The Wondrous, the Monstrous, and the Exotic in Art and Science (Art 006)

First, if this is your first art course, consult our web page "Learning and Writing about Art" which you'll find on the Sloane Art Library's website. Although it's geared to writing about works in the Ackland, much of it will be relevant to this course and will give you a jump start in using library resources such as Art Full Text and the Grove Dictionary of Art Online. Be sure to look at the Grove's entry for Kunstkammer since information on wunderkammer is found there as well.

Next, take advantage of the bibliographies in your reserve reading, as you'll find plenty of information there. In searching the online catalog, try the subject searches s=curiosities and wonders and s=collectors and collecting, since wunderkammer and kunstkammer are not official subject headings (but you can try them as keywords k=wunderkammer. Other terms to use in your search might be the names of particular collectors, such as John Tradescant, whose collection formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum (and which included Chief Powhatan's robe), Charles Willson Peale, whose museum was the first popular museum of science and art in America or Thomas Jefferson, whose Indian Hall at Monticello was a cabinet of curiosities of sorts.

A useful reference book on Wunderkammern can be found on the Art Library's Reference Shelves : The Kunst- und Wunderkammern : a catalogue raisonni of collecting in Germany, France and England, 1565-1750. Art Reference N410. B33.

Also take a look at WorldCat. Do a keyword search on the combined terms cabinet and curiosities and you'll find more than a hundred citations, some of which are in UNC Libraries, in hard copy or microform.

To find periodical articles in journals such as Journal of the History of Collections and others, use Art Full Text, Bibliography of the History of Art, or even Historical Abstracts. You can also find full-text articles in the big collections such as Academic Search Premier, JSTOR and Project Muse. Get to know all of these resources since you'll be able to use them for other courses. All of these are online on the Libraries E-Indexes and Databases page. Try a search of Academic Search Premier using the term wunderkammer and see what you find (e.g. an article in a medical journal, a book review, and an exhibition review, all full text and some with images.) It's important to remember that you'll find information in the science and general literature as well as in the art.

ARTstor provides curated collections of art images and associated data for noncommercial and scholarly, non-profit educational use.

CAMIO offers rights-cleared, high-quality art images for class projects, art history and studio art programs, course Web sites, lectures, presentations, and research resources.

A useful journal is the Journal of the History of Collections. Make sure to take advantage of this resource.

Web sites

You'll find many web sites doing a Google search on the term wunderkammer. Not all will be relevant, however. Just a few of the more useful sites are:

Devices of Wonder. Discover the surprising and seductive ancestors of modern cinema, cyborgs, computers, and other optical devices in this new exhibit at the Getty.

Wunderkammer/Wonderworks [exhibition] A contemporary installation based on the idea of a wunderkammer.

Individual artists like Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp and the contemporary artist Matt Mullican also created work that one might consider conceptual cabinets of curiosities. There are numerous books on Cornell and Duchamp in the Art Library.

Campus Resources

In addition to the Ackland Art Museum, you might visit the North Carolina Collection Gallery In Wilson Library which could be considered a cabinet of curiosities relating to North Carolina.

The Couch Biology Library (Coker Hall-Botany and Wilson Hall--Zoology) can help with finding information on scientific aspects of wunderkammer. Be sure to survey the science literature as you do your research. Consult the Biology library staff for the best resources and/or consult their web page. Since cabinets/wunderkammer often consisted of natural objects, not just man-made, this literature is important. Specimens of natural abnormalities, oddities, freaks of nature (the origin of the term "Baroque") were often part of these collections, just like the "mirabilia" or relics were part of church treasuries in the medieval period.