Customer Reviews

Discoveries: Signs, Symbols and Ciphers (Discoveries (Harry Abrams))

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3 star:		(1)
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"Signs, Symbols, and Ciphers," by Georges Jean is a beautiful book, and really fun to leaf through.

The book is flawless for what it is: an easily digested picture book introduction to the subject matter, but it is not an especially compelling read. That can be really disappointing, because the illustrations are so wonderful that one really wants to learn something that brings all these fascinating images together and makes inspiring sense of them, through reading the text .

One has the sense that there is something of vast significance here, and one wants to get a hint of it from the text. That just doesn't happen. The text contains some interesting information, but one is left with the feeling that an important, conclusive observation can and should be made about the subject matter, and that it hasn't been.

Like all of the books in the "Discoveries" series, "Signs, Symbols, and Ciphers" is exceptionally enjoyable to look at. The illustrations are beautiful, well-chosen, varied, interesting, and effectively placed. All by themselves, they give a fun, intuitive lesson on the subject matter of "Signs, Symbols, and Ciphers." As a small, easily carried version of a coffee table book the book is perfect.

The second, smaller, section of the book, titled "Documents" is of more interest to those looking for deeper intellectual stimulation. In that section, the author discusses "Sign Theory", and introduces the "science" of the study of the life of signs within society, "Semiology."

Semiology, a sort of marriage of psychology and linguistics (as the author describes it) is, by his own admittance, not generally accepted as a science. It is a fascinating subject, but a difficult one to address without sounding simple-minded.

For example, it is fun to see an illustration of the multitude of ways in which human beings use voice, gesture and facial expression to convey meaning in ordinary conversation but it's a little boring to read paragraphs of text that describing them without drawing interesting parallels.

The author does discuss in some depth a few variations purely gestural languages (primarily sign languages for the deaf or voluntarily silent) and for the blind, but he does not draw parallels between these complete languages and our own use of gestural signs in daily communication.

The section on maps spends several pages telling us what kind of information we can get from maps. The author does make the interesting observation that while we read maps, we do so spatially, not in a linear manner, as we would read a book. However, he fails to bring us to an understanding about what this reveals about the true nature of signs and symbols, and the human need to communicate. Offsetting this is the fact that the many illustrations of maps, both old and new, are revealing and stimulating all by themselves.

I'm certainly glad I bought "Signs, Symbols, and Ciphers." It's a great little picture book, but it's a little disappointing to read.

This book pretty much has it all in the way of visual communication. From flags and signets to symbols such as the dollar bill & scull and xbones. The image of St. Benedict the Moor is quite telltale. The images of West Africans Baptising their child much like Batismals in the States (very interesting). The selection of royal and national flags will come as a surprise to many. The sign of the serpentine will crop up throughout the entire book. This book should be of special interest to all as they say "drummers and traveling men". This book gives you visual ques from the mundane to esoteric. A fine piece of workmanship. At an affordable price.

Georges has used his years of knowledge to come up with comparisons between signs that is almost unbeleaveable.It all fits as common sense when read.