Between the Heart and the Mind: Ways of Drawing in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

This dissertation argues that drawing in the early-modern period engaged with modes of perception beyond the visual. I focus on a printed drawing book, the Artis Apellae liber (1650-56), designed by the Utrecht artist Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) and engraved by his son Frederik. This work teaches a student to draw by copying, leading the practitioner from sensory organs to bodily fragments (hands, legs, torsos), culminating in studies of the nude and historical compositions. I contextualize the Artis Apellae liber within the confessional debates of the seventeenth century, arguing that as the Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran churches established official doctrines, questions about the body and its relationship to the divine and matter were re-examined. In turn, developments in early-modern natural philosophy challenged previously held beliefs about the body and its capacity for movement and rest. I situate the drawing of the body in the seventeenth century within these theological and philosophical revolutions, maintaining that the body as a corporeal instrument (beyond the field of vision) was integral to seventeenth-century artistic practice.