Acknowledgments
This book was written over more than a decade in several stages. My initial research was made possible thanks to an Andrew W. Mellon East-Central European Research fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (2008), grants from the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2008), and the Lanckoroński Foundation in London (2010), as well as a dedicated post-doctoral grant from the Polish National Centre for Research and Development (2009–2012). Another experience that exponentially broadened my approach to my subject was a Museum Guest Scholar residency at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (2011), which I owe to Antonia Boström. On my many field trips and at presentations of selected aspects of my research at conferences, in lectures, or in the form of workshops, I have had the good fortune to meet peers whose perceptive curiosity and shared knowledge have significantly influenced the final form of this book. The critical readers of the first version (2012) – Tadeusz J. Żuchowski (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) and Andrzej Peńkos (University of Warsaw) – may well have safeguarded me from publishing what was at the time less than mature material.
In designing the new methodological conception and structure of this book, I drew particular inspiration from discussions with my colleagues Magdalena Bushart and Henrike Haug of the Technische Universität in Berlin (2012–2016) and with the attendees of the conference series they organised to bring together thinking on material and technical aspects of art: Interdependenzen. Die Künste und ihre Techniken, and the project Dimensionen der techne in den Künsten. Erscheinungsweisen – Ordnungen – Narrative. I enjoyed highly enriching conversations and joint undertakings with other colleagues at the University of Cologne who share my fascination with material (Kathrin Borgers, Henrike Haug again, and Susanne Wittekind). Further eye-opening input that contributed to my understanding of the fundamental role played by immediate encounters with the materiality of an artwork included meeting and talking to alabaster artists (Alison Wilding, Tina O’Connel, and Thomas Hildenbrand), artisans (the team at Rossi Alabastri in Volterra), and conservators (Anna Kriegseisen, Katrina Posner, Harald Theiss, and Miguel Gonzalez de Quevedo Ibanez). My cooperation with the geochemist Wolfram Kloppmann on our current project Materi-A-Net has helped me to take an entirely new angle on alabaster as a mineral and product of nature. The book itself in its ultimate form was also shaped to a considerable degree by the reviews of the manuscript in its form as my Habilitation (TU Belin, 2021) by Magdalena Bushart, Christiane Göttler, and Ann-Sophie Lehmann, and by the peer-reviewers of this final version. I am immensely grateful to all my reviewers for their attentive, constructive reviews and inspiring comments.
This is an interdisciplinary book. From my starting-point in my ‘home’ field of art history, I have made increasingly bold forays into literary studies, theology, and the history of science, to mention but the most important disciplines. The fact that these forays have gone beyond the dilettante (or so my reviewers have claimed to date) is due in large part to the many people who have generously shared their time and expertise with me. They are Beata Machalska (Latin translation), Geert Claassens (Middle-Dutch translation), Ronald E. Kon (Arabic literature and translation), Dorothea Wendebourg and Folkart Wittekind (theology), Henryk Azulewicz (Albertus Magnus studies), and Isabelle Draelants (medieval lapidaries). Your readiness to extend me your assistance, and your openness to my perspective are proof that academic community beyond borders and between disciplines is alive and well. Students are another crucial element of this community. Discussions with my students during seminars on selected aspects of this book were invaluable.
The linguistic aspect of this book is the work of my translator, Jessica Taylor-Kucia. A capable professional who does not baulk even at tasks such as producing rhymed translations of medieval Latin processional anthems, she is also a sensitive reader and has been a dedicated contributor to the book. She has had the patience of a saint with my last-minute requests.
Special thanks must go to my student assistants, Teresa Rauner and Kalisha Schliewenz, who supported me in the arduous process of obtaining copyrights for the publication of illustrations and the final correction of the bibliography. I am also grateful to those of my colleagues and all the institutions who shared their photographic material with me.
Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends, who have been tireless in their support of my research, accompanied me on my travels, or borne my frequent absences and the evenings I have spent glued to my computer.
I dedicate this book to my parents, who – despite their fears for the precarious future to which an art historian is doomed – have always encouraged me to pursue my professional passions.