The Kunstbüchlein: Printed Artists' Manuals and the Transmission of Craft in Renaissance Germany

Abstract

The dissertation studies sixteenth-century German artists' manuals (Kunstbüchlein), a new kind of book that addresses certain types of artistic practices. The Kunstbüchlein testify to and shape transformations of knowledge in early modern Europe. Disseminating practical knowledge in printed form, they endowed craft know-how with a form of authority until then reserved for the liberal arts. They aimed also to reconcile theoretical and practical knowledge, what Albrecht Dürer (the crucial forerunner to the authors of the Kunstbüchlein) termed respectively Kunst and Brauch. Authors Sebald Beham, Heinrich Voghterr, Heinrich Lautensack, and Erhard Schön sought to provide accessible, useful knowledge. Focused on a limited set of topics, they pretended to be closer to practice and to respond more effectively to the needs of their apprentices than Dürer and others in their publications. In fact, the Kunstbüchlein did not mediate Brauch, but show instead what their authors understood Brauch to be. Emphasizing the hands-on acquisition of knowledge through looking, reading, and doing, the Kunstbüchlein placed the printed image, whether as schematic diagram or finished illustration, at the core of the didactic process.