This exuberantly illustrated book celebrates the sophistication, vivacity, and significance of improvisational African-Aemrican quilts, both as artistic achievements and as expressions of African-American traditions. The knowledge, attitudes, and values carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Africans appear to have informed a quiltmaking tradition so powerful that, to this day, it preserves its identity in a special province of African-American quilts. Such "Afro-traditional" quilts are made by people who have no formal art training and who usually do not consider themselves artists; they learned their craft and absorbed its aesthetics by watching and helping their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who, in turn, learned form previous generations. The resulting--often highly idiosyncratic--quilts call out to be seen as the works of art that they are. The brilliance of this work must be partially credited to a tradition which encourages individual expression and provides a context in which the talents of individual artists can flourish. Improvisation, pervasive in black African art and familiar as a basic element of many African-American musical forms, is a vital force in this tradition. The artists maintain a generous attitude toward the accidental, embracing innovations that originate beyond the conscious domain. they use approximate measurement and "flexible patterning," in which the design, conceived of as a an invitation to variation, will not repeat, but will materialize in a sequence of visual elaborations. