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Marble in Metamorphosis
Marble in Metamorphosis contemplates the physical and cultural life of marble. It explores the ethics, politics and symbolism of its use and deliberates over the spirit of the material and why some cultures so revere and desire it. In reflecting on the deep relationship between marble and human culture, it considers the social and historical function of the material throughout time.
Marble in Metamorphosis features a new essay on marble and its uses written by acclaimed novelist and writer Rachel Cusk, who -- while on a trip to a marble bearing island in Greece's Aegean sea -- writes on the modern notion of classicism, the fate of monuments through history and the tension between classicism and realism in art and architecture. Chris Kontos' photographic series explores two landscapes marked by marble and its uses: the island of Tinos, with its long tradition of marble mining and craft; and Athens, which has an ancient and enduring connection to marble evident in its ubiquitous presence throughout the city. These photographs tell a story of extraction, craft, tradition, and how meaning is made and remade through marble as a material in the city
Marble in Metamorphosis features a new essay on marble and its uses written by acclaimed novelist and writer Rachel Cusk, who -- while on a trip to a marble bearing island in Greece's Aegean sea -- writes on the modern notion of classicism, the fate of monuments through history and the tension between classicism and realism in art and architecture. Chris Kontos' photographic series explores two landscapes marked by marble and its uses: the island of Tinos, with its long tradition of marble mining and craft; and Athens, which has an ancient and enduring connection to marble evident in its ubiquitous presence throughout the city. These photographs tell a story of extraction, craft, tradition, and how meaning is made and remade through marble as a material in the city
- GenresArtArchitecture
143 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
1 person is currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Cusk
60 books5,147 followersRachel Cusk was born in Canada, and spent some of her childhood in Los Angeles, before her family returned to England, in 1974, when Cusk was 8 years old. She read English at New College, Oxford.
Cusk is the Whitbread Award–winning author of two memoirs, including The Last Supper, and seven novels, including Arlington Park, Saving Agnes, The Temporary, The Country Life, and The Lucky Ones.
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes: her most recent novel, Outline (2014), was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmith's Prize and the Bailey's prize, and longlisted for Canada's Giller Prize. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'
She lives in Brighton, England.
Cusk is the Whitbread Award–winning author of two memoirs, including The Last Supper, and seven novels, including Arlington Park, Saving Agnes, The Temporary, The Country Life, and The Lucky Ones.
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes: her most recent novel, Outline (2014), was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmith's Prize and the Bailey's prize, and longlisted for Canada's Giller Prize. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'
She lives in Brighton, England.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 17, 2025
the cusk essay is (i believe) just excerpts from her other book quarry on the same subject. having just read and loved that, this one felt quite incomplete and missing the nuance and themes of her extended essay. i thought the photo essay about tinos was very nice, but again all of it just felt like there were lots of interesting themes floating around that weren’t as explored as they could have been.
April 24, 2025
Barely a book, mostly two essays about marble. I enjoyed learning more about the material and the quarrying process and the various ways marble shows up in Greek culture.
June 20, 2025
This could have been a real gem if it had a sharper focus. I’m a fan of Rachel Cusk but this essay is doing absolutely nothing except beefing up the page count. Unclear why she’s getting top billing because the meat of this book is the photography by Chris Kontos, which is gorgeous. With the exception of the photos, everything that’s interesting about this subject—craftspeople, ecology, tradition, infrastructure, art, extraction—has been cited as a keyword but then completely glossed over and made into a pretty book filled with stuffing. Lots of missed opportunities.
September 1, 2023
Gotta be honest the Cusk essay was my least favourite part about this book. The photo essay by Chris Kontos & the afterword by Nadine Monem were however stunning and gave me a whole new appreciation for marble.
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January 22, 2025Really good essay from RC, and the photographs, mostly of Greek quarries, are also excellent.
Reminds me of Danielle's book, The Dark Wood. The parts about marble sculptors were quite compelling on the topics of deep work, focus, and craft.
“Most people live cosseted in the vague belief that their existence and the work that they do are essentially non-destructive, but hardly anyone in our era can really say that about themselves.” (18)
“What makes certain things last, while others decay and are forgotten? Perhaps what lasts is what continues to fit into the human story, what we can bend to our subjective understanding of who we are. For something to last we have to continue to agree with it, even if what we are agreeing with is something the lasting object never intended. Time strips an object of its context, revealing it for the achievement or mistake that it was, but what becomes of its intentions? One might say that an artist is a person who has found a way to bind their intentions to the object they create. Yet how can they know whether those intentions will or ought to last?”
"A story is made out of what survives.”
