Violet and pomegranate fruit, unicorn and dog, bull and lion, parrot and peacock, scales and pearls, cornucopia and mirror, the "Mirror of Venus" sign and the Christian symbol "ichthys"… How often do we see these and other signs and symbols in the paintings of famous masters and do not even think that these images have an additional meaning, different from their own superficial one. These signs, adding depth, mystery, and multilayeredness to the works, exist not only in the realm of reason but also in the realm of feelings. Symbols are diverse – they are denoted by numbers, objects and phenomena, shapes and images of animals, birds, or insects, and so on. Symbols are particularly vivid in painting and sculpture.
Hundreds of years, and sometimes entire millennia, separate us from the creators of these now-famous works of visual art. These people existed in a different system of life coordinates and believed in different gods. The monuments that have survived from those ancient times were meant not only to please the eye and amaze with their delicacy of execution but often carried a certain idea that contemporaries could easily decipher. We, while garnering purely aesthetic pleasure from these monuments, often overlook their meaningful significance, not paying attention to the telling details or not understanding what they may imply, thereby depriving ourselves of a full perception of the works of art. The meanings of signs and symbols are almost impossible to 'decipher' by accident; they need to be known. And in this, a new book by Natalia Kortunova will help you – a well-known art historian, senior researcher at the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin, and curator of several exhibitions at the State Museum of Fine Arts.
Signs, symbols, and allegories in painting literally surround us. Often, it is enough to just pay attention to them and understand the hidden meanings they carry for the artwork to play with new colors!
