Pictures and Conversation: How to Study the Visual Cultures of ScienceKlaus Hentschel.Visual Cultures in Science and Technology: A Comparative History. x + 496 pp., illus., figs., tables, bibl., index. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. £60 (cloth).

Abstract

Robert Hooke’s enlarged image of a flea and the so-called Pillars of Creation photograph of the Eagle nebula are undisputed visual icons in the history of Western science and technology. But consider a random magnetic resonance imaging scan of a human brain or a diagram in a physics textbook for first-year undergraduates. These too will almost instantly be recognized as visual expressions associated with scientific, technological, and medical practices. Beyond this straightforward and rather unsophisticated appreciation, however, it is a complicated question to discern what constitutes the visual corpus accompanying a given scientific field or discipline—including the individuals and techniques involved in its production—and, more important, the role played by these materials and processes in the generation of knowledge within that particular field and discipline. Since the publication of Towards a Visual Culture by Caleb Gattegno in 1969, the expression “visual culture” has undergone a convoluted process of transformation and adaptation; and just as we have now integrated the “material culture” turn in the history of science, technology, and medicine, “visual culture” too has become a familiar trope in our discipline.1 But despite its currency, the implications of the adoption and use of this expression continue to be elusive and challenging. The book under review is the latest addition to a growing body of literature devoted to this issue. Its author, Klaus Hentschel, specializes in the history of nineteenthand twentieth-century science and technology. Since 2011 he has been Director of the Database of Scientific Illustrators (1450–1950), hosted at the University of Stuttgart.2