This is the companion volume to the authors' groundbreaking Symmetries of Culture, the classic reference for symmetry analysis of pattern for anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, mathematicians, and designers. Central to symmetry analysis is the use of symmetry in the more precise sense of its geometrical isometries in contrast to its everyday meaning of balance. For this volume, Donald Crowe and Dorothy Washburn invited colleagues from several disciplines to apply the method of symmetry analysis to actual case studies from cultures around the world. The essays compiled here explore how cultural information is embedded in the symmetrical structure of pattern. From descriptions of patterns on objects as diverse as Nasca embroideries, Ica Valley ceramics, Quechua textiles, Yombe mats, and Zulu beadwork, as well as from Amazonian shamanic therapy, ceramic design among the Shipibo, and Turkish Yoeruk weaving, the contributors reveal how the symmetrical structures in the patterns describe aspects of each culture's fundamental principles for living in the world. This approach offers a profoundly fresh way to read the meaning in pattern by arguing that pattern communicates through the structural metaphors embedded in the symmetrical relationship of the pattern parts. The two volumes together offer readers a revolutionary new window into the communicative importance of design.

This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Babatunde Lawal, an art historian and African scholar who has taught in Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States, is himself a Yoruba and has taken an active part in Gelede. He writes from the perspective of an informed participant/observer of his own culture. Lawal bases his book on extensive field research-observations and interviews-conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art. The book systematically covers the major aspects of the Gelede spectacle, presenting its cultural background and historical origins as preface to a vivid and detailed description of an actual performance. This is followed by a discussion of the iconography and aesthetics of costume, and an examination of the sculpted images on the masks. The book concludes with a discussion of the moral and aesthetic philosophy of Gelede and its responsiveness to technological and social change. The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated in color and black-and-white with over 100 field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation. Lawal's interpretations of these pieces indicate the rich complexities of metaphor and analogy inherent in the Yoruba language and art.

Underground film-maker Mark Hejnar lived in Thailand for four years, during which time he relentlessly explored the far reaches of the kingdom taking thousands of photographs along the way. Hejnar's interest lay not in Thailand's bars, beaches and other tourist attractions, but in its stunning range of indigenous art, icons and architecture which lies, hidden in plain sight, just beyond the beaten path. From religious folk-paintings to infernal torture sculptures, from half-buried gods in temple cave complexes to the spectral dolls who beckon from derelict spirit houses, Hejnar has captured a revelatory world of the marvelous and the monstrous, showing how Thailand's religions, myths and art are inextricably bound together. SECRET SIAM presents over 300 of Hejnar's rich photographic images, reproduced in full size and full-colour throughout, accompanied by a series of concise explanatory texts. It stands as a unique visual introduction to one of the world's most fascinating and yet seldom explored artistic cultures.

Korean painters participated in two major cultural trends of the late Choson period in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: inquiry into things Korean and investigation of things Western. Departing from Chinese sources long considered authoritative, they developed the distinctly Korean mode known as "true-view" landscape painting for depicting the scenery of their own country. Rooted in the documentary painting of the early Choson period and displaying special techniques developed to describe distinctive features of Korea's topography, true-view paintings portray the most exemplary and ideal landscapes of Korea, such as those of Mount Kumgang (Diamond Mountain).

The same painters also drew on Western painting methods, which they?learned from descriptions of Western paintings seen and recorded by Korean emissaries to Beijing as well as from actual paintings brought back. This knowledge inspired them to produce not only landscapes but also portraits, images of animals and other paintings?based on firsthand observation of nature. Both trends, looking inward to Korea and outward to the West, represented Korean aspiration for something new--for "modernity." Deftly weaving these two strands together as the unifying theme of "Searching for Modernity," Yi Song-mi?expands on her pioneering work on true-view landscape painting to reveal even more of the depth and complexity of this mature and fully Korean form of artistic expression.

A fresh exploration of Native American art that positions the work within the broader context of North American art history This landmark publication presents Native American art within the broader context of American art history, through an examination of notable works from a major private collection. The insightful texts provide a new evaluation of the art, culture, and daily life of numerous North American tribes, including Acoma, Apache, Cheyenne, Creek, Crow, Hopi-Twea, Kiowa, Lakota, Pomo, Seneca, Seminole, Tlingit, and Zuni, among others. The works featured in this lavish volume span centuries, from the period prior to contact with European settlers through the early 20th century, and represent the extensive artistic achievements of culturally distinct indigenous peoples. Both known and unrecorded makers' innovative visions are manifest in a wide variety of aesthetic forms and media-from painting, sculpture, and drawing to costume, ceramics, and baskets. Challenging traditional presentations of American Indian art, this publication situates and analyzes them alongside other North American artistic practices. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (10/01/18-10/06/19)

