Tarnished Silver: On the Active Life of Matter
A lecture by Avinoam Shalem as part of the Joan Carlisle-Irving Lecture Series
5:30 p.m., Thursday, October 26, 2023
Room 102, Frederic Lasserre Building
6333 Memorial Road, University of British Columbia
ahva.ubc.ca
This event is free and open to the public.
Matters of all kinds are in constant change. Exposed to other natural substances, matter can change its consistency, be transformed from solid to fluid, and even be dissolved and seemingly disappear. The surface of any matter is usually particularly vulnerable. Bare and unprotected, the structure of the surfaces of many natural materials and minerals are readily changed and their colours along with this. The constantly changing skin of materials – commonly called patina – is usually regarded, on the one hand, as a sign of decay, deterioration, and decomposition, and, on the other hand, as the litmus test for dating and suggesting authenticity. Yet such changes can produce new aesthetic and visual appeal. This lecture discusses fidda (silver in Arabic). Drawing upon medieval literary and visual sources from the lands of Islam, attention will be paid to the particular merits of fidda: its craftmanship, varied uses and allegorical associations. Additionally, an emphasis is put on medieval narrations about the natural process of the blackening of the surface of fidda. Thus, the surface of silver appears as something which is not divorced from the substance nor as an additional external layer. On the contrary, the blackening on the surface of silver appears as part of the active life of this material. Moreover, it is suggested that this specific process initiated new aesthetics for working with and decorating silver artifacts.
Avinoam Shalem is the Riggio Professor of the History of the Arts of Islam at Columbia University, New York. His main field of interest is in medieval artistic interactions in the Mediterranean, medieval aesthetics, and modern historiography. He has published extensively on varied topics concerning intercultural exchanges within and between the world of Islam and Europe. His current book project, “When Nature Becomes Ideology,” critically explores the varied approaches of the “scaping” and curating of the rural landscape of Palestine after 1947. His current research project, Mediterraneo Nero / Black Mediterranean, supported by the Getty Foundation and co-directed with Alina Payne (I Tatti, Florence), aims at the rewriting of the Mediterranean histories interrelated with North and Central Africa.
Image: Detail of Casket of Hakam II, made for his son Hisham, Spain, 976. Wood and silver (gilded and nielloed). Spain, Treasury of the Cathedral of Gerona. Photo: Treasury of the Cathedral of Gerona.
