New Arrivals Search Results
The Mineral and the Visual : Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture
Author
Title
The Mineral and the Visual : Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture / Brigitte Buettner.
ISBN
9780271093697
Publication
University Park, PA : Penn State University Press, [2022]
Manufacture
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2023
Copyright Notice Date
©[2022]
Physical Description
1 online resource.
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
In English.
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
Opulent jeweled objects ranked among the most highly valued works of art in the European Middle Ages. At the same time, precious stones prompted sophisticated reflections on the power of nature and the experience of mineralized beings. Beyond a visual regime that put a premium on brilliant materiality, how can we account for the ubiquity of gems in medieval thought?In The Mineral and the Visual, art historian Brigitte Buettner examines the social roles, cultural meanings, and active agency of precious stones in secular medieval art. Exploring the layered roles played by gems in aesthetic, ideological, intellectual, and economic practices, Buettner focuses on three significant categories of art: the jeweled crown, the pictorialized lapidary, and the illustrated travel account. The global gem trade brought coveted jewels from the Indies to goldsmiths' workshops in Paris, fashionable bodies in London, and the crowns of kings across Europe, and Buettner shows that Europe's literal and metaphorical enrichment was predicated on the importation of gems and ideas from Byzantium, the Islamic world, Persia, and India.Original, transhistorical, and cross-disciplinary, The Mineral and the Visual engages important methodological questions about the work of culture in its material dimension. It will be especially useful to scholars and students interested in medieval art history, material culture, and medieval history.
Variant and related titles
Project Muse books annual backfile collection 2023.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
January 17, 2024
Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I . Jeweled Crowns, Mineralized Kingship
Introduction
1 The Politics of Precious Stones
2 Inventing Mineral Sovereignty
3 Gothic Regal Materiality
Part II . Lapidary Knowledge in Word and Image
Introduction
4 A Royal Pursuit
5 Optical Mineralogy and Lithic Magic
6 Of Stones, Sigils, and Stars
Part III . Geographies of Mineral Marvels, Economies of Mineral Assets
Introduction
7 Edenic Geology and Surplus
8 Mineral Realism in the Global Thirteenth Century
9 Networks of Gem Trade
Epilogue
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Also listed under
Project Muse. distributor
Bookmark As
Citation
