Stone games: how marble paintings reveal a world of ancient magic | Art

WWhen we think of marble, we think that it is a very important thing: high-end interior decoration, from deluxe kitchens to large companies’ foyers – it is a roaring international market. However, hundreds of years before the discovery of science and the birth of geology, marble was popularly thought of as a mystical form, with spiritual properties.

It is a way of thinking that is different from today’s knowledge, informed by the clear principles of occult science: we know that marble is a metamorphic rock that was formed millions of years ago under great pressure and heat, under the Earth’s crust. In his new book, The Divine PresenceCreative director, author and at one time the museum of Wolfgang Tillmans Karl Kolbitz he asks us to think about pre-scientific thinking, when civilizations believed in the reality of miracles, dragons, astrology and an unknown but omnipresent divine authority as a way of reflecting on the world.

Ancient and renaissance paintings are built on larger images, filled with symbolism that can be confusing to the casual viewer who is not familiar with strings like pomegranate = fertility or wilican = sacrifice. And that is before we even get to the saints and their desires to identify them. However, no prior knowledge is needed to recognize that the image of marble within the painting exists outside of this lexicon, it usually does not follow a circular order, and from the closeness of the form of porphyry at the trippiest, the most colorful of marbles. A little-studied historical site, Kolbitz features this amazing rock formation as a unique representation of medieval and Renaissance thought and spirituality.

In Greco-Roman science and ancient times, divinity permeated all things, including stone, and its radiant energy and strength persisted in the popular mind for a long time. Kolbitz derived the name marble from the Latin word “marmor”, which comes from the Greek verb “marmairein” or “to shine”. Aristotle considered marble to strengthen the planet’s “air” or vapor. Thoughts abounded, starting VitruviusThe idea that the Earth produces marble quickly, to the astrological and alchemical ideas about precious stones that led a bishop in Brittany to say that swallowing. lapis lazuli he can cure profuse sweating, escape from prison or reconcile sinners to God. These are just a few examples of the abundance of speculative ideas that associate mysticism with divine power and weapons.

Kolbitz shows the vivid moments in which the marble image does not follow the rules of the image, precisely because it made the human beings not to be rigid in the world. Zanobi Strozzi’s Announcement (1440-45) has a beautiful marble interior that contrasts wonderfully with its management and architecture. Portrait of Piero della Francesca Announcement (c 1467-69) shows solid blue marble in the sky reflecting the sky, making the earth and sky solid at the same time. Even in the most studied paintings, we point to an often overlooked aspect of marble: the fictional technique that shows the blood-red sickness of Christ’s body in Mantegna’s. Funeral for the Dead Christ (c. 1483); imitating “book matching”, in which cut marble is deliberately arranged to create the desired shape, in Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel (c. 1303-05).

The most interesting thing is the practice of painting the verso (the back of the picture) like a fake marble – raising the humble wood into something precious, just as books and relics are decorated with precious stones. Kolbitz imitates the idea by binding his cloth-bound book very well with gold edges, and choosing the verso of Albrecht Dürer’s. Christ as a Man of Sorrows (c 1492-93) on its cover, states that it is “a striking specimen …

I say that the idea for this book began in the research of Kolbitz’s previous work, which he collected photos of the entrance to Milan – many of which contain precious stones. Staying away from the typical image or the use of grisaille – the trompe l’oeil illusion of marble in a portrait – the practice of painting marble gave artists the opportunity to evoke the portals of something else, whether celestial or divine. One of the appeals of marble is the way it runs clear and uncountable. The eye is drawn to its patterns and at the same time is distracted by the imitation of natural chaos.

Therefore, this book is not an academic study that follows the events that are happening in chronological order. It encourages leftist thinking about the ideas and beliefs surrounding marble stones and different artists – and how people in a pagan society, dominated by science, or without knowledge of art, can find beauty and inspiration in the materials of the world. “We are far from the reality of people living in the 14th and 15th centuries,” writes Kolbitz. “On the other hand, their ways of thinking continue into modern life,” he adds, citing the continued fascination with crystals, stones and stars, as well as “the influence of celestial beings on our lives”.

With this book, he encourages readers to “turn to the stories that are right in front of us, but unseen… Maybe it will make us think twice the next time we cross the marble door.