Arboreal Symbolism in European Art, 1300–1800 probes the significance of trees in religious iconography of Western art. Based in the disciplines of art history, botany, and theology, this study focuses on selected works of art in which tree forms embody and reflect Christian themes. Through this triple lens, Brown examines trees that early modern artists rendered as sacred symbols—symbols with origins in the Old Testament, New Testament, Greek and Roman cultures, and early medieval legends. Tree components and wood depicted in works of art can serve as evidence for early modern artists’ embrace of biblical metaphor, classical sources, and devotional connotations. The author considers how artists rendered seasonal change in Christian narratives to emphasize themes of spiritual transformation. Brown argues that many artists and their patrons drew parallels between the life cycle of a tree and events in the Gospels with their respective annual, liturgical celebrations. This book will interest scholars in art history, religion, humanities, and interdisciplinary studies.

"Arboreal Symbolism in European Art, 1300-1800 probes the significance of trees in religious iconography of Western art. Based in the disciplines of art history, botany, and theology, this study focuses on selected works of art in which tree forms embody and reflect Christian themes. Through this triple lens, Brown examines trees that early modern artists rendered as sacred symbols-symbols with origins in the Old Testament, New Testament, Greek and Roman cultures, and early medieval legends. Tree components and wood depicted in works of art can serve as evidence for early modern artists' embrace of biblical metaphor, classical sources, and devotional connotations. The author considers how artists rendered seasonal change in Christian narratives to emphasize themes of spiritual transformation. Brown argues that many artists and their patrons drew parallels between the life cycle of a tree and events in the Gospels with their respective annual, liturgical celebrations. This book will interest scholars in art history, religion, humanities, and interdisciplinary studies"--

With its vital character - growing, flowering, extending its roots into the ground, and its branches and leaves to the sky - the tree is a polyvalent metaphor, a suggestive symbol, and an allegorical subject. During the Middle Ages, a number of iconographic schemata were based on the image and structure of the tree, including the Tree of Jesse and the Tree of Virtues and Vices. From the late eleventh century onwards such formulae were increasingly used as devices for organizing knowledge and representing theoretical concepts. Despite the abstraction inherent in these schemata, however, the semantic qualities of trees persist in their usage. The analysis of different manifestations of trees in the Middle Ages is highly instructive for visual, intellectual, and cultural history. Essays in this volume concentrate on the formative period for arboreal imagery in the medieval West, that is, the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Using a range of methodological strategies and examining material from different media, ranging from illuminated manuscripts to wall painting, stained glass windows, and monumental sculpture, the articles in this volume show how different arboreal structures were conceived, employed, and appropriated by their specific contexts, how they functioned in their original framework, and how they were perceived by their audience.

Praise for Structured Finance & Insurance "More and more each year, the modern corporation must decide what risks to keep and what risks to shed to remain competitive and to maximize its value for the capital employed. Culp explains the theory and practice of risk transfer through either balance sheet mechanism such as structured finance, derivative transactions, or insurance. Equity is expensive and risk transfer is expensive. As understanding grows, and, as a result, costs continue to fall, ART will continue to replace equity as the means to cushion knowable risks. This book enhances our understanding of ART." --Myron S. Scholes, Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University "A must-read for everyone offering structured finance as a business, and arguably even more valuable to any one expected to pay for such service." --Norbert Johanning, Managing Director, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services "Culp's latest book provides a comprehensive account of the most important financing and risk management innovations in both insurance and capital markets. And it does so by fitting these innovative solutions and products into a single, unified theory of financial markets that integrates the once largely separate disciplines of insurance and risk management with the current theory and practice of corporate finance." --Don Chew, Editor, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance (a Morgan Stanley publication) "This exciting book is a comprehensive read on alternative insurance solutions available to corporations. It focuses on the real benefits, economical and practical, of alternatives such as captives, rent-a-captive, and mutuals. An excellent introduction to the very complex field of alternative risk transfer (ART)." --Paul Wohrmann, PhD, Head of the Center of Excellence ART and member of theExecutive Management of Global Corporate in Europe, Zurich Financial Services "Structured Finance and Insurance transcends Silos to reach the Enterprise Mountaintop. Culp superbly details integrated, captive, multiple triggers and capital market products, and provides the architectural blueprints for enterprise risk innovation." --Paul Wagner, Director, Risk Management, AGL Resources Inc.

The Getty Museum's collection of drawings was begun in 1981 with the purchase of a Rembrandt nude and has since become an important repository of European works from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century. As in the first volume devoted to the collection (published in 1988 in English and Italian editions), the text is here organized first by national school, then alphabetically by artist, with individual works arranged chronologically. For each drawing, the authors provide a discussion of the work's style, dating, iconography, and relationship to other works, as well as provenance and a complete bibliography.

This original book examines the range of meaning that has been attached to the male backside in Renaissance art and culture, the transformation of the base connotation of the image to high art, and the question of homoerotic impulses or implications of admiring male figures from behind.

Presented at a symposium held in 1990 to celebrate the Getty Museum's acquisition of the only known illuminated copy of The Visions of Tondal, twenty essays address the celebrated bibliophilic activity of Margaret of York; the career of Simon Marmion, a favorite artist of the Burgundian court; and The Visions of Tondal in relation to illustrated visions of the Middle Ages. Contributors include Maryan Ainsworth, Wim Blockmans, Walter Cahn, Albert Derolez, Peter Dinzelbacher, Rainald Grosshans, Sandra Hindman, Martin Lowry, Nigel Morgan, and Nigel Palmer.