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

Wood or stone, wax or silk – materials shaped the meaning of early modern art. Transformed and crafted from the matter of nature, art objects were the physical embodiment of both the inherent qualities of materials and the forces of culture that used and produced them. The making and marketing of art depended upon the manipulation of both exotic and everyday materials; and interest in materials and objects reached a peak in the years between 1250 and 1750, spurred on by expanding networks of global trade, nation-building, and scientific exploration.

Drawing on new research and models from anthropology, material culture, and the history of art and science, the essays in The Matter of Art explore topics as diverse as Inka stonework, gold in panel painting, Chinese inkstones, and European wax sculpture. Going beyond technical analyses, each chapter interprets materials in the light of artistic practices and the cultural contexts that shaped objects.

The study of materials cuts across the usual geographical and disciplinary boundaries in this important period in the history of art, science, and culture, linking the close study of painting, sculpture and architecture with a much wider category of everyday and exotic objects. At stake is not only a new understanding of early modernity, but also the implications of our contemporary 'material turn.'

Students of art and architecture will find essays by leading scholars in European, Asian and Pre-Columbian art. The book will appeal to general readers with an interest in craft and the history of objects as well as to historians interested in a global history of the early modern period and its patterns of trade.