Introduction
Painted flies in the Netherlands at the turn of the 18th century
The representation of flies that emerged during the Renaissance continued into the 16th century and after. Nevertheless it adopted new meanings and the depiction of insects in itself changed. The development of scientific studies of the natural world and the invention of new instruments impacted the way people looked at things around them. This exhibition will take you through the different steps of a scientific observation with a microscope and the parallels we can make with Dutch paintings of the end of the 17th century.
A new interest for scientific observations grew during the 17th century. In Italy, in England, in the Netherlands, scientists tried to understand the organisation of the world around them by inventing new optical instruments to look at minuscule things (microscope) as well as to the immensity of the universe (telescope). The importance of "experience" - an apprehension of the world through the senses - was the key.
Robert Hooke's Micrographia, published in London in 1665, under the auspices of the Royal Society, is the embodiment of this new way of seeing the world. Accompanied by numerous engravings, it possessed a most impressive representation of the eyes of a fly.
The religious context of the Netherlands is maybe one of the explanation for the development of experiments there too. For protestants, all the creatures of the world, from the bigger ones to the smallest insects, have been created by God and deserve attention.