Sedimentary Aesthetics

An unprecedented investigation of painting on stone in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy that considers the ecological and artistic forces that made the genre transformative.

In 1530, the Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547) chose an unusual surface for a painting of Christ: a large hewn stone. Treating the stone as a portable canvas, Sebastiano created a work of art that his contemporaries viewed as "almost eternal" and initiated 150 years of a flourishing practice of painting on stone.

Blending ecocriticism with art history, Christopher J. Nygren examines the ecological, religious, and cultural contexts in which this idiosyncratic genre emerged. He unearths the hidden labour of stone masons, the international and colonial circuits of exchange, and the ecological philosophy of the time. Nygren discusses the development of painting on stone in Italy and around the globe, including changes in how artists approached the stone surface—such as moving away from painting the entire rock to incorporating the visual and surface qualities in the artwork.

The transition from hardier materials like slate and marble to precious ones like lapis lazuli, amethyst, and obsidian, shows how this genre pushed the traditional boundaries of painting and probed the limits of pictorial representation. With an emphasis on materiality, labour, and commoditisation, Sedimentary Aesthetics reveals the forces that made Sebastiano's choice possible and broadens our understanding of early modern art and culture.