Imitated Material

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Some works make one material convincingly pass for another: stone that looks like cloth, clay that looks like leather, metal that looks like a throwaway can. The pleasure lies in the double take.

In Naples, Giuseppe Sanmartino carved marble into an apparently transparent shroud for his Veiled Christ (1753). Eighteenth-century potters in Europe made tureens shaped like cabbages, and porcelain makers in China glazed wares to mimic bronze, wood grain or lacquer. Modern artists aimed the idea at everyday life. Jasper Johns cast two ale cans in bronze and painted their labels in Painted Bronze (1960); in the 1970s Marilyn Levine modelled stoneware jackets, boots and bags down to the scuffs and stitching; Christian Renonciat carves wood into crumpled cardboard and folded paper. Shari Mendelson shapes discarded plastic into vessels that resemble ancient glass. Look closely at edges, joins and weight, where illusions are hardest to sustain.