Sources in Iconography in the Blackader-Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art

Doris Hutton Auxier teaches art at Trinity Western University in British
Columbia.

Art historians and contemporary postmodern artists have long debated the
social and iconographic nature of art. This annotated bibliography of
iconography in McGill University’s Blackader-Lauterman Library of
Architecture and Art collection is timely, given the demand for the
exploration of the symbolic social constructions underlying meaning and
form. Like one of the books in the McGill collection—Ripa’s
Iconologia (1593), which became a kind of iconographic “artist’s
Bible” in the 17th century—this bibliography will introduce future
students of iconography and iconology to a wide range of resources as
they explore images and their meanings in past and present cultures.

The particular strengths of the bibliography are the coverage of
bibliographies of art history, the general reference sources in
iconography, and sign and symbol in historic Christian art traditions.
There is less generous coverage of other cultures: Asian art is fairly
well represented, but the collection is weak in African, Latin American,
and North American Native iconography.

The first three sections of the text contain general bibliographies of
art history and of reference sources and studies in iconography. The
fourth section covers classical mythology and the fifth and sixth sacred
and secular imagery; the latter section includes such fascinating
entries as “Plant and Garden Imagery,” “Music Imagery,” and
“Images of Death.” The final section deals with a variety of
iconographical issues.

This book, which includes 32 illustrations and excellent indexes, will
be of particular interest to artists in search of images,
anthropologists, and historians of art.