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Our cultural heritage comprises many art objects that are hundreds, some thousands of years old. How did they survive this long? While many factors determine if and how art can be preserved, one has fundamentally impacted its long-term survival: the desire to make and own artefacts that withstand the test of time.

This project—DURARE—will undertake the first comprehensive study of the impact of the artisan and patron’s ambitions to craft, own and theorize durable objects on the long-term development of the visual and decorative arts. To achieve durability, artisans have worked stone and metal, created dyes and pigments thought never to fade, made surface coatings ensuring the protection of more brittle materials, and transformed soft clay into long-lasting ceramics. Patrons coveted physically stable objects; yet stability does not always ensure durability: culturally fragile gold can be melted and re-used.

Beyond how the durable was made, DURARE will map the social practices influencing durability. We will also establish how, through artistic and social pursuits for durable art, humans acquired knowledge of the stability and behavior of materials over time, thus impacting knowledge traditions outside art history. Finally, we will elucidate the created practices and institutions facilitating durability, such as cultural heritage conservation and museums.

Studying the history of durability in art requires hands-on experience with the materials and processes used to make and explore permanence. This project therefore uses an innovative methodology, combining historical research into art objects and textual sources with hands-on reconstructions of materials and techniques. DURARE will achieve a fundamental understanding of durability in art by charting:

1. Variations and concepts of durability in art and patronage;

2. The role of durability in the development of art and craftsmanship;

3. The impact of artistic expertise in durable materials on the history of knowledge.

• Henrike Scholten
• J.M. (Jan) van Daal MSc
• Grace Kim-Butler

Mimesis or imitation comes in many forms and guises. This 4-year research project  (Veni grant, Dutch Science Fund - NWO) investigates a type of mimesis where one material imitates the visual properties of another material in the pre-industrial history of art and science: material mimesis*. Imitation materials surround us in our everyday life: laminate floors resemble wood and kitchen work surfaces imitate costly marble. There are infinite such examples, extending even into the world of digital materials: operating systems evoke writing desks and e-books allow flipping their pages in imitation of paper. One might think therefore that material mimesis is typical for our modern age, and, indeed, it can be found in the most modern forms of art and design. The practice is ancient however, and can be observed in artworks from some of the earliest known civilizations. Ancient potters and glassmakers invented complex ceramic glazes to give glass and clay the appearance of metalwork and discovered a type of transparent glass that could imitate crystal. Medieval painters applied brilliant, translucent paint on reflective metal leaf to imitate precious stones, stained glass windows and lustrous enamel and the sophisticated application of colored plaster was used to metamorphose seventeenth century furniture into quasi-marble structures. As material mimesis does not constitute a homogeneous phenomenon, nor is it limited to European visual traditions, specific art forms, or a particular period, I have chosen to study the diverse roles the phenomenon has played in pre-industrial Western art and science. This focus on a continuous period in craft history, before the industrial revolution changed the world of the artisan, allows for a comparative study of the crafts relevant to material mimesis. The study of such a diverse phenomenon, while rooted in art history, demands interactions with historical studies of craft, technology, science, social studies and the making of historical reconstructions.

             In order to trace and define the various types of material mimesis and the conditions under which they appear, this research has three key objectives. Firstly, this project investigates and categorizes the different functions of material mimesis in pre-industrial society. Indeed, the motivations behind material imitation in the case of medieval ceramicists copying wicker baskets in clay differ greatly from those of fifteenth century artisans counterfeiting precious stones, or carpenters staining wood to substitute mahogany. The second avenue of research explores how studying the phenomenon of material mimesis can reveal how, behind artistic practice, lays a hidden world of experimentation, knowledge acquisition and inventions- from the invention of enamel, transparent glass and varnish to the 'invention' of oil paint and printed fabrics.  Finally, the project investigates the impact and formative role of material mimesis on various crafts, to reveal its greater effect on art history and art theory.

Today, the practice of material mimesis has not lost any of its topicality. The industrial and chemical revolution boosted the invention of substitutes on a scale not witnessed before. A process crowned by the invention of plastics in the 20th century. Even the digital age embraces imitation materials. We live in a period were both material and information science give a novel twist to material mimesis: both on the screen, where computer graphics projects 'as-if-worlds', as well as in 3D-printing, where the imitation of materials gets an entirely new impulse with unforeseeable effects for the 21st century. Such developments make it indeed all the more compelling to study and analyze the history of the phenomenon of material imitation.

• prof. dr. Jeroen Stumpel