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

Abstract

BOOKPainting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the EnlightenmentFabio Barry Stable URL: https://www.aaeportal.com/?id=-22080Copy A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stoneApollo Magazine's Book of the Year 2021 Joint-winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2021 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.*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*AuthorFabio BarryPublisherYale University PressPrint publication date October 2020 (in print)Print ISBN 9780300248166EISBN 9780300267099Copyright© 2020 by Fabio BarryIllustrations 329Print Status in print Publisher (in print) WorldCat Google Books

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