This unrivaled collection of striking photographs traces more than ten thousand years of cultural history--from the body painting of stone age peoples to the self-inflicted piercing of punks and the enduring image of the carnival clown in modern industrial society--illustrating an art form that is finding new relevance in the world of today. To set the photographs in context, a distinguished team of art historians, ethnologists, and archaeologists has provided enlightening commentaries that document the development of an extraordinarily broad spectrum of body painting, tattooing, and scarring techniques. Here are the extravagant displays of the richness of skin decoration in New Guinea and Africa, the ceremonial body painting of Australian Aborigines, the spectacular tattooing of Japan and Polynesia, the religious symbolism that embodies the skin of Indian pilgrims, and the painted masks both of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and of the Peking Opera--combining to provide an astonishingly wide panorama of body decoration throughout the ages.
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About the Author
Karl Groning owns a vast archive of pictures, assembled from around the world, and has previously written several illustrated volumes on a broad variety of subjects. He is also an acclaimed book designer, and was Art Director of Axel Springer Verlag for more than 23 years.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
celebrate: the ultimate book on body decoration,
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This review is from: Body Decoration: A World Survey of Body Art (Hardcover)
"Body Decoration: A World Survey of Body Art" is breathtaking, a remarkable publishing achievement that weds spectacular photographs and highly readable expert text. Societies located far and wide appear in this book, for traditions of decorating the human body date back thousands of years and include the use of painted designs, scarification, piercing, manipulation of hair, sporting of accessories, application of makeup, oils, and mud, and tattooing. Body decorations covered range from those used by multiple persons in the communal settings of Africa, South Asia, South America, and Oceania, to the theatrically-coded decoration of East Asia, and more recent personalized, individual uses in the West. Illustrations come from color photographs of 20th century activities; reproduced paintings and book graphics (especially where certains traditions, such as those among American Indians, are now lost); sculptural, traditional art that demonstrates the use of body decoration; and even maps. Dozens upon dozens of photographic sources have been used, with such giants as Alfred Eisenstadt and Leni Riefenstahl numbered among them. Feast your eyes, nourish your spirit, and celebrate both the glory of human diversity and the wonder of our shared, deep-rooted instinct to decorate our bodies.
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