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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > Art styles not limited by date > Art of indigenous peoples
Art, Observation, and an Anthropology of Illustration examines the
role of sketches, drawings and other artworks in our understanding
of human cultures of the past. Bringing together art historians and
anthropologists, it presents a selection of detailed case studies
of various bodies of work produced by non-Western and Western
artists from different world regions and from different time
periods (from Native North America, Cameroon, and Nepal, to Italy,
Solomon Islands, and Mexico) to explore the contemporary relevance
and challenges implicit in artistic renditions of past peoples and
places. In an age when identities are partially constructed on the
basis of existing visual records, the book asks important questions
about the nature of observation and the inclusion of
culturally-relevant information in artistic representations. How
reliable are watercolours, paintings, or sketches for the
understanding of past ways of life? How do old images of bygone
peoples relate to art historical and anthropological canons? How
have these images and technologies of representation been used to
describe, illustrate, or explain unknown realities? The book is an
essential tool for art historians, anthropologists, and anyone who
wants to understand how the observation of different realities has
impacted upon the production of art and visual cultures.
Incorporating current methodological and theoretical tools, the 10
chapters collected here expand the area of connection between the
disciplines of art history and anthropology, bringing into sharp
focus the multiple intersections of objectivity, evidence, and
artistic licence.
In this volume, contributors show how stylistic and iconographic
analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the
beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and
expressions of power in the communities that created the artwork.
Exploring various methodological and theoretical approaches to
pre-Columbian visual culture, these essays reconstruct dynamic
accounts of Native American history across the U.S. Southeast.
These case studies offer innovative examples of how to use style to
identify and compare artifacts, how symbols can be interpreted in
the absence of writing, and how to situate and historicize
Mississippian imagery. They examine designs carved into shell,
copper, stone, and wood or incised into ceramic vessels, from
spider iconography to owl effigies and depictions of the cosmos.
They discuss how these symbols intersect with memory, myths, social
hierarchies, religious traditions, and other spheres of Native
American life in the past and present. The tools modeled in this
volume will open new horizons for learning about the culture and
worldviews of past peoples.
Aboriginalities immerses you into the fascinating universe of
Aboriginal painting - an art form that is both ancestral and
contemporary, always rooted in spirituality. Far more than a simple
physical and sensory experience, Aboriginal art invites us to
rethink our connection to the earth and the universe. As a window
on the spiritual, Aboriginal art tells the story of the creation of
the world - called "Dreamtime"* - and the original link between
humans and the earth. The numerous motifs (dotted lines, spirals,
zigzags, crosshatching...) are passed down from generation to
generation by members of the same community, concealing
centuries-old secrets as well as a map of their territory. This
ancestral and highly symbolic art form was originally concealed:
drawn in the sand or applied on rocks on territories forbidden to
laypersons. But in the early 1970s, amidst struggles for the
recognition of an Aboriginal identity, the Papunya Tula community
translated their cultural practices and symbolic knowledge through
paint. Using non-traditional methods borrowed from Western culture
(acrylics, brushes, cardboard and later canvas), the indigenous
people of Australia found a modern way to express their cultural,
political, social and economic struggles. Vibrant and colourful,
the exhibition Aboriginalities is built around part of the private
collection of Marie Philippson, who has been passionate about
modern culture and Aboriginal art for over 20 years. The exhibition
shows over 120 paintings and objects, reflecting the extraordinary
formal inventiveness of Aboriginal artists. At several
intersections throughout the exhibition, a dozen works from the
RMFAB's modern art collection echo the subjects addressed by these
"Dreamtime" artists, questioning our relationship to the visible
and the invisible.
For millennia, Native artists on Olympic Peninsula, in what is now
northwestern Washington, have created coiled and woven baskets
using tree roots, bark, plant stems--and meticulous skill. "From
the Hands of a Weaver" presents the traditional art of basket
making among the peninsula's Native peoples--particularly
women--and describes the ancient, historic, and modern practices of
the craft. Abundantly illustrated, this book also showcases the
basketry collection of Olympic National Park.
