The Mineral and the Visual : Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture / Brigitte Buettner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Buettner, Brigitte, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Travelers' writings, European.

Crowns.

Gems.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (271 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

University Park, PA : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2022]

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.

Contents:

Intro

COVER Front

Copyright Page

Table of CONTENTS

ACNOWLEDGEMENTS

Introduction

Notes to Introduction

Chapter 1: The Politics of Precious Stones

Notes to Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Inventing Mineral Sovereignty

Notes to Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Gothic Regal Materiality

Notes to Chapter 3

Chapter 4: A Royal Pursuit

Notes to Chapter 4

Chapter 5: Optical Mineralogy and Lithic Magic

Notes to Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Of Stones, Sigils, and Stars

Notes to Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Edenic Geology and Surplus

Notes to Chapter 7

Chapter 8: Mineral Realism in the Global Thirteenth Century

Notes to Chapter 8

Chapter 9: Networks of Gem Trade

Notes to Chapter 9

notes

Bibliography

index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780271093680

0271093684