Art & Art History

This unique and authoritative reference work contains more than 2,000 clear and concise entries on all aspects of modern and contemporary art. Its impressive range of terms includes movements, styles, techniques, artists, critics, dealers, schools, and galleries. There are biographical entries for artists worldwide from the beginning of the 20th century through to the beginning of the 21st, from the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto to the French sculptor Jacques Zwobada.

Symbols can be as graphic as a cross, square, or circle, or they can be conceptual representations of themes such as the soul, resurrection, love, or desire. The meaning of these signs and symbols, whether simple icon or abstract concept, is complex and diverse, and depends on many variables. More than 1600 symbols and signs are covered in this comprehensive volume, analysing the definitions and interpretations that have been made across the boundaries of time, culture and tradition. The book discusses how signs and symbols have been interpreted and represented by humanity through thousands of years of art, mythology and religion: from cave paintings and Aboriginal dreamtime to computer iconography; from the Sumerians to the Rosicrucians; and from the alchemists' Philosopher's Stone to the archetypes of Freud and Jung.

In nearly 1500 entries, many of them strikingly and often surprisingly illustrated, J. C. Cooper has documented the history and evolution of symbols from prehistory to our own day. With more than 200 illustrations and lively, informative and often ironic texts, she discusses and explains an enormous variety of symbols extending from the Arctic to Dahomey, from the Iroquois to Oceana, and coming from systems as diverse as Tao, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Tantra, the cult of Cybele and the Great Goddess, the Pre-Columbian religions of the Western Hemisphere and the Voodoo cults of Brazil and West Africa.