In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of medieval culture. " A] delightful study. . . . Eco's] remarkably lucid and readable essay is full of contemporary relevance and informed by the energies of a man in love with his subject."--Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "The book lays out so many exciting...
In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas...
The well-known Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco discloses for the first time to English-speaking readers the unsuspected richness, breadth, complexity, and originality of the aesthetic theories advanced by the influential medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas, heretofore known principally as a scholastic theologian. Inheriting his basic ideas and conceptions of art and beauty from the classical world, Aquinas transformed or modified these ideas in the light of Christian theology and of developments in metaphysics and optics during the thirteenth century.
Setting the stage with...
The well-known Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco discloses for the first time to English-speaking readers the unsuspected richness, brea...
Philosophies of Art and Beauty is a thorough historical survey of philosophies of the arts. It provides descriptive analyses of the most significant and influential art forms which help to define European culture, past and present: literature, drama, music, architecture, sculpture and painting. They are considered in relation to theories of art, aesthetic theories and poetics, which have emerged from the human need to reflect upon the arts in order to discover their nature, value and social and cultural roles. Philosophies of Art and Beauty offers a history of European philosophical systems...
Philosophies of Art and Beauty is a thorough historical survey of philosophies of the arts. It provides descriptive analyses of the most significant a...