Nature and Its Symbols (A Guide to Imagery)
Product ID: 21007266
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“Impelluso’s delectable visual dictionary neatly explicates the symbolic and even magical meanings inherent in depictions of the natural world in traditional Western art.” — Booklist Explore the extensive imagery and fascinating symbolic meanings of plants and animals, both real and fantastic, in hundreds of works of art. Nature and Its Symbols is the fifth volume in the series A Guide to Imagery , reference guides whose goal is to explain the symbols used in art. This volume includes chapters on plants, flowers, fruits, and animals of the earth, air, and water, as well as fantastical creatures such as centaurs, griffons, and dragons. The vivid illustrations, which include paintings and tapestries from some of the world’s premier museums, are accompanied by texts that offer a careful analysis of the artists’ depictions of the natural world. Each entry discusses the symbolic significance of the particular plant, fruit, or animal portrayed, its mythic or literary origins, and the episodes or individuals associated with it. These salient points are also called out in summary form within each entry, making the information easily accessible. The reader discovers, for example, that the iris can represent Jesus or the purity of the Virgin Mary as well as the kings of France or the city of Florence. The monkey, which can be symbolic of the devil, heresy, or bad temper, is also associated with the three wise men who travelled to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus. Review: This book upgrade your art Class - Just what I was looking for. Clear ideas, great quality. We just love it. Review: Great Iconographic dictionary! - This is one of the greatest iconographic dictionaries ever! It is a great tool for any research in art and art history, specialle those related to iconography from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. However, you should take into consideration it is a tool and if you're making a serious investigation you'd probably need to research more books.
| Best Sellers Rank | #218,859 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #140 in Art Encyclopedias #174 in European Art History #233 in Arts & Photography Study & Teaching |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 77 Reviews |
Y**M
This book upgrade your art Class
Just what I was looking for. Clear ideas, great quality. We just love it.
M**T
Great Iconographic dictionary!
This is one of the greatest iconographic dictionaries ever! It is a great tool for any research in art and art history, specialle those related to iconography from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. However, you should take into consideration it is a tool and if you're making a serious investigation you'd probably need to research more books.
A**D
A great resource
These books are a great tool for starting to understand symbolism. Of course the subject is so deep that one cannot expect to have entire chapters devoted to single symbols, for instance the "rose" could be a book in and of itself, but this does give you visual examples and definitely points you in the right direction. In many cases you will not get final answers to questions of symbolism, but it will without question point you in the right direction.
M**O
Five Stars
Great reading.
A**R
Five Stars
Just what I was looking for.
M**S
Interesting subject - disappointing presentation
For anyone interested in art or art history this is an appealing title. Unfortunately the presentation is not up to the standard you would expect for an art book. 1. There is no index. If you are interested in a particular symbol, you have to look through every page in the book. 2. The paintings, illustrations and explanatory text are all too small. In fact, it appears everything was formated for a bigger page size but in order to save money everything was shrunk to fit on to a smaller page format. The result is: I need quite strong magnifiying glasses to read the text. And it is not easy to appreciate the magnificience of the paintings. Overall: I would not recommend this book to a friend.
V**Y
A wonderful book on art !
In "Guide to imagery series" books I found the books on art that give an exceptionally clear presentation of the subject. I bought 6 books ("Nature and Its Symbols" among them) and I really found what I was searching for. You can study Old and New Testament as well as ancient mythology reading these books, understand the role of different details, symbols drawn on each picture. Inside each book there is a short description of the specific topic followed by full-colour reproductions of the pictures on this topic from different museums all over the world with detailed explanations to each picture. It was amazing to find and understand the meaning of different pictures I saw in art galleries in St.Petersburg, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Venice, Naples and other places. Really a great selection of art works is presented in each of these books. I strongly recommend all these books to everybody who wants to understand the meaning of the pictures and get a nice art collection at home.
W**R
The content is really good, however
The content is really good, however, the book is so very small and so is the font! Hard to read. I wish the book was larger.
A**R
Ótimo!
Produto ótimo, exatamente como esperava!
M**E
beautiful glossy book
A beautiful book. Note that it is not coffee-table sized, it is 20x13 cm (8x5 inches)
M**.
Visual y didáctico
Una guía bastante interesante para amantes del arte. Divida en los siguientes apartados: plantas, frutas, animales voladores, criaturas de la imaginación, flores, animales terrestres y animales acuáticos. Dentro que cada apartado explica aproximadamente entre 10 y 25 de los principales elementos de cada categoría, por ejemplo, en el apartado de animales, habla del león o el elefante, pero no del oso. Realiza un análisis bastante interesante, aunque escueto (de una carilla y acompañado por varias pinturas) en el que analiza la presencia de estas categoría en diversas pinturas o pasajes bíblicos, señalando sus origenes místicos, significados atribuídos y demás datos interesantes. Contras: si buscas un diccionario de símbolos muy completo o para un uso académico posiblemente se te quede corto, trata los motivos más relevantes. Los árboles se tratan de manera genérica (dentro de las plantas), no se profundiza en esa categoría. Ventajas: el diseño gráfico del libro está muy bien realizado (está repleto de reproducciones de cuadros donde además se explican con flechas los motivos), es muy agradable simplemente pasar las páginas y ojearlo supeficialmente.
A**R
Excellent - Very focused on symbolism within Christian artwork
The book is excellent but it should be called 'Symbolism of Nature in Christian Religious Art', rather than Nature and its Symbols. The book looks at the symbolism of natural objects (animals, plants, flowers, food) within the context of mostly christian art. Most symbols get atleast 2 or 3 pages with a good written description and then a few very clear images of artwork which have interesting annotations explaining what the contents of the paintings symbolise. It's a really great book if you're interested in spiritual and religious symbolism.
P**N
Clear and Precise
This excellent series provides immediate insights into the secret world of paintings. From symbolism to use of colour this is a very accessible book that examines nature and its symbols in art. The page layout follows the standard formula with clear editing and a good selection of pictures explained. easy to manage, easy to navigate and very readable - excellent book, excellent series
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