The Secret Language of Art

Every object in a Dutch still life meant something. This book gives you the vocabulary back: 86 symbols, each with its meaning and a full-page image.

One symbol. One meaning. One full page.

In the Dutch Republic of the 1600s, painters filled tabletops with skulls, burned-down candles, hourglasses, coins and flowers past their bloom. Buyers read those objects the way we read a sentence. Four hundred years later, most of us walk past the message. Every entry in this book is a single object, shown large and explained in plain language.

• 86 symbols from the Dutch vanitas tradition: skulls and timepieces, flowers and fruit, instruments, books, vessels, scrolls.
• Documented meanings only. Later inventions, like the Victorian language of flowers, are left out.
• A full-page image for every entry, on black, so each object gets the room a painter would have given it.
• A coffee table book. Open it anywhere, read one entry, close it. Or read it straight through.

After you read it, you will see the old paintings differently, tell a documented meaning from a modern guess, and be able to compose meaningful images of your own.

Hardcover, 8.5 x 8.5 in, 190 pages, full color. By Adam Gedney, fine art photographer, Huntington, West Virginia.