Glitter

Marcia R. Pointon's Brilliant Effects is a major work that uses gemstones and jewellery to open up fresh perspectives on the changing symbolic significance of material objects. Back in the 1980s the specialized concentration on particular media that had traditionally characterized the decorative arts, as they used to be called, was left behind, as social history was enlisted to interpret the roles and functions of material objects in social practice. Fundamentally important though that revision was, it suffered from an aesthetic myopia, in which the evocative qualities and cultural symbolism of the objects themselves rarely came into view. Now Pointon redresses this, by using her prodigious research skills to bring into sharp focus the rich associative powers of gemstones and jewellery.

Gemstones and jewellery are of course among the most evocative of human artefacts. The fact that most jewellery has no practical use makes it available for symbolic coding of all kinds. During the period Pointon studies, the mid seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, ornamental and decorative objects made from gemstones were highly valued not just for their rare and precious materials but also for their intricate crafting. The prices these objects commanded were very high, far exceeding the sums paid for most works of fine art Pointon explores the intersection between these economic valuations and the metaphorical interpretations placed on these gorgeous artefacts. Her aim, she explains, is to examine representations of gemstones and jewellery across a wide range of intellectual traditions: an ambitious programme that takes her into mineralogy and experimental science, commerce and banking, social and political history, literary theory and visual analysis.

The book is divided into five sections, encompassing the visual and verbal imagery generated by particular gemstones; the politics of jewels (focusing on Marie Antoinette and Queen Charlotte of England); mechanical 'toys' or automata; the display and consumption of jewellery (focusing on English visitors to the treasury of the Santa Casa at Loreto and a related group of works by Turner, and on hair jewellery); and John Ruskin's passion for geology, mineralogy and crystallography. In analysing the cultural resonances of gems across this wide array of topics, Pointon is alert to distinctions between Protestant England and Catholic Europe and consistently attentive to the gendered aspects of her theme. She cites an astonishing range of source material and provides notes that are treasure troves of information. The accompanying reproductions are stunning.

Three examples indicate well the power of her approach. In Chapter 4 she develops a wonderfully dense and nuanced analysis of the mythological and historical resonances of pearls and coral in art and literature. Working from a rich complementary corpus of literary texts, paintings and decorative objects, she explores the cultural associations between the marine-life origins of pearl and coral and the processes of the human body, ranging from sexual reproduction to death. Beginning with a passage from Shakespeare's Tempest, she tracks the persistent link between pearls and death. In a similar vein, taking up the pearl's thematic associations with feminine luxury and sexuality, she subjects Pliny's seminal account of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl earring in wine, from his Natural History, to an incisive analysis before moving on to a subtle reading of Joshua Reynold's allusion to the story in his portrait of an actress, Miss Kitty Fischer in the Character of Cleopatra dissolving the Pearl, 1759 (Kenwood, London). She rounds out the chapter with a consideration of the special appeal of coral, with its blood-red colour and supposedly magical properties, to the quite different iconographies of Christian and Pre-Raphaelite art.

Chapter 9 picks up the important issue of people's reception of gems and jewellery through a study of the Santa Casa at Loreto. Here Pointon draws on the published accounts of English tourists who visited the jewellery-laden treasury of the Virgin's holy house at Loreto during the...