Figures of Speech: Picturing Proverbs in Renaissance Netherlands

Gibson, Walter S.

"Figures of Speech" addresses a key topic in Renaissance studies: the importance and pervasiveness of proverbs. For sixteenth-century Netherlanders, proverbs revealed the wisdom of the Ancients as well as the linguistic richness found in their own native language; for Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch, and other Renaissance painters, proverbs were a frequent and appealing subject. In this book, Walter S. Gibson provides a comprehensive and engaging survey of these visual representations, capturing for twenty-first-century readers the moral sensibilities of a time and culture when such adages (and the images conveying their meaning) were invaluable guides to life.

Collectability score

Walter S. Gibson's scholarly exploration into the rich, cryptic vernacular iconology and proverb imagery of Renaissance Netherlandish art.

EAN

9780520259546

Publisher

University of California Press

Published

16 March 2010

Pages

256

Available copies

• New
  £128.99