Representations of Marble in Art from the Late Nineteenth Century to 2023

Abstract

This dissertation discusses a history of representing marble in art from the late nineteenth century to 2023. It begins with the ‘western’ tradition of Europe and branches out to increasingly global perspectives, particularly those shaped through the cross-cultural exchange of ideas between Asia and the ‘west’ that have unlocked new and unique marble expressions. The temporal range treated in this dissertation is punctuated by a series of rapid changes in artistic representations of marble. Classic and Academic representations of marble met a perhaps overdue end with the suicide of John William Godward in 1922, which was triggered, or so he claimed, by the rise of Pablo Picasso. From 1912 through World War II, artists such as George Braque and Henri Matisse experimented with new methods of visually abstracting marble, accelerating the material’s modernisation that had already been set in motion by the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The 1960s posed an even greater break from traditional means of representation with Yoko Ono’s pioneering use of conceptual language, which ultimately led to the dematerialisation of marble. Following this, conceptual notions of the void as a site in which marble ideas could emerge were explored through the art of Wolfgang Laib and George Brecht, and more recently Milena Naef. Running concurrently with these developments, new media and performance have altered the representation of marble across a range of social and environmental issues in works by artists like Adrian Paci and Erica Génécé. This dissertation ultimately argues that, following a derivative classical period in the early twentieth century, new modes of marbling in art have emerged as a de-classicised, de-colonised, and de-materialised material phenomenon.