1st Edition
Polychrome Art in the Early Modern World 1200–1800
This book focuses on the techniques and materials of polychromy used in early modern Europe and the Americas from 1200 to 1800.
Taking a trans-cultural approach, the book studies the production of polychrome sculptures, panels, and altarpieces, as well as colored terracotta. The book includes chapters on treatises and contracts that reveal specific use of pigments, distribution of workshops, collaborations between specialized artists, and artistic programs centered on the use of color as an agent.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, art conservation, early modern history, sculpture, colonialism, material culture, and European studies.
Part 1 Pigments, Color, and the Paragone
1. "The Color to Imitate a Man": On the Meaning of Flesh Tones on Panel Paintings from Antiquity to the High Middle Ages
Esther Wipfler
2. The Colors of the Virgin: Romanesque Polychrome Wood Sculptures in Italy and a Question about Azurite
Grazia Maria Fachechi
3. Naming Blue Pigments and Colors in Medieval Catalonia: The Case of Lluís Borrassà
Cristina Morilla
4. Spanish Polychromed Sculpture in the Low Countries: A Journey through Art History and Techniques
Géraldine Patigny
5. Pacheco’s Art of Painting: The Parangón and the Techniques of Spanish Seventeenth‑Century Polychrome Sculpture
Ilenia Colón Mendoza
Part 2 Sculptures in Context
6. Statue Painting in Colonial Andes: ‘Indian’ Virgins and Resacralization of the Religious Landscape
Mariana Zinni [Translated by Anthony Harb]
7. Worms Cannot Eat Stone: The Pugliese Presepe and the Materiality of Devotion in Early Modern Puglia
Lindsay Sheedy
8. Faith, Spectacle, and the Polychromed Processional Figures of Luis Antonio de los Arcos and Luisa Roldán
Catherine Hall‑Van Den Elsen
9. Patrons, Sculptors, and Painters in Eighteenth‑Century Spain: Polychroming Duque Cornejo’s Sculptures
Manuel García Luque
10. More than Wood: Sculpture and Blasphemy in Seventeenth‑Century New Spain
Brett Lazer
11. The Retablos of Mani: The Convergence of Maya and Spanish Art
C. Cody Barteet
12. Artists, Techniques, and Sacred Materials: Revisiting the Case of the Christ of Ixmiquilpan
Pablo F. Amador Marrero and Patricia Díaz Cayeros
Biography
Ilenia Colón Mendoza is Professor of Art History at the School of Visual Arts and Design of the University of Central Florida, USA.
Lisandra Estevez is Associate Professor of Art History at Winston-Salem State University, USA.
