Technik als Kunst

The history of the Greco-Roman automata gains far-reaching interest against the background of their embedding in intellectual history, in antiquity as well as – even more so – in modern times. Thus, a comprehensive new approach was necessary, one that takes a look at them from the archaic period to the middle of the 18th century AD. Whereas antiquity had left the automaton largely to imitative, suggestive, or representational purposes in the realm of the visual arts, in modern times a move away from it increasingly prevailed, toward mechanization in economic contexts. The book therefore concludes with an appendix that addresses the old question of why no industrial revolution took place in antiquity.