Visual Literacy

How the visual composition of images works to engage the emotions, and how the elements of an artwork can give it the power to tell a story.

What can art tell us about how the brain works? And what can the brain tell us about how we perceive and create art?

This book progresses from pure philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the meta-physics of colour to Renaissance perspective.

Explanations of the scientific basis of color perception, an overview of the leading theories of color and examples of how theoretical information is applied in solving common problems in color design.

A mathematical explanation of how art works through examples of design, architecture, and illustration.

Iconography, the study of symbols - be they animals, artefacts, plants, shapes or gestures - is an essential element of art history. This guide unravels over fifty of the most common and intriguing visual symbols from across the globe from 2300 BCE to the present day.

Combined here in a single volume are religious, classical, and historical themes, figures of moral allegory, and characters from romantic poetry that appeared throughout paintings and sculpture in Western art before and after the Renaissance.
(Also in print: Reference ; N7560 .H34 2008)