2004-12-20

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"History of Beauty" (Rizzoli, 438 pages, $40)

Mr. Eco is the author of several other novels and a short shelf of books on various literary and philosophical topics. With "History of Beauty" he has entered the realm of coffee-table books, again taking a highbrow approach to a venerable genre.
"History of Beauty" (Rizzoli, 438 pages, $40) is more than 400 pages long. There are at least that many illustrations--sumptuous full-page, full-color reproductions of art works, postage-stamp-sized photographs of celebrities and celebrity objects, scores of black-and-white pictures, diagrams, sketches, mementos. Sandwiched in between the visuals are quotations from Xenophon, from Sappho, from Nietzsche, from Thomas Aquinas, from Rimbaud and Baudelaire, from Kant and Shakespeare, and from Edmund Burke. If someone wrote tellingly about art or beauty, it's likely that you'll find his name here.