Sacred and Legendary Art

A two-volume study of Christian legends represented in Western art, published in 1848 and still of value to art historians today.

Anna Jameson (Author)

9781108051781, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 July 2012

458 pages, 97 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm, 0.58 kg

Published in 1848, this two-volume work was received with great praise. During a celebrated career, Anna Brownell Jameson (1794–1860) produced Shakespeare criticism, travel writing, biography, and art history, and was admired by contemporaries such as Mary Shelley and Thomas Carlyle. Taking an aesthetic rather than religious approach, the work is a study of the legends represented in Western art of the Middle Ages, ordered taxonomically. Though Jameson is considered the first professional female art critic, this is a reductive label; she was, rather, one of the great art critics of her age and her work is still of importance to art historians. Volume 1, which is richly illustrated, covers the literary origins of the legends and surveys the representation of angels and archangels, the Four Evangelists, the Twelve Apostles, the Doctors of the Church, and a number of significant saints, including Mary Magdalene.

Preface
Introduction
Of angels and archangels
The Four Evangelists
The Twelve Apostles
The Doctors of the Church
St Mary Magdalene, St Martha, St Lazarus, St Maximin, St Marcella, St Mary of Egypt, and the beatified penitents.

Subject Areas: The arts: general issues [AB]