‘Draw everything that exists in the world’

Abstract

This article examines the Amsterdam engraver and draftsman Crispijn de Passe’s art manual, ’t Light der Teken en Schilderkonst, in order to study the processes that turned image-making practices into forms of knowledge worthy of being preserved on paper. I argue that De Passe, who was born into a prominent family of artists, championed the multi-purpose functionality of drawing skills, and that De Passe’s experience at Antoine de Pluvinel’s riding academy in Paris played a key role in the manual’s genesis, as well as in the creation, codification and stabilization of artistic knowledge. By examining forms of haptic engagement (such as traces of manipulation), I show how such manuals were used, collected, and prized as valuable objects in early modern Europe. Acquiring and cultivating drawing skills would become imbued with great epistemic, material, and monetary value for different types of publics in the long seventeenth century