The Virtues and Vices in the Arts: A Sourcebook

by Shawn R. Tucker

Overview

The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, greed, and lust. The seven virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope, and love. This book brings all of them together and for the first time lays out their history in a collection of the most important philosophical, religious, literary, and art-historical works. Starting with the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian antecedents, this anthology of source documents traces the virtues-and-vices tradition through its cultural apex during the medieval era and then into their continued development and transformation from the Renaissance to the present. This anthology includes excerpts of Plato's Republic, the Bible, Dante's Purgatorio, and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and C. S. Lewis. Also included are artworks from medieval manuscripts; paintings by Giotto, Veronese, and Paul Cadmus; prints by Brueghel; and a photograph by Oscar Rejlander. What these works show is the vitality and richness of the virtues and vices in the arts from their origins to the present. You can continue this book's conversation by visiting http://www.virtuesvicesinthearts.blogspot.com/. There you can join conversations, find out more, and meet other scholars and artists interested in this vibrant tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630878467
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	01/22/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	302
File size:	59 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Shawn Tucker is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Elon University. He was recently the guest editor for a special issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities. His has also received a National Endowment for the Humanities Enduring Questions grant to develop a course on Pride, Humility, and the Good Life.
Shawn R. Tucker teaches Humanities at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina. He is the author of The Virtues and Vices in the Arts: A Sourcebook (2015) and Pride and Humility: A New Interdisciplinary Analysis (2016).

Table of Contents

"List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A House Divided
Virtues, Vices, Sins, and Gifts of the Spirit
Constellations

Part I
Foundations
Human Potential and Protection I
Human Potential and Protection II
Plato’s The Republic
Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics
Cicero’s Of Duties
Proverbs
Isaiah
Matthew
Paul’s Letters

Part II
Codification of the Virtues and Vices
Tertullian’s The Shows
Prudentius’s Psychomachia
Evagrius of Pontus’s On the Eight Thoughts
Gregory the Great’s Morals on the Book of Job

Part III
The Medieval Apex
Divine Endowment
The Struggle
Contraries Cured by Contraries
The Summa
Psychomachia Illustrations
Illustrations of the Speculum Virginum
Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum
Notre Dame of Amiens Twelve Virtues and Twelve Vices
Giotto’s Virtues and Vices in the Arena Chapel
Dante’s Purgatorio
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Paintings in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
William Langland’s Piers Plowman
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Parson’s Tale”

Part IV
The Transformation of the Virtues and Vices
Divine Endowment II
Struggle II
The Virtues and Vices in Everyday Life and in Death
The Vitality of Vice
Piero del Pollaiuolo’s Seven Virtues
Andrea Mantegna’s Minerva Chases the Vices from the Garden of Virtue
Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince
Bernaert van Orley (Designer) and Workshop of Pieter van Aelst (Weaver) The Honors
Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Virtues and Vices
Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene

Part V
The Tradition Extended
The Struggle III
The Virtues and Vices in Everyday Life and in Death II
The Vitality of Vice II
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichrist
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins
C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity
Paul Cadmus’s The Seven Deadly Sins
Epilogue
Appendix: Key Virtues and Vices Works
Bibliography
Acknowledgment of Copyright
Index

Editorial Reviews

Shawn Tucker’s anthology offers a delightful journey through classic works of philosophy, theology, art, and literature with a heavy dose of wit. The structure of the book is crucial to its success. … With its well-chosen selections, insightful argument, and memorable imagery, Tucker’s anthology is a useful collection for those interested in a wide variety of fields. Students of history or philosophy, art or literature, and theology or ethics will find value in the pages of this book, as it promises to serve as a resource to which they return again and again.

Derek R. Davenport