Lapidarium - The Secret Lives of Stones

Informationen zum Autor Hettie Judah is one of Britain’s leading writers on art and a sought-after public speaker. She writes regularly for the Guardian , Vogue, Frieze, The i, Apollo and the New York Times , and is the author of several art books that include Art London , Frida Kahlo and How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and Other Parents) . She lives in London. Klappentext "Inspired by the lapidaries of the ancient world, this book is a collection of true stories about sixty different stones that have influenced our shared history. Through the realms of art, myth, geology, philosophy, and power, the author tells the story of humanity through the minerals and materials that have allowed humans to evolve and create. Lapidarium uses the stories of these sixty stones to explore how human culture has formed stone, and the roles stone has played in forming human culture."-- Leseprobe Stones and Power The stones of state shine from crowns and scepters, raise and line the great halls. They describe not only the mineral wealth of a territory, but also the reach of its power. In the stones of a palace and its regalia can be read the command of trade routes and control of distant territories: lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, rubies from Burma, Colombian emeralds, or marble from the Mediterranean. Catherine the Great wore the wealth of Russia in jewels stitched onto her bodices. Queen Elizabeth I's robes coruscated with virginal pearls. Gemstones help construct an otherworldly aura of power, like celestial light. Through legend, stones came not only to express power, but also to bestow it. The Lia F‡il marking the ancient seat of the Kings of Ireland in County Meath was a coronation stone, said to roar when touched by the rightful king. St. Edward's Sapphire in the British Crown Jewels was supposedly worn by Edward the Confessor. The godly monarch found himself without alms for a beggar so gave the ring from his finger. Years later, two pilgrims stranded in the Holy Land were offered shelter: their host produced the sapphire ring with a message from John the Evangelist that the King would join him in heaven. The stone was thus considered to endow divine authority. The struggle for territorial power is often the struggle for mineral wealth: ore, fuel, construction material and other precious substances extracted from the Earth, enriching monarchs (and corporations) hundreds of miles distant. The science of geology does not play a neutral role: there is power bound up in the acts of analyzing, categorizing, and naming things. In the nineteenth century, geological surveys made the race to extract resources more efficient, and provided fuel and materials for expanding empires: the East India Company's 1851 Geological Survey of India identified coal and iron ore to supply the railways. In Invisible Cities (1972), Italo Calvino describes the divided city of Sophronia. On one side are circus acts and rollercoasters, on the other, stone and marble-clad banks, palaces, and schools. Half the city is permanent, the other itinerant: "And so every year the day comes when the workmen remove the marble pediments, lower the stone walls, the cement pylons, take down the Ministry, the monument, the docks, the petroleum refinery, the hospital, load them on trailers, to follow from stand to stand their annual itinerary." Stone and marble communicate permanence, and with that, trustworthiness and authority. In London, the architecture of power is dressed in pale oolitic limestone quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Portland is the stone of the Palace of Westminster, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, the British Museum, parts of Buckingham Palace, and Tower Bridge. Yet stone ruins are, in themselves, a potent symbol of the impermanence of power: the empire fallen, the despot toppled, the rubble of a plantation house watched ov...

Product details

• Authors: Hettie Judah
• Publisher: Penguin Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 07.03.2023
• EAN: 9780143137412
• ISBN: 978-0-14-313741-2
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 144 mm x 223 mm x 28 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Mineralogy, petrography