Magische Bilder werden gemeinhin fruhen Epochen oder "primitiven" Kulturstufen der Menschheit zugewiesen. Seit der Antike sind Bildbestrafungen bekannt, bei denen die magische Prasenz des Menschen im Kunstwerk angenommen wird. Doch die historischen Bildersturme haben selbst in unserer aufgeklarten Gegenwart ein faszinierendes Nachleben, etwa in den Attacken auf Denkmaler oder Wahlplakate. Das afrikanische Kultobjekt, das wundertatige Madonnenbild und der Talisman, aber auch das bildliche Substitut eines Rock- oder Filmstars, der im Bild verehrt wird - sie alle stellen die Forschung vor vergleichbare Herausforderungen. Der vorliegende Band untersucht magische Bilder in anthropologischer sowie medialer Perspektive und kommt so der Frage naher zu, was ein Kunstwerk zum magischen Bild macht.

When Catholics in the Southwest ask God or a saint for help, many of them do not merely pray. They also promise or present a gift - a tiny metal object known as a milagro. A milagro, which means "miracle" in Spanish, depicts the object for which a miracle is sought, such as a crippled leg or a new house. Milagros are offered for everything people pray for, and so they can represent almost anything imaginable - arms, lungs, hearts, and eyes; men, women, and children; animals, cars, boats - even lost handbags and imprisoned men. In Answered Prayers, the Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Tohono O'odham, and Yaquis who practice this tradition share their stories of unwavering faith and divine intervention. Anthropologist and photographer Eileen Oktavec has spent more than two decades documenting this fascinating tradition in the Arizona-Mexico borderlands. Quoting extensive interviews, she explains the beliefs of the people who perform this ancient folk ritual and the many rules guiding this practice. She also describes the many places where milagros are offered - from the elaborate Mexican baroque Mission San Xavier near Tucson, Arizona, to tiny household shrines and hospitals on both sides of the border. Oktavec also explains how milagros are made, where they are bought, and how they are used in jewelry, sculpture, and art.

Muslim reverence for the Qur'an as the Word of God has manifested itself in various artistic forms throughout history and up to the present day. This innovative collection of essays explores creative expressions of the Qur'an in a wide range of media. Contributors include museum curators and leading academics in art and architectural history, palaeography and material anthropology, and their studies span four continents and cover topics from medieval coins and early illuminated copies of the Qur'an to contemporary painting. They offer a multidisciplinary approach to the questions of how, why and in what contexts the Qur'an has inspired Muslim artists and craftspeople to adorn the spaces they inhabit and the objects they cherish with its verses. The volume includes 120 colour illustrations, some published for the first time, and an extensive bibliography.

John Mawurndjul is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal artists, if not the greatest of the living. This is a comprehensive look at the many facets and avenues of Mawurndjul's works, but following up on daily, practical, and theoretical issues influencing Australian indigenous art. Mawurndjul is an innovator who has developed Kuwinjku bark painting from an iconic art form into a nonfigurative style with compelling geometry, building on the work of older leading Kuwinjku artists. He has, over the years, forged a new way of painting out of the old, transforming the dot infill X-ray method derived from figurative rock art and body painting into one employing masses of rarrk (cross hatching), unrelieved by figurative motifs. His complex and understated geometry, which is made up of infinitesimal, moire-like cross-hatched variations--occasioning multiple shifts and optical gyrations within the paint layer--is no longer contained within the figurative envelope. Mawurndjul invented a geometry that takes up the entire surface of the painting and today must be seen as the central focus of his work. As Judith Ryan, curator for indigenous art at the National Gallery of Victoria explains, the rarrk itself is indicative of ancestral potency and points to hidden internalized layers of past and present ceremonial practice.