Black Africa: Masks, Sculpture, Jewelry
The Northern Hemisphere has long looked at the art of the Southern Hemisphere and equatorial regions as a collection of curios or travel trophies illustrating the essentially barbarous nature of its creators. Slowly such views are changing as more effort is put to understanding the individual works of art and their context in the societies that produced them. Art historian Meyer has attempted to integrate over 200 color photos together with a general text giving an overview of the role of the arts in various African cultures. Although her choppy text (translated from the French) will provide a basis for interested readers to start research, the bibliography is dated and leads mostly to French sources. Rather than present an overview, Newton, the former director of New York's Museum of Primitive Art, has produced a catalog of suberb photographs with scholarly explanatory captions. The objects, mostly of wood, are drawn from Geneva's Barbier-Mueller Museum, considered one of the best collections in the world. Photographed with great depth of field and subtle lighting designed to accentuate texture, the sculptures are brought to life by a fine-grain printing process. Meyer uses some photos that also appear in Newton's book, but the two works complement each other rather than overlap. The Newton book is the better choice for general collections, but the differences in explaining societal context and the different scope of coverage warrant placement of both books in comprehensive collections.?David McClelland, Temple Univ. Lib., PhiladelphiaCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.