Iridescence and the Image by Brendan C. McMahon - 9780271099699

Iridescence and the ImageMaterial Thinking in the Early Modern Spanish World\nAuthor(s): Brendan C. McMahon\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, United States\nImprint: Pennsylvania State University Press\nISBN-13: 9780271099699, 978-0271099699\nSynopsis\nAt the turn of the seventeenth century, people in Spain and Mexico were fascinated by iridescence. Artists stretched the capacities of conventional media in attempts to capture its shifting hues, while others integrated iridescent materials directly into their work. At the same time, naturalists strove to convey the changing colors of these substances in printed texts, theologians and political commentators invoked them in tracts and treatises, and playwrights and poets wove them through the scripts of comedies and into the stanzas of sonnets.\n\nIn Iridescence and the Image, Brendan C. McMahon explores this preoccupation with such materialsincluding shot fabric, hummingbird feathers, mother of pearl, a.