomy Petrus Camper definitely wandered a little from his last when he published his treatise on the best shoe (Verhandeling over Den Besten Schoen) in Jacob Voegen van Engelen’s edited volume ‘Cabinet of Medicine, Natural History, and Oeconomy’ (Genees- Natuur- en Huishoudkundig Kabinet), and turned the tables by telling shoemakers how to do their work.[2]

Results

Conclusion