Customer Reviews

Native Arts Of North America, Africa, And The South Pacific: An Introduction (Icon Editions)

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I am at a total loss whenever I attend a social function and the host introduces four or five people whom I've never met before. I struggle to remember their names and try to discreetly interrogate them regarding their interrelationships, but I am able only to create a vague picture. Why did the host invite these particular people and why did he believe I would be interested in meeting them? This is analogous to the introduction Corbin offers in his book. The author simply declares that the book was "written from the point of view of an art historian" and contains selected art styles (1). For me, it is a good thing that he decided to select a limited number of traditions instead of trying to cover everything, but he never explains why these particular groups were chosen, or the criteria he used to make his choice. He states that the text will analyze the "formal qualities of the art" within the cultural context, but there is no discussion of methodology or mention of cross-cultural aspects. Instead, he begins with an overview of "three broad categories of traditional art" (2); the first two categories being body decoration and masking and the third, I construed, being architecture/handicrafts. All of the information contained in these categories resulted in hours of Googling. The upside was I finally used most of my reference books on Native Americans that have been lying dormant since I purchased them. The downside was, by page seven, I was exhausted and frustrated.

The introductory section on Native American body decoration includes illustrations of a Mandan (Google) chief and a tattooed Haidan (Google) couple. Corbin discusses the symbolism of Mandan chief's decorations, but forgoes analysis of Haidan tattoos. For that, I had to check the footnote and download the Swan Report (Google:see Swan, J.G. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology Google Books. Retrieved on January 25, 2010) referenced in his footnote. He then jumps to body decoration in Cameroon that includes a photo of a decorated Northern Cameroon woman that, as if I couldn't see the photo, he describes in detail. He offers no explanation regarding the symbolism of the decorations, stating: "[V]ery little is known about the symbolism of this Cameroon woman's scarification patterns" (7). A little more data is presented for the Fang man, but I wish he would have explained why he chose this example and included an analysis. I own a couple references on body adornment (See Camphausen, Rufus. Return of the Tribal: A Celebration of Body Adornment. Diane Publishing Co., 1997; Gay, Kathlyn and Christine Whittington. Body Marks: Tattooing, Piercing, and Scarification. Twenty-First Century Books, 2002)that explain both the processes and significance of this art, so I find it puzzling that Corbin does not elaborate or at least reference some descriptions. The rest of the introduction follows the same pattern, so I continued to Google until the end of the chapter.

The footnotes offer a few other sources for reference, but his extensive bibliography is divided into categories instead of by chapter which made it hard to cross-reference the footnotes. If Corbin is attempting to spur the reader to research these topics further, he has succeeded. The text will probably work as a minimal introduction to the subject, and it does have an abundance of photographs (the hardcover version photos are much better), but if this was an invitation to a party, I would send my regrets.