Minerals in Art and Archeology 



By Rutherford J. Gettens 



Head Curator, Freer Gallery Laboratory 



Freer Gallery of Art 



Smithsonian Institution 



[With 8 plates] 



"From earth come stones, including the more precious kinds, and 

 also the types of earth that are unusual because of their color, smooth- 

 ness, density, or any other quality." Thus wrote Theophrastus in the 

 fourth century B.C. at the beginning of his treatise "On Stones." 

 The Greek philosopher realized the full importance to man of the 

 mineral products of the earth. Since the dawn of civilization, man 

 has tried to create useful and beautiful things for his living and 

 creature comfort; he has sought unusual materials for personal 

 adornment, for ceremonial and religious purposes, and for the expres- 

 sion of ideas, both concrete and abstract. 



Man and art have developed side by side. The materials for art 

 and invention have had to come from the three grand divisions into 

 which formerly all natural objects were classified: animal, vegetable, 

 and mineral. We might debate which of the three classes is the most 

 important, but there is little doubt that the art materials chosen from 

 the mineral kingdom are the most durable over long periods of time ; 

 hence, from them we have learned indirectly most of what we know 

 about the art and ideas of antiquity. Let us, therefore, take a special 

 look at products of the mineral kingdom which have long served the 

 artist well and will continue to serve him in the future. 



In this article we will use the term "mineral" in its narrower mean- 

 ing to indicate natural inorganic species of earth substance of more 

 or less constant composition ; we will not deal with "rocks," which are 

 heterogeneous aggregates of two or more mineral species. Many 

 mineral substances have been employed by the artist and artisan 

 directly as they came from the earth, and with little preparation or 

 manipulation, except for shaping and modeling as in sculpture, or 

 by grinding to a powder for use as paint pigments. There are other 

 minerals, however, which only indirectly and after a considerable 

 amount of modification, either physical or chemical, can serve the 



625325—62 37 551 



