Dictionary of Christian Art

A dictionary giving the twentieth-century reader access to the pictorial tradition that was once the common visual vocabulary of western Europeans. Among areas covered are artists, art and architectural terms, the symbolism of numbers, flora, fauna and parts of the body, Christian saints, biblical and mythological figures and liturgical objects and vestments. There are over 160 reproductions by artists from almost two millennia of Christain art, from the earliest beginnings in the house-churches of Asia Minor and the catacombs of Rome to the 16th-century mosaics and icons, the Italian fresco painters of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. Modern artists mentioned are Salvidor Dali and Georges Rousault.