Since its beginning, the history of art has by no means confined itself to the areas relating to "high art". The methods developed around 1900 - above all in Vienna, Munich and Hamburg - have given a foundation, which is still viable, to the history of art as a comprehensive historical study of images. Strengthening and developing this foundation currently appears to be of special importance for the status of the field. Various efforts made in the Anglo-Saxon and German-speaking areas to establish "visual studies" or even a general "study of images" sometimes represent the history of art as a "second archaeology" which is no longer really relevant to the world of contemporary images. The resulting problem for the perception of the history of art could be neglected if at the same time methods were not lost which offer an indispensable prerequisite for dealing with images. While the "pictorial" or even "iconic turn" approach has generated a huge interest in all questions relating to images, it has scarcely contributed to progress in research into the technical requirements relating to the subject matter covered by the term "image". Above all, it is constantly overlooked that it is in particular the natural sciences which are currently engaged in a great deal of aesthetic innovation in order to make sure of their frequently non-visible objects. In the course of the lecture an attempt will be made, by means of historical case studies, to record their technical quality and particularly that of the image products of the natural sciences which are usually underestimated as "illustrations" and are downgraded as regards the semantic messages which they convey.