Emblems And Art History

This study draws a new picture of the invention of the emblem book, and discusses the textual and pictorial means that were developed in order to transmit knowledge, from Alciato to Vaenius, with special emphasis on the emblem commentary and natural history.

"The purpose of this volume is to provide today's readers and museum-goers with a tool for orienting themselves in the world of images and learning to read the hidden meanings of certain famous paintings."--Introduction.

A groundbreaking reassessment of Symbolist artists and writers that investigates the concerns they shared with scientists of the period—the problem of subjectivity in particular. In A Forest of Symbols, Andrei Pop presents a groundbreaking reassessment of those writers and artists in the late nineteenth century associated with the Symbolist movement. For Pop, “symbolist” denotes an art that is self-conscious about its modes of making meaning, and he argues that these symbolist practices, which sought to provide more direct access to viewers and readers by constant revision of its material means of meaning-making (brushstrokes on a canvas, words on a page), are crucial to understanding the genesis of modern art. The symbolists saw art not as a social revolution, but as a revolution in sense and how to conceptualize the world. The concerns of symbolist painters and poets were shared to a remarkable degree by theoretical scientists of the period, who were dissatisfied with the strict empiricism dominant in their disciplines, which made shared knowledge seem unattainable. The problem of subjectivity in particular, of what in one's experience can and cannot be shared, was crucial to the possibility of collaboration within science and to the communication of artistic innovation. Pop offers close readings of the literary and visual practices of Manet and Mallarmé, of drawings by Ernst Mach, William James and Wittgenstein, of experiments with color by Bracquemond and Van Gogh, and of the philosophical systems of Frege and Russell—filling in a startling but coherent picture of the symbolist heritage of modernity and its consequences.

Thoroughly user-friendly and covering a broad historical sweep, this book is a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history. Iconography, or the study of symbols—be they animals, artifacts, plants, geometric shapes, or gestures—is an essential aspect of interpreting art. One of the most consistent features of human society throughout time has been the use of visual symbols, which often act as substitutions for the written word, crossing dialects and borders and uniting understandings of the world through a shared language. Incorporating and analyzing a wealth of cultures, Symbols in Art serves as a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history from 2300 BCE to the present day, exploring their subtle implications and covert meanings. Entries devoted to specific symbols expose nuances of meaning and historical use, from easily identifiable symbols across the globe to those used to speak to specific cultural groups. This book exposes such intriguing correspondences as the symbolism of grapevines in a fifteenth-century painting by Giovanni Bellini compared to the images in Yinka Shonibare’s Last Supper. Complete with a user-friendly glossary of symbols and a well-selected array of illustrations, this book illuminates common and thought-provoking symbols in art across history and the globe, functioning as an indispensable tool for interpretation.

C. Heck and K. Lippincott, Symbols of Time in the History of Art: Introduction; A. Acres, Small Physical History: Trickling Past of Early Netherlandish Painting; B. Winston Blackmun, 'From Time Immemorial': Historicism in the Court art of Benin, Nigeria; S. Blumenroder, Andrea Mantegna's Grisaille Paintings: Colour Metamorphosis as a Metaphor for History; K. Enz Finken, An Early Christian Construction of Time: Salvation History in the Catacomb of Callistus in Rome; M. Wellington Gahtan, Notions of Past and Future in Italian Renaissance Art and Letters; P. Gerrish Nunn, Time and Tide wait for no man: a Victorian apocalypse; J. M. Greenstein, Faces in Time: Temporalities of the Sitter in Renaissance Portraits; J. Berger Hochstrasser, Goede Dingen Willen Tijt Hebben: Time as a Meditation on Painting in Dutch Still Life of the Seventeenth Century; P. Junod, Figures du Temps au siecle de l'histoire; W. Pullan, Death and Praxis in the Funerary Architecture of Mamluk Cairo; S. Sun, The Symbols of Seasonal Changes from Winter to Spring in East Asian Paintings; D. Motycka Weston, 'The Hour of the Enigma': The Phenomenal Temporality in the Metaphysical Painting of Giorgio de Chirico.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.