Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From antiquity, when the gods and goddesses were commonly featured in works of art, through to the twentieth century, when Surrealists drew on archetypes from the unconscious, artists have embedded symbols in their works. As with previous volumes in the Guide to Imagery series, the goal of this book is to provide contemporary readers and museum visitors with the tools to read the hidden meanings in works of art. This latest volume is divided thematically into four sections featuring symbols related to time, man, space (earth and sky), and allegories or moral lessons. Readers will learn, for instance, that night, the primordial mother of the cosmos, was often portrayed in ancient art as a woman wrapped in a black veil, whereas day or noon was often represented in Renaissance art as a strong, virile man evoking the full manifestation of the sun's energy. Each entry in the book contains a main reference image in which details of the symbol or allegory being analyzed are called out for discussion. In the margin, for quick access by the reader, is a summary of the essential characteristics of the symbol in question, the derivation of its name, and the religious tradition from which it springs.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

This sixth volume of the Getty?s superb Guide to Imagery series does not disappoint, following a winning formula to satisfying results. Like its predecessors, the book lushly reproduces masterworks and breaks them down into their component parts, explaining the meanings attached to each in helpful marginal text. The volume contains a selection of exemplary paintings from the last 500 years, but it?s particularly heavy on the Renaissance?familiar standouts include van Eyck?s The Arnolfini Marriage, Holbein the Younger?s The Ambassadors, Botticelli?s Spring and several fantastic works by Bruegel the Elder. The book is divided into four sections??Time, ? ?Man, ? ?Space? and ?Allegories??with plenty of subsections in each. For anyone unfamiliar with Renaissance symbols and tropes, this book adds depth and nuance to the sensual power of its greatest works. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

CHOICE Review

Battistini (prolific Italian art historian with several other books on symbols in art to her credit) has contributed this volume to the unconventional and visually rich "Guide to Imagery" series. This author avoids the more prevalent dictionary format and instead takes the reader on a study more akin to a well-guided museum tour, stopping at selected works of art to carefully examine the iconography. Exemplary details within sometimes puzzling and complex paintings and sculpture are addressed within the thematically arranged sections of "Time," "Man," "Space," and "Allegories," including, among others, intriguing subsections such as "Chaos," "Microcosm," and "Zoomorph." A short history of the theme introduces each section, accompanied by lists of characteristics, religious and philosophical traditions, related gods and symbols, and the derivations of the names. The chosen works of art are limited primarily to European art, with a strong emphasis on the 15th through the 17th centuries. Appendixes include a list of sources used--without full citations--as well as an index of artists. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates. E. M. Hansen Sarasota County Library System

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Matilde Battistini is an art critic and author, along with Stefano Zuffi, of Picasso, L'opera di un genio and La Natura Morta.