New York: G. Braziller, [1973], — New York : G. Braziller, [1973] p. — ISBN 0807606839.The stories of 850 common subjects of museum painting are presented here in dictionary form: mythology, ancient history, Italian poetry, saints' lives, the Bible - themes that were once commonplace to artists and their audience and universally understood. The book is meant for use while looking at paintings, and gathers together in a brief space information that is otherwise scattered throughout many volumes. Quota¬tions and summaries from the Bible and from ancient, medieval and Renaissance writers tell the stories as the painters them¬selves might have known them, the basic raw materials from which they composed their works, each according to his own genius.
Many of these stories are not readily available to modern readers, and even with a substantial library at hand they are often difficult to find. Modern handbooks of mythology replace 'late' versions of the Greek myths with earlier ones not always known to the painters of the Renaissance. The colourful moral anecdotes from ancient history that were once well known are out of favour with modern historians and are no longer found in reference books. And the fabulously embroidered retellings of the Bible and the lives of the saints that were popular in the Middle Ages are irrelevant to modern theology. Leaving aside modern versions, we have looked for those - Biblical, classical, medieval or Renaissance - that the artists seem to have known. Often considered erroneous now, they were once thought true, and were sources of inspiration for many centuries.
The subjects are arranged alphabetically according to the titles by which they are most commonly known. The authors used are identified in each article and are listed and briefly described at the end of the book.
