Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it also has a lot to do with the beholder's cultural standards. In History of Beauty, renowned author Umberto Eco sets out to demonstrate how every historical era has had its own ideas about eye-appeal. Pages of charts that track archetypes of beauty through the ages ("nude Venus," "nude Adonis," and so forth) may suggest that this book is a historical survey of beautiful people portrayed in art. But History of Beauty is really about the history of philosophical and perceptual notions of perfection and how they have been applied to ideas and objects, as well as to the human body. This survey ranges over such themes as the mathematics of ideal proportions, the problem of representing ugliness, the fascination of the exotic and art for art's sake. Along the way, the text examines the intersection of standards of beauty with Christian belief, notions of the Sublime, the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and bourgeois culture. More than 300 illustrations trace the history of Western art as it relates, in the broadest sense, to the topic of beauty. Yet despite its wealth of information, History of Beauty is an odd and unsatisfying book. Beginning with ancient Greece and ending with a too-brief chapter on "The Beauty of the Media," the text focuses exclusively (and unapologetically) on the Western world. Ultimately, it seems that "beauty" serves simply as a sexy peg on which to hang an abbreviated history of Western culture. Readers expecting a sophisticated treatment of the subject will be surprised at the textbook-like design, with numbered sections and boldfaced words keyed to small-type excerpts from writings by thinkers ranging from Boethius to Barthes. The main narrative (or perhaps the translation from the Italian?) can be ponderous and awkward. Only nine of the 17 chapters were written by Eco; the remainder are by lesser-known Italian novelist Girolamo de Michele. All in all, it looks as though someone had the bright idea of translating a textbook for Italian students into English, hoping to coast on the fame of Eco's name. --Cathy Curtis

From Publishers Weekly
This inspired book begins, after a little throat-clearing, with 11 verso-recto "comparative tables"—sets of contact-sheet–like illustrations that trace representations of "Nude Venus" and "Nude Adonis" (clothed sets follow) as well as Madonna, Jesus, "Kings" and "Queens" over thousands of years, revealing with wonderful brevity the scope of the task Eco has set for the book. What follows is a dense, delectable tour through the history of art as it struggled to cope with beauty's many forms. The text, while rigorous in its inquiries, is heavy on abstractions, which get amplified by stiff translation: "In short, the question was how to retable the debate about the Classical antitheses of thought, in order to reelaborate them within the framework of a dynamic relationship." The selections, however, are breathtaking—300 color illustrations, from Praxiteles to Pollock—and they grant the text the freedom to delve into their complex mysteries. Eco's categories for doing so (e.g., "Poets and Impossible Loves") and his historical breadth in elaborating them are creative and impressive respectively. Long quotations ranging from Plotinus and Petrarch to Xenophon and Zola allow each era to speak for itself, while Eco links them with his own epoch-leaping connections. Seen in terms of a timeless debate on the form and meaning of beauty, masterpieces like Titian's Sacred and Profane Loveor Cranach's Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey seem, if possible, even more immediate, and related to our own amorous profanities and thefts. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Given the sophistication of Eco's celebrated novels, the most recent being Baudolino (2002), and his scholarly work in semiotics, readers will expect his "review of ideas of Beauty over the centuries," as he so modestly characterizes this brimming and provocative volume, to be at once intellectually elaborate and great fun, and, indeed, it is. Focused primarily on the human form as depicted in works of art, beginning with the ancient Greeks and striding confidently into the age of the machine; elegantly designed and, yes, beautifully illustrated, Eco's mapping of our ever-changing definition of beauty draws on philosophy, theology, poetry, and science as he tracks beauty's permutations under the influence of ideas, mysticism, social upheaval, economics, politics, and technological innovation. A lover of language as well as image, Eco showcases literary beauty in the clarion writings he so judiciously excerpts. Erudite and ardent, Eco contemplates the complex relationship between nature and art, beauty and love, and vigorously explicates depictions of ugliness, without which our sense of beauty would not exist. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
What is beauty? What is art? What is taste and fashion? Is beauty something to be observed coolly and rationally or is it something dangerously involving? So begins Umberto Eco's intriguing journey into the aesthetics of beauty, in which he explores the ever-changing concept of the beautiful from the ancient Greeks to today. While closely examining the development of the visual arts and drawing on works of literature from each era, Eco broadens his enquiries to consider a range of concepts, including the idea of love, the unattainable woman, natural inspiration versus numeric formulas, and the continuing importance of ugliness, cruelty, and even the demonic.

