Why is there a lily in that religious picture? Why is there a skull in that still-life? Great works of arts from all periods often have details or objects that carry symbolic meanings.
Sometimes those symbols would have been obvious to contemporary viewers but now need explaining to a modern audience who are less familiar with, say, Christian iconography or Classical myths. In other cases, the symbolism is deliberately obscure – designed to add a hidden layer of meaning to the work, to make the viewer work at its true meaning. This book includes over 100 symbols from across different periods and styles of art history. Each one is illustrated with at least one example, demonstrating when an artist has hidden a deeper message, or that these messages can change depending on the time, place and reasons the artwork was created.
Organized by type of symbol and with extensive indexing, the book is an invaluable, easy-to-use guide to help readers get the most out of works of art.