Painting in stone : architecture and the poetics of marble from antiquity to the age of enlightenment
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Painting in stone : architecture and the poetics of marble from antiquity to the age of enlightenment
Yale University Press, c2020
- : hardcover
Related Bibliography 1 items
Available at / 2 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [372]-418) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stone
Spanning almost five millennia, Painting in Stone tells a new history of premodern architecture through the material of precious stone. Lavishly illustrated examples include the synthetic gems used to simulate Sumerian and Egyptian heavens; the marble temples and mansions of Greece and Rome; the painted palaces and polychrome marble chapels of early modern Italy; and the multimedia revival in 19th-century England. Poetry, the lens for understanding costly marbles as an artistic medium, summoned a spectrum of imaginative associations and responses, from princes and patriarchs to the populace. Three salient themes sustained this "lithic imagination": marbles as images of their own elemental substance according to premodern concepts of matter and geology; the perceived indwelling of astral light in earthly stones; and the enduring belief that colored marbles exhibited a form of natural-or divine-painting, thanks to their vivacious veining, rainbow palette, and chance images.
by "Nielsen BookData"