The Experience of NatureArt in Prague at the Court of Rudolf II

The Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612), a great patron of the arts and sciences, was one of the European rulers most keenly interested in the study of nature. He summoned scientists and artists from throughout Europe to his court, where they worked in close proximity to each other within the castle walls, turning Prague into a veritable laboratory, a place of experimentation, in a propitious climate of intellectual and religious tolerance.

The first part of the exhibition will present this convergence of scientific and artistic perspectives on nature, particularly acute at the Prague court. It was characterised, first of all, by a new approach, which was both direct and observational. Artists participated actively in the earliest stirrings of empiricism, not only in producing scientific instruments that were as aesthetically pleasing as they were innovative, but also in recording the world of plants and animals through their drawings, a major contribution to the inventory of living species then being undertaken in the natural sciences. Like their scientist peers, they were interested in the hidden forces at work in nature, which they expressed through the device of allegory. All shared the same humanist culture, generally acquired through books and inherited from antiquity. Yet the coherent system described in these earlier works did not stand up to the attentive observation of an impermanent, capricious natural world.

The second part of the exhibition will show how this curiosity about the forms of nature, common to both scientists and artists, contributed to the renewal of artistic creation in Prague. New practices such as drawing en plein air came into vogue, and this direct experience of nature encouraged artists to experiment with new materials and subjects, including many that had previously been considered unworthy of being used or depicted. A taste developed for new artistic techniques imitating the singularity of natural forms and evoking the instability inherent in the growth processes of living things.

Organised by:

Head curators: 
Alena Volrábová, National Gallery Prague; and Xavier Salmon, Musée du Louvre.

Exhibition curators: 
Philippe Malgouyres and Olivia Savatier, Musée du Louvre.