The Aesthetics of Marble: from Late Antiquity to the Present

Although numerous studies, conferences, exhibitions and publications have explored the origin, the extraction, the transportation, and the use of marble and other veined stones, relatively little has been done on the resulting compositions, on their meanings, their effect and reception, in short on the aesthetics of marble. Yet the recourse to the natural patterns of stone in architecture and painting is of great interest for the history and theory of the visual arts, as it mediates between nature and artifice, iconicity and aniconism, as well as between material, structure, ornament, and iconography.

The three-day conference 'The Aesthetics of Marble' aims at mapping this emerging field of research. It intends to take a culturally and chronologically ample view of the phenomenon and wishes to bring together a broad array of approaches from the history of art, architectural history, archaeology, material and conservation studies, anthropology, psychology, etc. Case studies are especially welcome and should help to test the heuristic efficacy of close observation and formal analysis, image theory, typology, reception aesthetics and history, or other methods.