Crystalline Aesthetics and the Classical Concept of the Medium

Abstract

Rock crystal, which the ancients believed was formed by excessively frozen ice, came into fashion in the early years of the Roman Empire, when skilled craftsmen began to push the limits of the medium to new, previously unimagined heights in the form of applied ornament, vessels, and even statuettes. Then as now, large chunks or unusual specimens constituted natural wonders in and of themselves. As the ancients themselves marveled, the perfection of crystal facets surpassed the very limits of a gem-cutter’s skill, and rock crystal’s unrivaled limpidity was broadly deemed to be superior to that of even the most splendid examples of colorless glass, itself a hallmark of Roman technical achievement. This article examines some of the ways in which the marvelous formation and celebrated transparency of crystal turned on the classical concept of the medium, which since Aristotle had been understood as an intervening space that separates an object of vision from its beholder. Given that a diverse range of substan...