Celebrating African costumes and textiles, this volume draws on historical and modern pieces from the Zaira and Marcel Mis Collection. The extraordinary works presented exemplify the craftsmanship of highly skilled African weavers and provide insight into the lives and culture of various ethnic groups.Whether the materials used are wool, cotton, silk, raffia, or bark, the patterns the weavers produce are predominantly geometric and abstract, but highly stylized figurative motifs are also found. The designs frequently illustrate excerpts from historical or mythical stories.The book presents a breathtaking variety of costumes, textiles, and accessories used for everyday wear and for special celebrations, and explores the different techniques, influences, and meanings behind these colorful works of art. The essays describe the history of the development of these techniques and the richness of the symbolism in this form of cultural heritage. The superb photography showcases the splendor of these intricate and exquisite textiles.
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Anne-Marie Bouttiaux is chief curator of the Ethnography Department at the of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. She is the editor of the Visions of Africa series published by 5 Continents.John Mack, the former director of the Museum of Mankind and head of the Ethnographic Department at the British Museum in London, has since written extensively on African art and on art as a world-wide phenomenon. His most recent book is The Art of Small Things (2007).Frieda Sorber, the curator of the Provincial Museum of Costume and Textiles in Antwerp, has written several books on the textile traditions of Morocco and the Near and Far East, including Asian Costumes and Textiles.Anne van Cutsem-Vanderstraete is an art historian and the author of several publications on ethnic costume.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Pix, Needs More Context,
This review is from: African Costumes and Textiles: From the Berbers to the Zulus (Hardcover)
African Costumes and Textiles has excellent photos of some extraordinary items of wear in the collection of Zaira and Marcel Mis. Most are first rate, some are more mundane. Taken together, they are a reasonable sampling of the extraordinary woven traditions of the continent. What the book lacks, and it is a serious omission, is an amplified context, including approximate dates of creation of the items presented. We are given limited information about their creation and use, no photography of them in situ on actual folks. The costumes are treated as works of art and photographed that way, which is fair enough. But they were originally functional pieces that were meant to be draped, wrapped and sat upon human bodies, whether for prestige, protection, or any number of other uses. It would have been good to also have a statement from the collectors themselves about their perspectives on these pieces and their reasons for acquiring them. There are a few editing errors, probably things lost in translation from what I was presumed originally French; editing errors that should have been caught in an otherwise well-made and luscious book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
