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.
From Giandomenico Tiepolo’s grand History of the Porto Family in Vicenza to masterpieces by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Gold—published to accompany a dazzling exhibition at the Belvedere Palace and Museum in Vienna—includes three hundred full-color illustrations documenting one of the most valuable and versatile media used throughout art history.
Table of Contents
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. Castor
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, Eva Putzgruber a.o.
The Themes of the Exhibition by Thomas Zaunschirm
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
Appendix:
Artists Index
Artworks: List of exhibited Works
A Word of Thanks
Authors
Glossary
Picture credits
Colophon
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. Castor
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, Eva Putzgruber a.o.
The Themes of the Exhibition by Thomas Zaunschirm
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
Appendix:
Artists Index
Artworks: List of exhibited Works
A Word of Thanks
Authors
Glossary
Picture credits
Colophon