Medieval History
I can hardly sleep for how excited I am about tomorrow. It's not the student presentations on Jerusalem (although I'm sure those will be swell), and no, it's not the grading. Rather, I'm having lunch with two really nice colleagues, a geologist and a biochemist, who have kindly offered to help me decipher a science article about alabaster. It's so science-y, that I can't even reproduce the title here. There are spectotropic methods of indecipherable names and intentions. I seek to understand how (geologically and biochemically) alabaster could sustain pigment and gold leaf. It's a porous stone, open and, I can't help but think, generous. Articles discuss its "veins." The alabaster you see above is not the kind that I'm researching, which was used in making devotional statuary (much of it of hand-held scale) from about 1300-1550. But I love the veins and the landscape it presents. We spoke, this semester in the "Nature" unit of Gothic Art, about the agency of aesthetics - the way a beautiful stone can "work" you, can draw you in, solicit touch and desire. Alabaster is cheaper than marble, shorter lived in the realm of human fascination. But it's warm and receptive to impositions of the human imagination. What makes a stone available to become art in the Middle Ages? Is its malleability its liveliness? Does it project forms to its maker? Does alabaster, for instance, warm to the human touch? I don't know of another stone that can hold gold and pigments so well and so long, that works so willingly with the dramatic elements of art. Is this why there are a full 97 (that's a big number) alabaster Heads of John the Baptist left to us? Is this why human skin can be lauded as alabaster? There'll be much more to write tomorrow (Caillois, Marbod of Rennes) but for now, I just wanted to register excitement as I start to think of the process from stone to statue, from unhewn to hewn.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Come Up To The Table
BN ms.fr. 2810, fol. 136vLast day of "Monsters and Marvels" activity (great presentations on the collaborative writing of Monsterfestos done through Facebook and GoogleDocs) - and so a celebration with a medieval menu based on the class: for Beowulf:...
- Good Lord
Ye Olde Dorm RoomThe rooms are as spartan (uh, medieval) as ever, the geese are still here (terrifying), and I've already heard one scholar opining vigorously about Byzantine porridge. Ah, it's Kalamazoo. 3000 medievalists on the Western...
- What Do Rocks Want?
This little spot in the college's library was my haven for several hours over the past two week-ends, my place to think about stone becoming statue which, really, is what I'd like to be thinking about all the time. I get to go back one last time...
- Capture Of King Edmund
The Capture of Saint Edmund, 1470-1500. This alabaster sculpture is part of the Victoria and Albert collection. Edmund was a Christian King of the East Angles in the ninth century. The scene is divided between the dramatic capture of Edmund by the wicked...
- Nottingham Alabaster Altarpieces
Drayton, Berkshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum. In the late Middle Ages the fashionable material for altarpieces in England was alabaster, a type of gypsum, which could be found in limited quantity in parts of south Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire...
Medieval History
So Excited
I can hardly sleep for how excited I am about tomorrow. It's not the student presentations on Jerusalem (although I'm sure those will be swell), and no, it's not the grading. Rather, I'm having lunch with two really nice colleagues, a geologist and a biochemist, who have kindly offered to help me decipher a science article about alabaster. It's so science-y, that I can't even reproduce the title here. There are spectotropic methods of indecipherable names and intentions. I seek to understand how (geologically and biochemically) alabaster could sustain pigment and gold leaf. It's a porous stone, open and, I can't help but think, generous. Articles discuss its "veins." The alabaster you see above is not the kind that I'm researching, which was used in making devotional statuary (much of it of hand-held scale) from about 1300-1550. But I love the veins and the landscape it presents. We spoke, this semester in the "Nature" unit of Gothic Art, about the agency of aesthetics - the way a beautiful stone can "work" you, can draw you in, solicit touch and desire. Alabaster is cheaper than marble, shorter lived in the realm of human fascination. But it's warm and receptive to impositions of the human imagination. What makes a stone available to become art in the Middle Ages? Is its malleability its liveliness? Does it project forms to its maker? Does alabaster, for instance, warm to the human touch? I don't know of another stone that can hold gold and pigments so well and so long, that works so willingly with the dramatic elements of art. Is this why there are a full 97 (that's a big number) alabaster Heads of John the Baptist left to us? Is this why human skin can be lauded as alabaster? There'll be much more to write tomorrow (Caillois, Marbod of Rennes) but for now, I just wanted to register excitement as I start to think of the process from stone to statue, from unhewn to hewn.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Come Up To The Table
BN ms.fr. 2810, fol. 136vLast day of "Monsters and Marvels" activity (great presentations on the collaborative writing of Monsterfestos done through Facebook and GoogleDocs) - and so a celebration with a medieval menu based on the class: for Beowulf:...
- Good Lord
Ye Olde Dorm RoomThe rooms are as spartan (uh, medieval) as ever, the geese are still here (terrifying), and I've already heard one scholar opining vigorously about Byzantine porridge. Ah, it's Kalamazoo. 3000 medievalists on the Western...
- What Do Rocks Want?
This little spot in the college's library was my haven for several hours over the past two week-ends, my place to think about stone becoming statue which, really, is what I'd like to be thinking about all the time. I get to go back one last time...
- Capture Of King Edmund
The Capture of Saint Edmund, 1470-1500. This alabaster sculpture is part of the Victoria and Albert collection. Edmund was a Christian King of the East Angles in the ninth century. The scene is divided between the dramatic capture of Edmund by the wicked...
- Nottingham Alabaster Altarpieces
Drayton, Berkshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum. In the late Middle Ages the fashionable material for altarpieces in England was alabaster, a type of gypsum, which could be found in limited quantity in parts of south Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire...