Iridescence & the image: material thinking in the early modern Spanish world

Abstract

"Explores how seventeenth-century Spanish painter Antonio de Pereda and his contemporaries used iridescent materials such as textiles, feathers, and shells to examine visual perception and cultural meaning. Traces transatlantic influences and reveals how these materials shaped debates on knowledge, empiricism, and belief in early modern Spain and Mexico"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Introduction. Thinking with Mutable Color in the Early Modern Spanish World -- "All That the Art of Painting Can Achieve": Antonio de Pereda's Tornasol -- The Quetzalhuitzitzil and the Chameleon: Translating Mutable Color Across the Spanish Atlantic -- Delight and Deception: The Many Lives of Tafetán Tornasol -- Iridescent Images: Looking Skeptically at Featherwork from Michoacán -- Material Pedagogy: Religious Images and the Iridescent Divine -- Conclusion: Collaborating with Mutable Color.