As archetypes of human virtue and vice, the gods and heroes of ancient Greece and Rome have figured prominently in Western culture. In art, they have been portrayed time and time again, especially during the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical periods.
Gods and Heroes in Art aims to help museum patrons and art lovers recognize the legendary characters of classical antiquity in art. The characters are each described in entries summarizing their distinctive stories, their special attributes, and the ways in which artists have depicted them. Each entry is richly illustrated with...

Christian saints have been the objects of reverence and fascination throughout the past two millennia. Their likenesses, heroic acts, prayerful lives, and stories of martyrdom have been portrayed frequently in art of diverse media. Without familiarity with the saints and their images and symbols, viewers of art may find it challenging to identify, for example, which saint is represented as a monk with an axe through his head, or a beautiful girl holding a wheel, or a woman carrying her eyes on a plate.

This sumptuously illustrated volume analyzes artists' representations of angels and demons and heaven and hell from the Judeo-Christian tradition and describes how these artistic portrayals evolved over time. As with other books in the Guide to Imagery series, the goal of this volume is to
help contemporary art enthusiasts decode the symbolic meanings in the great masterworks of Western Art.
The first chapter traces the development of images of the Creation and the Afterworld from descriptions of them in the Scriptures through their evolution in later literary and...

Influenced by a revival of interest in Greco-Roman ideals and sponsored by a newly prosperous merchant class, fifteenth-century artists produced works of astonishingly innovative content and technique. The International Gothic style of painting, still popular at the beginning of the century,
was giving way to the influence of Early Netherlandish Flemish masters such as Jan van Eyck, who emphasized narrative and the complex use of light for symbolic meaning. Patrons favored paintings in oil and on wooden panels for works ranging from large, hinged altarpieces to small,...

In the sixteenth century the humanist values and admiration for classical antiquity that marked the early Renaissance spread from Italy throughout the rest of the continent, resulting in the development of a number of local artistic styles in other countries. Artists were highly valued and
richly compensated during this period, with many receiving lucrative commissions from papal, royal, and private patrons. Among the sixty artists whose works are presented in this volume are towering figures of Western art such as Michelangelo, Raphael, El Greco, and Titian.
Venetian...

Takes readers on a romp through the portrayal of love and sexuality in Western art - ranging from chaste tenderness to overwhelming frenzies of the senses, and from Classical allusion to sexual fantasy.

This generously illustrated volume on the work of Rembrandt makes the world s greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. Celebrated for his penetrating portraits, richly detailed landscapes, and evocative narrative paintings, the seventeenth century artist Rembrandt is generally considered one of Europe s greatest painters and printmakers, and the master of the Dutch School. His work is distinguished by broad brushwork, luminous palettes, and a sense of order and movement that recalls the finest Renaissance art. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book...