1,001 Symbols: An Illustrated Guide to Imagery and Its Meaning

By Jack Tresidder

Book Overview

Pleasingly chunky and vibrantly colorful, this pocket-sized compendium covers iconography from around the world and is perfect for travel and museum outings. Author Jack Tresidder examines common imagery in art, religion, and literature, revealing hidden meanings rich with cultural history. For example, did you know that the phrase "salt of the earth" comes from the ancient use of salt as a preservative and the associated idea of incorruptibility? There is a symbol for virtually every human emotion and 1,001 Symbols helps us unlock them in a winning format that's proven as popular as its subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811842827
• ISBN13: 9780811842822
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.3" x 1.5" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

A not particularly Visual Reference

I am reviewing this because I was disappointed but want to be specific about why. I was actually looking for a simple visual small form factor reference of many simple symbols and this is not really that. It often skips the visual at all and just describes in words the image and its meaning. I wanted simple symbols and simple meanings to use as doodle reference for engraving and drawing. I am not even sure I understand why this version was created in the small form factor when it uses so many words for description instead of a picture being worth a 1000 words. I would feel that this book was misleading and believe that I would not be the only person to feel mislead.

Thinking in pictures

The author investigates imagery in literature, religion and art, making the connection to universal themes in the human psyche. The book lists the idea, quality or state symbolised and then discusses all the major imagery used to represent it under the topic. Important symbols with multiple meanings therefore appear under various different topic headings, whilst related topics are sometimes grouped together. The book provides an overview of the various imagery used by different cultures that stand for concepts like happiness, joy, wisdom, goodness, evil, truth justice, freedom and salvation amongst others. The author claims that traditional imagery as a whole represents a relatively small spectrum of emotions and ideas that were seen as the keystones of civilisation, in order to emphasize the positive over the negative. The book includes many cross-references, an index and plenty of striking monotone and full colour illustrations.