Baskets designed primarily for carrying and storing food have been
central to the daily life of the Klallam, Twana, Quinault,
Quileute, Hoh, and Makah cultures of Olympic Peninsula for
thousands of years. The authors of the essays collected here, who
include Native people as well as academics, explore the
commonalities among these cultures and discuss their distinct
weaving styles and techniques. Because basketry was interwoven with
indigenous knowledge and culture throughout history, alterations in
the art over time reflect important social changes.
Using primary-source material as well as interviews, volume editor
Jacilee Wray shows how Olympic Peninsula craftspeople participated
in the development of the commercial basket industry, transforming
useful but beautiful objects into creations appreciated as art.
Other contributors address poaching of cedar and native grasses,
and conservation efforts--contemporary challenges faced by basket
makers. Appendices identify weavers and describe weaves attributed
to each culture, making this an important reference for both
scholars and collectors.
Featuring more than 120 photographs and line drawings of historical
and twentieth-century weavers and their baskets, this engaging book
highlights the culture of distinct Native Northwest peoples while
giving voice to individual artists, masters of a living art form.
"This is a much needed, important collection-a goldmine of sources
for scholars and students. The texts articulate the key Primitivist
aesthetic discourses of the period, offering crucial insight into
the complex and always changing nexus between culture, politics,
and representation. Because of the breadth of the materials covered
and the controversies they raise, this anthology is one of the all
too rare volumes that not only will provide reference materials for
years to come but also will feature centrally in classroom
discussions."--Suzanne Preston Blier, author of "African Vodun:
Art, Psychology, and Power
"For almost a century art historians have fretted about the
notion of primitivism in the arts. This comprehensive-in both
senses of the word-anthology is a peerless source of the history of
responses to works categorized as 'primitive.' In its range, the
book touches upon all the troubling questions-formal,
anthropological, political, historical-that have bedeviled the
study of the arts of Oceania, Africa, and North and South America,
and provides the grounds, at last, for intelligent pursuit of
keener distinctions. I regard this book as a superb contribution to
the study of Modern art; in fact, indispensable."--Dore Ashton,
author of "Noguchi East and West
"An extraordinarily useful and complete collection of primary
documents, many translated for the first time into English, and
almost all unlikely to be encountered elsewhere without serious
effort. Its five sections, each with a lively and scholarly
introduction, reveal the diverse views of artists and writers on
primitive art from Matisse, Picasso, and Fry to many far less known
and sometimes surprising figures. The bookalso uncovers the
politics and aesthetics of the major museum exhibitions that gained
acceptance for art that had been both reviled and mythologized.
Recent texts included are all germane. This book will be invaluable
for any college course on the topic."--Shelly Errington, author of
"The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of
Progress
"An exceptionally valuable anthology of seventy documents--most
heretofore unavailable in English--on the ongoing controversies
surrounding Primitivism and Modern art. Insightfully chosen and
annotated, the collection is brilliantly introduced by Jack Flam's
essay on the historical progression, contexts, and cultural
complexities of more than one hundred years' ideas about
Primitivism. Rich, timely, illuminating."--Herbert M. Cole, author
of "Icons: Ideals and Power in the Art of Africa
Propaganda in Revolutionary Ukraine is a survey of domestic
government and party printed propaganda in revolutionary Ukraine.
It is the first account in English to study these materials using
an illustrative sample of printed texts and to assess their impact
based on secret police and agitator situation reports. The book
surveys texts published by the Central Rada, the Ukrainian State,
the Ukrainian National Republic, the Ukrainian Socialist
Revolutionary Party, the Ukrainian Social Democratic and Labour
Party, the Independentists, Ukrainian Communist Party (UCP),
Ukraine's Bolshevik Party (CPU), and anti-Bolshevik warlords. It
includes 46 reproductions and describes the infrastructure that
underlay the production and dissemination of printed text
propaganda. The author argues that in the war of words neither
Ukrainian failures nor Bolshevik success should be exaggerated.
Each side managed to sway opinion in its favour in specific places
at specific times.
