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First published in 1999, this book explores how, from the stone bridges of neoclassicism which soar out of wild woods to span pastoral valleys to the post-1750 engineer's bridge with its links to the more industrial landscape, the bridge was a popular feature in painting throughout the period 1700-1920. Why did so many artists choose to portray bridges? In this lavishly illustrated and intriguing book, John Sweetman seeks to answer this question. He traces the history of the bridge in painting and printmaking through a vast range of work, some as familiar as William Etty's The Bridge of Sighs and Claude Monet's The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil and others less well known such as Wassily Kandinsky's Composition IV and C.R.W. Nevinson's Looking Through the Brooklyn Bridge. Distinctive characteristics emerge revealing the complex role of the bridge as both symbol and metaphor, and as a place of vantage, meeting and separation.

The first book in over twenty-five years devoted solely to allegory and personification in art history, this anthology complements current literary and cultural studies of allegory. The volume re-examines early modern allegorical imagery in light of crucial material, contextual and methodological questions: how are allegories conceived; for whom; and for what purposes? Contributors consider a wide range of allegorical representations in the visual arts and material culture, of both early modern Europe and the colonial'New World'1400-1800. Essays included here examine paintings, sculpture, prints, architecture and the spaces of public ritual while discussing the process and theory of interpretation, formation of audiences, reception history, appropriation and censorship. A special focus on the medium of the body in visual allegory unites the volume's diverse materials and methods.