New Mexico Colcha Club looks at the history, beauty, and various styles of New Mexico colcha embroidery, and tells the uplifting story of how a small group of determined women revived a cultural tradition destined for extinction. In the 1700s Spanish colonial women in the isolated province of New Mexico wanted to add beauty and warmth to their bedding. They worked their homespun yarn in a long couching stitch to create the flowing needlework that came to be called "colcha embroidery." Highly sought after and valued, a detailed embroidered piece could cost upwards of 46 pesos. (During the same time period, sheep and cows cost 2 and 15 pesos respectively). However, a century later colcha was on its way to oblivion. Like many traditional crafts, this beautiful and skilled artform was becoming obsolete as inexpensive and abundant commercial cloth, modern styles, and machine-made products became more desirable and available. Fast-forward to the 1920s and the Arte Antiguo, a colcha club founded by twelve Hispanic women in the Espanola Valley of New Mexico. Spearheaded by Teofila Ortiz Lujan and then later her daughter, Esther Lujan Vigil, these women heroically sought to rescue colcha and bring it back to its rightful place as a cherished custom. The women traveled to churches to examine vintage altar cloth, hunted through attics and archives in search of examples of the antique embroidery, and sketched old patterns--all in the hopes of keeping colcha from extinction and activating a revival of the embroidery. Esther Lujan Vigil, through her artwork and teaching, keeps the tradition alive and has elevated colcha from a folk art to a fine art. Divided into three sections, the first part of thebook traces the roots of the embroidery tradition and domestic life in colonial New Mexico. The second part looks at the Arte Antiguo's push in the early twentieth century to revive this lost art. The third part focuses on Esther Lujan Vigil's artistic skills and the renaissance of colcha embroidery today. New Mexico Colcha Club features historical and recent photographs of colcha work that demonstrate the beauty, intricacy, and diversity of this Old World custom. This inspirational and informative biography of colcha is folk art enlivened by social history. It is a must read for those interested in Spanish textile traditions and folk art, needlework, and New Mexico history.

Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) was one of the most influential artists working in the genre of ukiyo-e, `pictures of the floating world', in late eighteenth-century Japan, and was widely appreciated for his prints of beautiful women. In this book, Julie Nelson Davis draws on a wide range of period sources, makes a close study of selected print sets and reinterprets Utamaro in the context of his times. Offering a new approach to issues of the status of the artist and the construction of gender, identity, sexuality and celebrity in the Edo period, and now in an updated edition containing a new preface and many new images, this book is a significant contribution to the field, and will be a key work for readers interested in Japanese arts and cultures.

In this richly illustrated volume Rosa Giorgi argues that because much of Western art depicts key events, leaders, and practices in the history of the Christian Church, knowledge of that history is critical to an appreciation of many of our great masterpieces.
Giorgi begins by analyzing artistic representations of liturgical objects, including altars, crosses, and censers, and follows with an examination of the duties and vestments of the variety of clerics, ranging from minor clerks to the pope. Both the rituals of the monastic life and worshippers' devotional practices are well documented in paintings depicting prayer, communal meals, funeral rites, religious processions, and cult practices.
The author next turns to artworks that capture important episodes from the Church's history, including crusades and pilgrimages, the Inquisition and the Reformation, and power struggles between popes and rulers. Giorgi ends with an analysis of the lives and portraits of the notable leaders who made this fascinating history, from Peter and Paul to Thomas More to Pope Paul VI.

Appearing for the first time in paperback and illustrated with line drawings, diagrams, and 26 half-tone plates, this study of the iconographic aspect of Japanese Buddhist sculpture surveys the significance of eight principal and six secondary hand gestures (mudra), in addition to the postures (asana), such as the "lotus," and the symbolic attributes. A pictorial index helps the reader in identifying the gestures.

African-American art has made an increasingly vital contribution to the art of the United States from the time of its origins in early-eighteenth-century slave communities. This major reassessment of the subject discusses folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts alongside fine art -- sculptures, paintings, and photography -- produced by African Americans, both enslaved and free, throughout the nineteenth century. It explores art and politics, the influence of galleries and museums, and examines the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, the Era of Civil Rights and Black Nationalism through the 1960s and 1970s, and the emergence of new black artists and theorists in the 1980s and 1990s. African-American Art shows that in its cultural diversity and synthesis of cultures it mirrors those in American society as a whole.

`a much needed text. . . breaks down the barrier between folk and formal art, and articulates an interrelationship of both concepts to African-American people and their culture' Keith Morrison, Artist and Dean of the College of Arts, San Francisco State University.

`a fine survey of contemporary African-American art and ideas... a volume, which, like no other, can be used both as an unusual reference book and a good read' Emma Amos, Artist and Professor of Art at Rutgers University

One of the last great names in the Japanese "ukiyo-e" style, Utagawa Kuniyoshi was an undisputed master of the warrior woodblock print. Born in Tokyo in 1797, his talent became evident by the tender age of 12, when he became an apprentice to a famous print master. Starting out with vivid illustrations of cultural icons -- including Kabuki actors and Japanese heroes -- he moved on to a unique treatment of warrior prints, incorporating elements of dreams, omens, and daring feats that characterized his distinctive style. These dramatic eighteenth-century illustrations represent the pinnacle of his craft. One hundred and one full-color portraits of legendary samurai pulse with movement, passion, and remarkably fine detail. A must for collectors of Japanese art and a perfect first work for those who want to start their own collection, it includes brief captions and a new introduction.

