December 2017
Intermediate to advanced
208 pages
3h 39m
English
Allegory is a device whereby abstract ideas can be communicated using images of the concrete world.
• In an allegorical work, elements, whether figures or objects, are endowed with symbolic meaning. Their relationships and interactions combine to create more complex meanings.
• The success of an allegorical work depends on the audience’s ability to recognize the identities and corresponding symbolic meanings of each of the elements within the work.
• Part of the pleasure of contemplating such a work involves reflecting on the possible multiplicity of meanings.
Allegory rarely appears in contemporary Western art, no doubt because the moderns, with their interest in abstraction and visual purity, found allegory to be too literary. ...