Art: More Background

A resource for both art and cultural studies, the Dictionary serves as a unique guide to all the visual arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, drawing, printmaking, as well as the decorative arts. The Dictionary ranges far both geographically and historically; it features unparalleled coverage of Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Mongolia, China, India, the Islamic world, Japan, Korea, Native North America, Pacific and Aboriginal Australia, Pre-Columbian America, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Ancient Near East, and Ancient Rome. Providing depth as well as breadth, The Dictionary of Art examines important art forms and key issues of design, taste, function, and patronage, illuminating them in light of the cultural context in which they developed.

A guide to the figures who have dominated the visual art throughout the ages. Each article summarizes the development of an artists's style and important works against a background of relevant biographical information and assesses his or her lasting contribution to the arts.

Compares the uses of iconographic themes from mythology, the Bible and other sacred texts, literature, and popular culture in works of art through various periods, cultures, and genres. Art historians now tend to study narrative themes depicted in works of art in relation to such subjects as gender and sexuality, politics and power, ownership and possession, ceremony and ritual, legitimacy and authority. The Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography reflects these new approaches by ordering the themes of various iconographic sources in particular biblical, mythological, and literary texts according to these new emphases. Each illustrated entry discusses the major relevant iconographic narratives and the historical background of each theme. A list of selected works of art that accompanies each essay guides the reader to examples in art that depict the theme under discussion. Each essay includes a list of suggested reading that provides further sources of information about the themes. A general bibliography of reference books is listed separately and can be used in association with all the essays.