SINISTER SIDE C

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-19-923086-0
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 512 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 1005 g

Why does the Mona Lisa have an uneven smile? Was Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon an exploration of Satanism? Why did Michelangelo depict so many left-handed archers? Why did the British Queen look so different when Annie Liebowitz lit her from her left side in a recent official portrait?

The answer to all these questions lies in a hidden symbolic language in the visual arts: that of the perceived differences between the left and right sides of the body. It is a symbolism that has been interpreted by artists through the centuries, and that can be uncovered in many of our greatest masterpieces, but that has been long forgotten about or misunderstood by those concerned with the history of art and the human body. The Sinister Side reveals the key, and sheds new light on some of the greatest art from before the Renaissance to the present day.

Traditionally, in almost every culture and religion, the left side has been regarded as inferior - evil, weak, worldly, feminine - while the right is good, strong, spiritual and male. But starting in the Renaissance, this hierarchy was questioned and visualised as never before. The left side, in part because of the presence of the heart, became the side that represented authentic human feelings, especially love. By the late nineteenth century, with the rise of interest in the occult and in spiritualism, the left side had become associated with the taboo and with the unconscious. Exploring how works of art reflect our changing cultural ideas about the natural world, human nature, and the mind, James Halls'Sinister Side is the first book to detail the richness and subtlety of left-right symbolism in art, and to show how it was a catalyst for some of the greatest works of visual art from Botticelli and Van Eyck to Vermeer and Dali.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hall

Hall, James

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- ANTIQUITY AND AFTER

- Turning Right

- 1: Avoiding the Beer-Cellar:Left-Right Conventions

- 2: Heraldic Images

- 3: Fair Game

- 4: Sun and Moon

- RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT

- Contesting Left and Right

- 5: Darkened Eyes

- Balancing Left and Right

- 6: The Choice of Hercules

- 7: Double Vision

- 8: Rembrandt's Eyes

- Turning Left

- 9: The Death of Christ 1:Crossing Over

- 10: The Death of Christ 2: Not Idle

- 11: Courtly Love

- 12: Fragile Beauty

- 13: Leonardo and the Look of Love

- 14: Prisoners of Love

- 15: Lovelocks

- 16: Honourary Left-Handers

- MODERNITY

- Rethinking Left and Right

- 17: 'To Err Forever'

- 18: Picasso and Chiromancy

- 19: Picasso and Satanism

- 20: Modern Primitives

- Coda

- 21: God Save the Queen

- References

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

James Hall is a freelance art critic and historian. A former art critic of The Guardian (for which he was awarded the first Bernard Benvir prize for art criticism), he is the author of many essays and of two critically acclaimed books: The World as Sculpture: the changing status of sculpture from the Renaissance to the present day (1999); Michelangelo and the reinvention of the human body (2005). His most recent publication is an imaginary dialogue with Michelangelo, Coffee with Michelangelo (2006).