The Sinister Side

How left-right symbolism shaped Western art

James Hall

512 pages | 30 B&W halftones | 234x156mm

978-0-19-923086-0 | Hardback | 23 October 2008

Price: £16.99

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A highly original work of cultural history - revealing some of the greatest works of art in a completely new light
Explores how works of art reflect our changing cultural ideas about the natural world, human nature, and the mind, and provides a key to understanding art in its social and intellectual context
Takes a broad historical view - looking at works of art from the Renaissance to the present day, and at both religious and secular painting
Shows how, through looking at the left and right symbolism in art, we can glimpse the birth of psychology from its origins in magic, superstition, and fear
James Hall is a critically acclaimed art historian with a special interest in exploring the wider implications of art

Why does the Mona Lisa have an uneven smile? Was Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon an exploration of Satanism? Why did Michelangelo depict so many left-handed archers? Why did the British Queen look so different when Annie Liebowitz lit her from her left side in a recent official portrait?

The answer to all these questions lies in a hidden symbolic language in the visual arts: that of the perceived differences between the left and right sides of the body. It is a symbolism that has been interpreted by artists through the centuries, and that can be uncovered in many of our greatest masterpieces, but that has been long forgotten about or misunderstood by those concerned with the history of art and the human body. The Sinister Side reveals the key, and sheds new light on some of the greatest art from before the Renaissance to the present day.

Traditionally, in almost every culture and religion, the left side has been regarded as inferior - evil, weak, worldly, feminine - while the right is good, strong, spiritual and male. But starting in the Renaissance, this hierarchy was questioned and visualised as never before. The left side, in part because of the presence of the heart, became the side that represented authentic human feelings, especially love. By the late nineteenth century, with the rise of interest in the occult and in spiritualism, the left side had become associated with the taboo and with the unconscious. Exploring how works of art reflect our changing cultural ideas about the natural world, human nature, and the mind, James Halls'Sinister Side is the first book to detail the richness and subtlety of left-right symbolism in art, and to show how it was a catalyst for some of the greatest works of visual art from Botticelli and Van Eyck to Vermeer and Dali.

Readership: The general reader interested in a highly original take on symbolism in art. Also academics and students of cultural history and art history, those working in the performing and visual arts, and the intelligent reader interested in psychology, the relationship between the mind and body, and the occult.

The Sinister Side

How left-right symbolism shaped Western art

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