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This seminar explores recent approaches to the great domain of abstraction before modernity: non-figurative surfaces and depths, patterned and unpatterned ornament, chance and potential images, the revelation of "Nature's painting" in raw matter (marbles, gemstones, burled wood, mother of pearl, feathers, polished metals), and their virtuoso simulation in the painter's art. How should art historical writing negotiate the uncertain zone(s) between formlessness and figuration, materiality and ornamentation, thing-ness and representation, metamorphosis and intermediality, presence and meaning? What adjacent disciplines (history of science, anthropology, comparative religion, theology) should be enlisted for the work of interpretation? Authors include Baltrušaitis, Didi-Huberman, Gamboni, Jeanneret, Krüger, Bynum, Vandenbroeck, Barry, Weddigan, Fricke and others. Student research projects in any chronological subfield or geographical area -- from the ancient world to the Enlightenment -- will be encouraged.