Nous avons vecu une periode particulierement difficile. Il n'y avait aucune direction connue dans notre travail. Pas a pas, nous avons depasse l'effroi de l'egarement et decouvert le plaisir de domaines nouveaux... Mais les critiques n'etaient pas de notre cote, aucune valeur sociale n'etait attachee a nos travaux. C'est en ces termes que le peintre Ahmad Esfandiari (1922-2012) decrit l'effervescence des annees 1940 durant lesquelles un style pictural novateur - la Nouvelle peinture - apparait en Iran. A l'appui d'archives et d'entretiens, cet ouvrage tente de restituer la flamme qui a anime ces artistes-pionniers: leur esprit d'innovation face a une tradition artistique multiseculaire; les risques pris, les transgressions osees et soutenues contre vents et marees. Ils furent les premiers a explorer des terres inconnues, annonciatrices de la modernite. Nombreuses furent les resistances: proces en justice, vandalisme, censure, interdiction de publier leurs revues. Aujourd'hui encore, leur heritage demeure paradoxalement occulte. Leur determination et leur force de conviction ont pourtant suscite des mutations artistiques majeures, sources de changements sociaux non moins importants.

Die Autorin analysiert umfassend das Fruhwerk des deutschen Kunstlers Otto Freundlich (1878-1943). Dieser begann bereits wahrend seines ersten Paris-Aufenthaltes 1908 eine eigenstandige, nicht-gegenstandliche Formensprache zu entwickeln, ohne sich wie zahlreiche seiner Zeitgenossen den vorherrschenden Kunststilen anzupassen oder unterzuordnen: "Ich habe [...] nach meiner inneren UEberzeugung geschaffen, die verlangte, von der Tradition abzugehen." Anhand der Rekonstruktion seines Netzwerkes positioniert die Untersuchung den Kunstler als selbstbewussten Wegbereiter der Abstraktion innerhalb der Pariser Avantgarde.

This work explains how and why Japan supports a community of professional dancers, musicians, production companies, and visual artists that has nearly tripled in size during the past 25 years. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This work explains how and why Japan supports a community of professional dancers, musicians, production companies, and visual artists that has nearly tripled in size during the past 25 years.

Originally published in 1982.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Ask the beast and it will teach thee, and the birds of heaven and they will tell thee." -Job 12:7 In the Middle Ages, the bestiary achieved a popularity second only to that of the Bible. In addition to being a kind of encyclopedia of the animal kingdom, the bestiary also served as a book of moral and religious instruction, teaching human virtues through a portrayal of an animal's true or imagined behavior. In A Jewish Bestiary, Mark Podwal revisits animals, both real and mythical, that have captured the Jewish imagination through the centuries. Originally published in 1984 and called "broad in learning and deep in subtle humor" by the New York Times, this updated edition of A Jewish Bestiary features new full-color renderings of thirty-five creatures from Hebraic legend and lore. The illustrations are accompanied by entertaining and instructive tales drawn from biblical, talmudic, midrashic, and kabbalistic sources. Throughout, Podwal combines traditional Jewish themes with his own distinctive style. The resulting juxtaposition of art with history results in a delightful and enlightening bestiary for the twenty-first century. From the ant to the ziz, herein are the creatures that exert a special force on the Jewish fancy.

A unique and compelling view of the work of leading contemporary artist Nalini Malani through the lens of her most recent commission This publication presents the latest work of Nalini Malani (b. 1946), recipient of the 2022 National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with ArtFund. For over five decades, Malani's art has focused on giving a voice to the stories of those marginalized by history -particularly women. She is one of the most incisive artists of our time, and the acute analysis and poetic compassion of her experimental film, photography, painting, and drawing has influenced generations of others from the 1960s to the present day. For her first museum commission in the United Kingdom, Malani has created an immersive installation of large-scale, animated drawings inspired by the sites, histories, and collections of the National Gallery, London, and the Holburne Museum, Bath. With a floating palimpsest of digital images, Malani reveals, annotates, and shares new, underlying stories in some of Europe's best-known paintings, offering a contemporary and critical dialogue between past and present. With leading articles based on new research, sumptuous illustrations, and artist-led design, this extensive study documents the Fellowship alongside the artist's previous work. Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Holburne Museum, Bath October 7, 2022-January 8, 2023 The National Gallery, London March 2-June 11, 2023

This exciting new investigation explores the rich variety of indigenous arts in the US and Canada from the early pre-contact period to the present day. It shows the importance of the visual arts in maintaining the integrity of spiritual, social, political, and economic systems within Native North American societies and examines such issues as gender, representation, the colonial encounter, and contemporary arts. Basketry, wood and rock carvings, dance masks, and beadwork, are discussed alongside the paintings and installations of modern artists such as Robert Davidson, Emmi Whitehorse, and Alex Janvier.