Professor Eco takes us from classical antiquity to the present day, dispelling many preconceptions along the way and concluding that the relevance of his research is urgent because we live in an age of great reverence for beauty, "an orgy of tolerance, the total syncretism and the absolute and unstoppable polytheism of Beauty."

In this, his first illustrated book, Professor Eco offers a layered approach that includes a running narrative, abundant examples of painting and sculpture, and excerpts from writers and philosophers of each age, plus comparative tables. A true road map to the idea of beauty for any reader who wishes to journey into this wonderful realm with Eco's nimble mind as guide.


About the Author
Umberto Eco is president of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici, University of Bologna, and one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. The author of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Island of the Day Before, his most recent book is Baudolino.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Beauty, as Aubrey Beardsley once reminded William Butler Yeats, is difficult. Professor Umberto Eco agrees. Having probed the roots and tendrils of aesthetics for four decades, the Italian novelist and philosopher understands its complexities. In History of Beauty, he offers reponses to seemingly eternal questions: What is beauty? What is art? What is taste and fashion? Why do habitually associate ethics with aesthetics? A fascinating inquiry into a perennial topic.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"What is beauty? What is art? What is taste and fashion? Is beauty something to be observed coolly and rationally or is it something dangerously involving? So begins Umberto Eco's journey into the aesthetics of beauty, a journey in which he explores the ever-changing concept of the beautiful from the ancient Greeks to today and questions the values that accompany the way we today register beauty, both past and present. While closely examining the development of the visual arts, and drawing on works of literature from each era, he broadens his enquiries to consider a range of concepts, including the idea of love, the unattainable woman, natural inspiration versus numeric formulas, and the continuing importance of ugliness, cruelty, and even the demonic." In this, his first illustrated book, Professor Eco offers a layered approach that includes a running narrative, abundant examples of painting and sculpture, and lengthy quotations from writers and philosophers of each age, in addition to comparative tables.

SYNOPSIS

Acclaimed novelist and scholar Eco (author of Foucault's Pendulum examines the concept of beauty as it has evolved through the ages from Ancient Greece to the present day. Throughout the volume, he intertwines images (many in color) with the writings of philosophers, novelists, and poets and discusses the various models of beauty they represent. Sample topics include light and color in the Middle Ages, the practicality of Victorian aesthetics, and beauty in the contemporary fashion industry. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This inspired book begins, after a little throat-clearing, with 11 verso-recto "comparative tables"-sets of contact-sheet-like illustrations that trace representations of "Nude Venus" and "Nude Adonis" (clothed sets follow) as well as Madonna, Jesus, "Kings" and "Queens" over thousands of years, revealing with wonderful brevity the scope of the task Eco has set for the book. What follows is a dense, delectable tour through the history of art as it struggled to cope with beauty's many forms. The text, while rigorous in its inquiries, is heavy on abstractions, which get amplified by stiff translation: "In short, the question was how to retable the debate about the Classical antitheses of thought, in order to reelaborate them within the framework of a dynamic relationship." The selections, however, are breathtaking-300 color illustrations, from Praxiteles to Pollock-and they grant the text the freedom to delve into their complex mysteries. Eco's categories for doing so (e.g., "Poets and Impossible Loves") and his historical breadth in elaborating them are creative and impressive respectively. Long quotations ranging from Plotinus and Petrarch to Xenophon and Zola allow each era to speak for itself, while Eco links them with his own epoch-leaping connections. Seen in terms of a timeless debate on the form and meaning of beauty, masterpieces like Titian's Sacred and Profane Love or Cranach's Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey seem, if possible, even more immediate, and related to our own amorous profanities and thefts. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION