Meaning in Materials, 1400-1800 / Materiaal en Betekenis, 1400-1800

Works of art are material and materials have meaning. They determine form, style, and effect and are often chosen intentionally by artists to convey artistic ideas and reinforce expressive effects. An artist’s choice of materials both limits and opens up technical possibilities. Depending on their geographical occurrence, rarity or composite nature, materials are valued, compared and imitated; processes that stimulate innovation in the arts. Materials are also charged with manifold cultural connotations, conveying power, beauty, splendor or humbleness. Despite the richness of the topic, the relation between meaning and materials has been neglected in the past. This volume of the Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek strives to redress this lacuna, highlighting important links between visual and material culture. The essays written by a number of international, renowned scholars approach a variety of materials in their particular historical, cultural and technological settings, uncovering new and surprising meanings in alabaster, oil paint, glass, wood, stone, copper, ebony, paper, and snow.

Table of Contents
Ann-Sophie Lehmann, How materials make meaning
Michele Tomasi, Matériaux, techniques, commanditaires et espaces. Le système des retables à la chartreuse de Champmol
Kim Woods, The Master of Rimini and the tradition of alabaster carving in the early fifteenth-century Netherlands
Aleksandra Lipińska, Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis. Alabaster in the Low Countries, a cultural history
Koenraad Jonckheere, Images of stone. The physicality of art and the image debates in the sixteenth century
Ralph Dekoninck, Between denial and exaltation. The material of the miraculous images of the Virgin in the Southern Netherlands during the seventeenth century
Thijs Weststeijn, The gender of colors in Dutch art theory
Nadja Baadj, A world of materials in a cabinet without drawers: Reframing Jan van Kessel’s The four parts of the world
Martha Moffitt Peacock, Paper as power. Carving a niche for the female artist in the work of Joanna Koerten
Frits Scholten, Malleable marble. The Antwerp snow sculptures of 1772

Ann-Sophie Lehmann, associate professor at the Department for Media & Culture Studies at Utrecht University, has published wideley on artistic materials and the representation of creative practices in early modern and contemporary visual culture. In 2013 she was a Getty Scholar.

Dr. Frits Scholten is senior curator of sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam since 1993 and he holds a chair in the History of Art at the Amsterdam Free University. He has published widely on Northern European sculpture and decorative arts.

H. Perry Chapman, Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware, has published widely on aspects of seventeenth-century Dutch art, including self-portraiture, artistic identity, and the artist’s studio. She is former editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin.