A brief but insightful journey through European history via twenty two perhaps not so well known masterpieces. Professor Nakano choses as her uniting theme paintings that have something disquieting about them. The disturbing thing can sometimes be quite obvious, but at other times the thing that is disturbing can be as subtle as the type of bird and what it is sitting on, or whether the bird is flying. She parses not only the symbolism in each work, but also the context in which the painting came to be created, and the personal history of the artist. All in very digestible 8 to 10 page summaries. This is part of a series, and I sense I may be picking up the next one.
I enjoyed this book a lot. If you know the story/history behind a picture all of a sudden it appears in a totally different light...
If you think of the Renaissance era you think of pictures of beautiful bodies, female and male, but there are also lots of very cruel pictures of old women drawn with every wrinkle and a grumpy facial expression. While young women were idealized elder women who had lost their youth were despised and considered worthless.
I rarely give non fiction books more then 3 stars just because I prefer fictional books but this one is a solid 3 star book.