{"product_id":"2940016775807","title":"Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art","description":"Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art\u003cbr\u003eby John Vinycomb\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a review of the folk-lore of animals, mostly of a legendary or purely symbolic nature, particularly as appearing in English Heraldry. It's a gold-mine of lore about such fantastic beasts as the hydra, the basilisk, the phoenix, as well as angels, dragons, mermaids, sphynxes and so on. Vinycomb also covers heraldic versions of actual animals, such as the 'Tyger,' and the Heraldic Pelican and Dolphin. Included are over a hundred illustrations of fantastic creatures. Overall, a delight for browsing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe human mind has a passionate longing for knowledge even of things past comprehension. Where it cannot know, it will imagine; what the mind conceives it will attempt to define. Are facts wanting, poetry steps in, and myth and song supply the void; cave and forest, mountain and valley, lake and river, are theatres peopled by fancy, and\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"as imagination bodies forth\u003cbr\u003eThe forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\u003cbr\u003eTurns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\u003cbr\u003eA local habitation and a name.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTraditions of unreal beings inhabit the air, and will not vanish be they ever so sternly commanded; from the misty records of antiquity and the relics of past greatness as seen sculptured in stupendous ruins on the banks of the Nile and the plains of Assyria, strange shapes look with their mute stony eyes upon a world that knows them but imperfectly, andvainly attempts to unriddle the unfathomable mystery of their being. Western nations, with their growing civilisations, conjured up monsters of benign or baneful influence, or engrafted and expanded the older ideas in a manner suited to their genius and national characteristics.","brand":"Apps Publisher","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146744774896,"sku":"2940016775807","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940016775807_p0.jpg?v=1763641128","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940016775807","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}