A Painted Ridge is a book about the San (Bushmen) practice of rock
painting. In it, David Witelson explores a suite of spatially close
San rock painting sites in the Maclear District of South Africa’s
Eastern Cape Province. As a suite, the sites are remarkable
because, despite their proximity to each other, they share patterns
of similarity and simultaneous difference. They are a microcosm
that reflects, in a broad sense, a trend found at other painted
sites in South Africa. Rather than attempting to explain these
patterns chiefly in terms of chronological breaks or cultural
discontinuities, this book seeks to understand patterns of
similarity and difference primarily in terms of the performative
nature of San image-making. In doing so, the bygone and almost
unrecorded practice of San rock art is considered relative to
ethnographically well-documented and observed forms of San
expressive culture. The approach in the book draws on concepts and
terminology from the discipline of performance studies to
characterise the San practice of image-making as well as to
coordinate otherwise disparate ideas about that practice. It is a
study that aims to explicate the nuances of what David
Lewis-Williams called the ‘production and consumption’ of San
rock art.
Turtles, ibexes, ships, inscriptions... Thousands of engraved and
painted figures intrigue visitors in the wadis of Al-Hajar
Mountains. Who created these enigmatic figures and when were they
made? What are their hidden meanings? For the first time, this
volume tries to answer these questions. It is the result of the
archaeological surveys and investigations undertaken by the author
over the last ten years under the patronage of the Ministry of
Heritage and Culture. In this book, the author takes the reader on
an in-depth journey into the various themes present in the rock art
of Oman. He offers theories on the chronology and interpretation,
while exploring the landscape setting of the decorated panels and
how best to research these. Several beautiful photographs and
scientific tracings of the rock art accompany the text. The volume
closes offering to enthusiasts and tourists a series of guided
visits with GPS maps to the most interesting and visible rock art
sites protected by Royal Decrees of the Sultanate.
In the sixteenth-century Atlantic world, nature and culture swirled
in people's minds to produce fantastic images. In the South of
France, a cloister's painted wooden panels greeted parishioners
with vivid depictions of unicorns, dragons, and centaurs, while
Mayans in the Yucatan created openings to buildings that resembled
a fierce animal's jaws, known to archaeologists as serpent-column
portals. In Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic,
historian Peter C. Mancall reveals how Europeans and Native
Americans thought about a natural world undergoing rapid change in
the century following the historic voyages of Christopher Columbus.
Through innovative use of oral history and folklore maintained for
centuries by Native Americans, as well as original use of
spectacular manuscript atlases, paintings that depict on-the-spot
European representations of nature, and texts that circulated
imperfectly across the ocean, he reveals how the encounter between
the old world and the new changed the fate of millions of
individuals. This inspired work of Atlantic, European, and American
history begins with medieval concepts of nature and ends in an age
when the printed book became the primary avenue for the
dissemination of scientific information. Throughout the sixteenth
century, the borders between the natural world and the supernatural
were more porous than modern readers might realize. Native
Americans and Europeans alike thought about monsters, spirits, and
insects in considerable depth. In Mancall's vivid narrative, the
modern world emerged as a result of the myriad encounters between
peoples who inhabited the Atlantic basin in this period. The
centuries that followed can be comprehended only by exploring how
culture in its many forms-stories, paintings, books-shaped human
understanding of the natural world.
This book unfolds a history of American basketry, from its origins
in Native American, immigrant, and slave communities to its
contemporary presence in the fine art world. Ten contributing
authors from different areas of expertise, plus over 250 photos,
insightfully show how baskets convey meaning through the artists'
selection of materials; the techniques they use; and the colors,
designs, patterns, and textures they employ. Accompanying a museum
exhibition of the same name, the book illustrates how the processes
of industrialization changed the audiences, materials, and uses for
basketry. It also surveys the visual landscape of basketry today;
while some contemporary artists seek to maintain and revive
traditions practiced for centuries, others combine age-old
techniques with nontraditional materials to generate cultural
commentary. This comprehensive treasury will be of vital interest
to artists, collectors, curators, and historians of American
basketry, textiles, and sculpture.
