Sedimentary Aesthetics

Name: Sedimentary Aesthetics
Price: 124.95 AUD
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ISBN: 9780300284423

Painting on Stone and the Ecology of Early Modern Art

Christopher J. Nygren

$124.95

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Yale University Press
14 April 2026

Renaissance art; Art & design styles: Baroque; Non-graphic art forms

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 labor of stone masons, the international and colonial circuits of exchange, and the ecological philosophy of the time.

Sedimentary Aesthetics discusses the development of painting on stone in Italy and the Atlantic world, 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—and the transition from hardier materials like slate and marble to precious ones like lapis lazuli, amethyst, and obsidian, to show how it pushed the traditional boundaries of painting and probed the limits of pictorial representation. With an emphasis on materiality, labor, and commoditization, this volume reveals the forces that made Sebastiano’s choice possible and broadens our understanding of early modern art and culture.

By: Christopher J. Nygren
Imprint: Yale University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 279mm, Width: 216mm,
ISBN: 9780300284423
ISBN 10: 030028442X
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 14 April 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Christopher J. Nygren is associate professor of Renaissance and Baroque art and chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Titian’s Icons: Tradition, Charisma, and Devotion in Renaissance Italy.

Reviews for Sedimentary Aesthetics: Painting on Stone and the Ecology of Early Modern Art

“A unique and highly readable book, Sedimentary Aesthetics argues for ecological ways of thinking about painting on stone and Renaissance art more broadly, foregrounding how materiality and labor inform the meaning of artworks.”—Rebecca Zorach, author of Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America’s Racial Enterprise “Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and fully engaged with current thinking in ecocritical theory and method, Sedimentary Aesthetics is a landmark work of original scholarship.”—Alan C. Braddock, author of Implication: An Ecocritical Dictionary for Art History