'Over more than 400 pages Eco displays his polymathic qualities, ranging over diverse subjects to produce a comprehensive definition of beauty. Utilising examples of literature, sculpture, painting, photography and film among other areas, Eco asks what beauty is and why it matters so much. The volume is lavishly produced... with exquisite images' Fatchna Kelly and Julian Fleming, Sunday Business Post.
Umberto Eco's first novel, The Name of the Rose (1982), was a huge bestseller worldwide. With his subsequent works of fiction, philosophy, literary criticism and semiotics, he has become one of Europe's outstanding thinkers. He is currently President of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Humanistici at the University of Bologna. Alastair McEwen is the translator of Antonio Tabucchi, Sandro Veronesi, Fleur Jaeggy and Alessandro Baricco.
Inhaltsangabe
Introduction. Comparative Tables. The Aesthetic Ideal in Ancient Greece. Apollonian and Dionysiac. Beauty as Proportion and Harmony. Light and Colour in the Middle Ages. The Beauty of Monsters. From the Pastourelle to the Donna Angelicata. Magic Beauty between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Ladies and Heroes. From Grace to Disquieting Beauty. Reason and Beauty. The Sublime. Romantic Beauty. The Religion of Beauty. The New Object. The Beauty of Machines. From Abstract Forms to the Depths of Material. The Beauty of the Media. Bibliographic References of Translations. Index of Authors. Index of Artists.
