Supplementary information files for "Extraction ecologies in medieval Venice: nature, speculation, painting, and the gesture"

Supplementary files for article "Extraction ecologies in medieval Venice: nature, speculation, painting, and the gesture"This paper looks at the specific political economic conditions of 16th century Venice and seeks to connect these with the introduction of the gesture in painting. Arguing that the production of “nature” and its exploitation via increased accumulation, and management of resources are enacted in Titan and Tintoretto’s painting via the expanded and abstracted gesture. I outline the development of financial and quantification techniques in Venice and Italy during the 15th century and ask if these were echoed in painting, that draws from nature while codifying it. Arguing that by looking at paintings made during the emergence of capitalism we can better understand the interaction of the economic and the ideological and locate painting as one such technique. By identifying the gesture in painting as speculative, we can read it through systems of fictitious capital that seek to capture future labour and nature, which underlines the role of credit for emergent capitalism. Arguing against previous conceptualising of the gesture as labour-time, to suggest instead it mimics the abstraction of future labour time in finance capitalism. I portend that by understanding more about ecological thinking in the emergence of capitalism we can better frame our ongoing metabolic rift.CC BY-NC-ND, © The Author(s)