Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages

Yale University Press, 2002, Paperback

Product Description

In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of medieval culture.

Product Details

Title: Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages
Sales Rank: 208654 in Books
Author: Umberto Eco
Creator: Hugh Bredin
Publisher: Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 2002-04-01, Paperback, 144 pages, ISBN: 0300093047
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches, 0.25 pounds

Customer Reviews

The Beauty of God: This is a fascinating and enjoyable survey of the approaches to and embodiments of beauty in the Middle Ages through the 13th century, which is when the Middle Ages gave way to the High Middle Ages (which culminated - or bottomed out, depending on how you look at it - in the Protestant Reformations). Great theologians and mystics such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard… More reviews

Brilliant and uet it could have been blindingly bright: An extremely important book that answers marvellously our prejudices against the Middle Ages. It explores in great details their literature and philosophy to show how people understood beauty then. He sees three phases. First the aesthetics of proportion in direct connection with the greek mathematical heritage and the biblical teachings about the wisdom of the creation by God who… More reviews

Strike Out: Umberto Eco's best efforts are probably contained in this rather labyrinthine and meandering effort to codify Thomistic philosophy. Thomism doesn't have a philosophy of the "aesthetic,' a notion wholly alien to the medieval mind. So Eco has to kind of create such a notion from a plethora of Thomas' writings. Fortunately, Eco does stay on track, even if he creates and follows tangents widely, by staying… More reviews