For centuries indigenous communities of North America have used
carriers to keep their babies safe. Among the Indians of the Great
Plains, rigid cradles are both practical and symbolic, and many of
these cradleboards - combining basketry and beadwork - represent
some of the finest examples of North American Indian craftsmanship
and decorative art. This lavishly illustrated volume is the first
full-length reference book to describe baby carriers of the Lakota,
Cheyenne, Arapaho, and many other Great Plains cultures. Author
Deanna Tidwell Broughton, a member of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation
and a sculptor of miniature cradles, draws from a wealth of primary
sources - including oral histories and interviews with Native
artists - to explore the forms, functions, and symbolism of Great
Plains cradleboards. As Broughton explains, the cradle was vital to
a Native infant's first months of life, providing warmth, security,
and portability, as well as a platform for viewing and interacting
with the outside world for the first time. Cradles and cradleboards
were not only practical but also symbolic of infancy, and each
tribe incorporated special colors, materials, and ornaments into
their designs to imbue their baby carriers with sacred meaning.
Hide, Wood, and Willow reveals the wide variety of cradles used by
thirty-two Plains tribes, including communities often ignored or
overlooked, such as the Wichita, Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, and Plains
Metis. Each chapter offers information about the tribe's
background, preferred types of cradles, birth customs, and methods
for distinguishing the sex of the baby through cradle
ornamentation. Despite decades of political and social upheaval
among Plains tribes, the significance of the cradle endures. Today,
a baby can still be found wrapped up and wide-eyed, supported by a
baby board. With its blend of stunning full-color images and
detailed information, this book is a fitting tribute to an
important and ongoing tradition among indigenous cultures.
Over the course of his career, artist Paul Dyck (1917-2006)
assembled more than 2,000 nineteenth-century artworks created by
the buffalo-hunting peoples of the Great Plains. Only with its
acquisition by the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center
of the West has this legendary collection become available to the
general public. Plains Indian Buffalo Cultures allows readers, for
the first time, to experience the artistry and diversity of the
Paul Dyck Collection - and the cultures it represents. Richly
illustrated with more than 160 color photographs and historical
images, this book showcases a wide array of masterworks created by
members of the Crow, Pawnee, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Shoshone,
Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Dakota, Kiowa, Comanche, Blackfoot, Otoe,
Nez Perce, and other Native groups. Author Emma I. Hansen provides
an overview of Dyck's collection, analyzing its representations of
Native life and heritage alongside the artist-collector's desire to
assemble the finest examples of nineteenth-century Plains Indian
arts available to him. His collection invites discussion of Great
Plains warrior traditions, women's artistry, symbols of leadership,
and ceremonial arts and their enduring cultural importance for
Native communities. A foreword by Arthur Amiotte provides further
context regarding the collection's inception and its significance
for present-day Native scholars. From hide clothing, bear claw
necklaces, and shields to buffalo robes, tipis, and decorative
equipment made for prized horses, the artworks in the Paul Dyck
Collection provide a firsthand glimpse into the traditions,
adaptations, and innovations of Great Plains Indian cultures.
An Engraved Landscape is a contextual analysis of a substantial new
corpus of engravings from the Wadi al-Ajal, situated in the Central
Saharan region of south west Libya. The wadi is renowned as the
heartland of the Garamantian civilization, which emerged from local
mobile Pastoral communities in the 1st millennium BC, and dominated
trans-Saharan trade and politics for over a thousand years.
Extensive archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations in
recent years have provided detailed insight into the later
prehistory and protohistory of the wadi and surrounding areas.
However, prior to the fieldwork detailed in this volume, only a
handful of carvings had been recorded in the wadi. This volume is
based on systematic survey, conducted between 2004 and 2009, which
recorded around 2,500 previously unknown or unpublished engraved
and inscribed rock surfaces. All forms of engraving, whether
figurative or surface markings, were viewed as significant residues
of human interaction with the rock surface and were recorded. The
resulting database provides an opportunity to analyse the
engravings in relation to their changing physical and cultural
contexts, and the discussion offers a fresh interpretation of
Saharan rock art based on this substantial new evidence. An
Engraved Landscape also captures in detail a unique heritage
resource that is currently inaccessible and threatened. This record
of the fragile engravings provides an important source of
information for researchers and students. The Gazetteer is
presented in Volume 2.
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