“Other ways in which stories are told - the stories of influence and becoming, of unconscious action and belief, moral and oral histories - do not have a location as resilient as that of marble. They can be influenced or modified; they can evolve, or dwindle away. To an extent a story is made out of the juncture between the immaterial and the material. In marble the distance between the two - between fleetingness and survival, between expressiveness and dumbness - is immense. So much of what we do is forgotten or isn't good enough. So who can be the author of this material?”
on E marbles: “now they sit in the British Museum, captives of a different kind, estranged” (22)
On the palace in Bucharest: “It is a colossus that represents the translation of a dictator's will into a physical and spatial”
“Not far from the Capitoline Museum is the Foro Italico, the gigantic sports complex built by Mussolini in the 1930s as a temple to fascist principles of manhood. Today football fans come and go beneath its marble porticoes, past the mock-classical statues of athletes, past the huge marble obelisk Mussolini erected in honour of himself. The Olympic Games were held there in 1960, and it continues to be regularly used for international sporting events: despite the malevolence of its architectural statement, it seems it is…a place where the question of influence — the idea that we ourselves might be shaped by concrete things — continually arises. Can we gauge the influence on ourselves of the things that surround us if we no longer remember what they mean?” (23)
“There is a curious reluctance to accept or admit that the sculpture of antiquity was colourful - it is a fact that is continuously subject to a collective cultural forgetting. Painted, the marble forms no longer represent perfection: it is as though the paint connects them to a fundamentally flawed humanity from which, through time, they have succeeded in distancing themselves.” (24)
“In the museum, there are numerous striking works of funerary decoration, in which the dead are shown in living scenes of marble relief, amid their familiars. Like photo-graphs, these scenes seek to preserve the moment: imagining them in colour, they become suggestive of invocation rather than”
“ LEFT: Michail Saltamanikas describes his relationship with marble as "love beyond technique and knowhow. It consumes my existence." He says that he often finds a piece of marble that guides him to the final form of the work. He once became so enchanted by a piece of marble glittering at the bottom of the sea that he returned to dive for it, painstakingly hauling it to the surface over the course of an entire day”
“Lambros touches his tools and the marble blocks with respect and a certain softness. At the door of his studio he gives a kind smile and says, ‘ Come back and visit whenever you want.’”
Reminds me of Danielle's book, The Dark Wood. The parts about marble sculptors were quite compelling on the topics of deep work, focus, and craft.
“Most people live cosseted in the vague belief that their existence and the work that they do are essentially non-destructive, but hardly anyone in our era can really say that about themselves.” (18)
“What makes certain things last, while others decay and are forgotten? Perhaps what lasts is what continues to fit into the human story, what we can bend to our subjective understanding of who we are. For something to last we have to continue to agree with it, even if what we are agreeing with is something the lasting object never intended. Time strips an object of its context, revealing it for the achievement or mistake that it was, but what becomes of its intentions? One might say that an artist is a person who has found a way to bind their intentions to the object they create. Yet how can they know whether those intentions will or ought to last?”
"A story is made out of what survives.”
“Other ways in which stories are told - the stories of influence and becoming, of unconscious action and belief, moral and oral histories - do not have a location as resilient as that of marble. They can be influenced or modified; they can evolve, or dwindle away. To an extent a story is made out of the juncture between the immaterial and the material. In marble the distance between the two - between fleetingness and survival, between expressiveness and dumbness - is immense. So much of what we do is forgotten or isn't good enough. So who can be the author of this material?”
on E marbles: “now they sit in the British Museum, captives of a different kind, estranged” (22)
On the palace in Bucharest: “It is a colossus that represents the translation of a dictator's will into a physical and spatial”
“Not far from the Capitoline Museum is the Foro Italico, the gigantic sports complex built by Mussolini in the 1930s as a temple to fascist principles of manhood. Today football fans come and go beneath its marble porticoes, past the mock-classical statues of athletes, past the huge marble obelisk Mussolini erected in honour of himself. The Olympic Games were held there in 1960, and it continues to be regularly used for international sporting events: despite the malevolence of its architectural statement, it seems it is…a place where the question of influence — the idea that we ourselves might be shaped by concrete things — continually arises. Can we gauge the influence on ourselves of the things that surround us if we no longer remember what they mean?” (23)
“There is a curious reluctance to accept or admit that the sculpture of antiquity was colourful - it is a fact that is continuously subject to a collective cultural forgetting. Painted, the marble forms no longer represent perfection: it is as though the paint connects them to a fundamentally flawed humanity from which, through time, they have succeeded in distancing themselves.” (24)
“In the museum, there are numerous striking works of funerary decoration, in which the dead are shown in living scenes of marble relief, amid their familiars. Like photo-graphs, these scenes seek to preserve the moment: imagining them in colour, they become suggestive of invocation rather than”
“ LEFT: Michail Saltamanikas describes his relationship with marble as "love beyond technique and knowhow. It consumes my existence." He says that he often finds a piece of marble that guides him to the final form of the work. He once became so enchanted by a piece of marble glittering at the bottom of the sea that he returned to dive for it, painstakingly hauling it to the surface over the course of an entire day”
“Lambros touches his tools and the marble blocks with respect and a certain softness. At the door of his studio he gives a kind smile and says, ‘ Come back and visit whenever you want.’”
March 24, 2023
‘marble in metamorphosis’ is een mooi essay over het gebruik van marmer in kunst - weer even lekker de kunstgeschiedenis in (incl mooie foto’s)
2024
January 23, 2024“The rock’s sufferings, it’s experience, being about its immortality” …. “For something to last we have to continue to agree with it” … “the facade of the quarry, like a book”
July 30, 2024
Excellent. Really relived my liberal arts fantasy with this one. Thank you Jessie for the rec!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews