Unpacking Recipes and Communicating Experience: The Ervarenissen of Simon Eikelenberg (1663-1738) and the Art of Painting

Abstract

This article argues that in the early modern period, epistemic genres were transformed to suit new purposes. Modelled on the experimental essay form used by proponents of the New Sciences, the Dutch polymath and painter Simon Eikelenberg (1663-1738) wrote down ervarenissen to document how painting materials such as varnishes were prepared. Recipes have been identified as the ubiquitous vehicles for written know-how in the early modern period, yet authors continuously searched for new ways to unpack the ineffable dimensions of know-how in text. This article explores the ervarenissen as an alternative communicative strategy. Eikelenberg appropriated the experimental essay to create expressive instructions. He emphasized the specificity and idiosyncrasy of an act of making, tried to establish a sympathetic relationship with his readers, and showed how vulnerability, failure and improvisation belong to the workshop.

Unpacking Recipes and Communicating Experience: The Ervarenissen of Simon Eikelenberg (1663-1738) and the Art of Painting

“…84 The resulting literary format -i.e., the experimental essaydescribed experiments as discrete events linked to a particular time and place, was a conscientious recounting of the facts, reserved a central role for the observer, and used a first person and active voice. 85 All of these features are found in Eikelenberg's ervarenissen, but there is a difference too.…”

“…Yet, it is precisely by surpassing the specificity of the workshop that recipes were able to impart knowhow. 59 The depersonalized and generalized character of recipes allowed them to travel across social, cultural, and linguistic barriers, but this came at a price: the burden was on the reader to make the recipe operational. 60 Plenty of recipe collections have survived that document, in the margins or between the lines, the experiences of readers who navigated the ambiguities, difficulties and errors contained, thereby adapting the recipes to their own needs and practices.61 Two lines of argument have been developed in recent historiography to explain why readers had to make their recipes work.…”

Influencing Factors of Art Painting Based on Computer Vision Technology

“…Akdeniz, D believed that the formation and evolution of traditional dining venues were related to the art of painting [7]. Hagendijk, T believed that recipes were the ubiquitous carrier of written knowledge, and their transition to painting art was a change in cognitive genres [8]. With the increasing proportion of painting in art, its creation has also become a focus of attention.…”