Event Description

For next Fellow in Focus lecture series (Science History Institute), Bruce Moran will give a talk on “The Thing about Alchemy: Secrets, Mixtures, and Discerning the Alchemical in the Potter’s Art.”

In Renaissance European courts and court workshops, alchemical production of ceramic objects and glazes were seen as improvements of nature by art. Alchemy, aligned with making useful, curious, and delightful things, inspired elite attention to the mechanical arts and linked the making of lusterware and specific sorts of maiolica like istoriato to alchemical agency. The thing about alchemy in the applied arts is that it is both material and social. On the one hand, the alchemical object is a product of secrets and mixtures derived from alchemical procedures and recipes; on the other hand, it is a matter of discernment linked to judgments about the object’s rarity, hidden technique, and craftsmanship.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 5:30pm–7:30pm EST

Source: https://www.sciencehistory.org/event/the-thing-about-alchemy

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