Portland Public Library

Gold, edited by Agnes Husslein-Arco and Thomas Zaunschirm ; [translation: Josephine Cordero Sapien [and others]]

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Gold

catalogsbibliography

781673357

edited by Agnes Husslein-Arco and Thomas Zaunschirm ; [translation: Josephine Cordero Sapien [and others]]

From the earliest days of human history, gold has stirred powerful passions in all who have beheld it. Its rarity, its brilliance and natural beauty, and its enduring associations with might and wealth have all ensured that it remains among the most treasured metals on earth. It should come as no surprise, then, that the path through art history is also often paved with gold. This opulently designed volume takes readers on a tour of gold in art from the second century to the present. Beginning with a gilded mummy portrait and series of religious-themed gold leaf backgrounds from late Antiquity, the book moves on to the use of gold in medieval art. From the Renaissance, the book presents exemplary interior and decorative arts. But the most extensive focus is on the use of gold in twentieth and twentieth-first-century art with a wide selection of works from, among many others, Willi Baumeister, Georg Baselitz, Victor Vasarely, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Max Weiler, Sylvie Fleury, Franz West, and George Condo. Together, the works demonstrate that, in contemporary art, the use of gold is not limited by theme, form, or style

Preface / Agnes Husslein-Arco -- Art history of gold. The invention of the gold ground / Thomas Zaunschirm ; The gold ground in the Middle Ages: "Don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use!" / Michael Viktor Schwarz -- Mutable gold: gold in late-Medieval retable art, thoughts on the works in the Belvedere / Veronika Pirker-Aurenhammer ; Alberti's gold ground / Thomas Zaunschirm ; The use of gold: symptom of a paradigm shift in the material aesthetics of the nineteenth century? / Alexander Klee ; Gold leaf and golden leaves: on an unimplemented idea by Frank Lloyd Wright for Fallingwater / Joachim Driller ; The lustre of gold: the self-staging of a metal in art since 1945 / Ulrike Gehring -- The cultural history of gold. The sultan's vow: "We shall meet again by the golden apple" / Jürgen Borchhardt ; Apollo's apartments in Versailles: decoration in gold between material display and allegorical function / Markus A. Caston ; Vienna gold guide / Bodo Hell ; Gold rush / Linda Pelzmann ; "All that glitters ... ": of orpiment, chrysotypes and super-black / Thomas Zaunschirm ; Gold and gilding techniques / Gabriela Krist [and others] -- Themes of the exhibition. A short artistic history of gold ; Frames ; Still lifes ; Landscapes ; Seen in the city ; Holiness: triptychs and haloes ; Ground gold and other haloes ; Figuration/abstraction / Thomas Zaunschirm