University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Pages: 202
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-68393-094-5 • Hardback • September 2017 • $104.00 • (£80.00)
978-1-68393-095-2 • eBook • September 2017 • $98.50 • (£76.00)
David S. Herrstrom is an independent scholar who has taught and lectured at various universities and museums, including Queens College (City University of New York), Monmouth University, and Drew University, as well as the Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia).
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Hunter Light of the Sky: The Paleolithic Era
Cro-Magnon Ancestors, the Image-makers
The Shaman’s Transformation and the Light-Body
The Shaman’s Art of Light – the Cave Paintings
2. Planter Light of the Sun:TheNeolithic Era
Shaman to Seer, Being Light to Seeing Light
The Brightness, the Rays, and Quartz Light
Trapping the Rays – Newgrange and Stonehenge
3. The Great Illuminator: The Egyptian Classical Age and the Amarna Period
Lightland of the Sunfolk
Stone-Light on the Plain, Shadow-Light in the Temple
Naked-Light of the Natural World
Akhenaten’s “Great Hymn to the Aten”
Innocence Lost, Light and Darkness
4. Scenes of Light & Shadow, the Luminaries: The Greek Classical Age
Thales’ Light & Shadow Adventure
Athenian Light: Homer’s Radiance and the Potters’ Light-Shadow Contraries
Parmenides’ Refusal to Name Light and Night
Aeschylus’ Actor Light and The Law of Light and Shadow
Plato’s Light-Show
The Bones of Light – Euclid
5. Acts of Light, the Refractors: The Roman Classical Age
Brilliant Mosaic Skin
The Light of the Walls
Lucretius’ Swerves of Light
Systems of Light – John’s Gospel and Hadrian’s Pantheon
Poimandres Says, “Think About the Light and Understand It”
Biographies of Light – Plotinus’ Flash and Augustine’s Seducer
Conclusion
Bibliographies
Index
A lyrical journey on a sunbeam, David S. Herrstrom’s volume is short but ambitious. . . . Herrstrom’s small poetic book is really something of a delight to read. It is in his Introduction that he is at his best, this is where his warm enthusiasm for the topic shines forth, nearly in John’s rhetoric of light.
— The European Legacy – Toward New Paradigms