Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment

Barry, Fabio

ISBN 10: 0300248172 / ISBN 13: 9780300248173

Published by Yale University Press, 2022

About this Item

438pp. Colour and b&w illustrations.

Seller Inventory # 31780*

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300248172
• ISBN 13: 9780300248173
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • The Renaissance
  • Grand Tour
  • Marble

About this title

Synopsis

A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stone<br /><br /> 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.

About the Author

Fabio Barry is assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.