This impression is reinforced by Eco's assertion of an essential 'link between art and beauty'.

As a result, although we've been told with some force that this is a history of beauty, rather than art, it reads very much like an eclectic primer of western aesthetics and painting. On this evidence the populations of Russia, the Middle East, China, India, Japan, Africa and South America have had no concepts of beauty or at least no artefacts worthy of display, and while it is reasonable to suppose that the scope of On Beauty 's illustrations is the product of individual taste, their limitations seem to be defying the main thrust of its argument. Having read this, I found myself wondering why the book confines itself to examples of beauty from western Europe and the iconography of Hollywood movies. The introduction concludes that 'Beauty has never been absolute and immutable but has taken on different aspects depending on the historical period and the country' - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is an answer which seems surprisingly unimaginative for a polymath of Eco's acumen, if only because it provokes a great many more questions about the book's structure and content. Peasants, masons, bakers or tailors also made things that they probably saw as beautiful, but only a very few of these artefacts remain.' He goes on to ask the obvious question - 'why is this history of Beauty documented solely through works of art?' - and he replies by claiming that 'over the centuries it was artists, poets, and novelists who told us about the things they considered beautiful and they were the ones who left us examples. On the other hand, as Eco points out in his introduction, 'this is a history of Beauty and not a history of art (or of literature or music)'.

The book is arranged according to various themes rather than chronologically, although, given the fact that it begins with the aesthetic ideals of ancient Greece and ends with pop art and the mass media, the chronology seems self-evident. More paintings decorate the next 400 pages of quotations from philosophers and writers - Plato, Boccaccio, San Bernardo. It begins with 20 pages of reproductions of paintings and photographs, representing an enormous range of cultural icons, from Bronzini's Allegory of Venus to characteristic snapshots of David Beckham and George Clooney.

On Beauty is an encyclopedia of images and ideas about beauty ranging from ancient Greece to the present day.

Umberto eco on beauty