Customer Reviews

Native North American Art (Oxford History of Art)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
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Berlo's and Phillips' erudite, critical voices are a welcome change from the often glossy, sales-driven world of Indian art writing. True to form, they have together crafted a sophisticated and highly readable survey of pre-contact, historic and contemporary Indian art, suitable for undergrads, grads, and the casual layperson. This book fills a HUGE gap, and stakes out a territory that few other scholars would dare venture; between connoisseurship, anthropology, visual culture and criticl theory. It is therefore to be expected that specialists of a particular region might take issue with some of their finer details. But specialist nit-picking misses the larger point of this book: to show how Native tribes across North America continued their cultural traditions despite colonialism and intertribal contact. It is a complex, interwoven history, but Indian art emerges, through this book, as one of the most vital, politically engaged arts in America today. This book sets the standard for Indian Art surveys.

This book was required for an Introduction to Native American Arts class that I took just for fun at school. It is an easy and interesting read, and the punctuation of gorgeous photographs of a wide range of art from all over the North American regions, makes it a pleasant experience. While I do not keep all of my textbooks, this is one that will remain in my collection as a reference and as one that I anticipate using as I research Native American cultures in upcoming classes.

My only criticism of this book is that "art" is by default, defined as only visual arts, rather than including performance, literary and musical arts. It is also only an overview, and will not provide a complete explanation of every type of Native American art tradition, or even represent every tribal group.

Quite honestly, I would recommend this book to anyone researching or studying Native American culture, history and/or tradition, since the art is much more interesting to many people, and the culture, history and tradition are such an important part of the art, reading about Native art will also give a good overview of the other subjects.

one book can only give the reader a brief overview of the wealth of american indian art. the traditional art (i don't acknowledge a split between art and craft) was produced by all the nations, spans pre-historic and historic eras, and has been collected for centuries. the contemporary art is flourishing and much is breathtaking. that being said, this book does a wonderful job of covering such an immense subject.

the only complaint i have is the relative paucity of photos. but i would feel that way if the book were nothing but photos.

The book is a bit slow at first and seems to linger on certain topics but the overall images are better than other books on the same topic.

The book is a text book for my college class. I was delighted that for only a little extra I was able to get an online version as well as the hard copy. This is helpful when I am writing papers and need to search a topic. Information is up-to-date and respects the request of tribes not to show pictures of come ceremonies.

Was wonderful to find a book covering Native American art with photos that I haven't seen over and over in various other reference publications. Easy to read. In great condition and came right on time.
thanks!