The matter of art

Drawing on research and models from anthropology, material culture and art history, this study explores topics as diverse as Inka stonework, cork platforms for shoes and the Christian Eucharist.

Part I:Matter
1. The matter of the medium: some tools for an art-theoretical interpretation of materials - Ann-Sophie Lehmann
2. The matter of ideas in the working of metals in early modern Europe - Pamela H. Smith
3. On the origins of European painting materials, real and imagined - Anne Dunlop
4. Gold coins and gold leaf in early Italian paintings - Irma Passeri
Part II: Practices
5. The 'Genealogy of Jean le Blanc': accounting for the materiality of the medieval Eucharist - Aden Kumler
6. Lead white's mysteries - Spike Bucklow
7. Material distinctions: plaster, terracotta and wax in the Renaissance artist's workshop - Eckart Marchand
8. Rocks and reverence: Inka and Spanish perceptions of stonework in the early modern Andes - Carolyn Dean
Part III: Cultural logics
9. Precious stones, material beings: performative materiality in fifteenth-century northern art - Brigitte Buettner
10. Carving life: the meaning of wood in early modern European sculpture - Christina Neilson
11. Arti povere, 1300-1650 - Michael Cole
12. Polish stone, Venetian glass, and red Hungarian marble: the materials of a Renaissance chapel in Jagiellonian Poland - Katie Jakobiec
13. Reveal or conceal: chopines and the display of material wealth in early modern Valencia and Venice - Elizabeth Semmelhack
14. Entanglements of body, text and stone: the crafting and connoisseurship of inkstones in eighteenth-century China - Dorothy Ko
Index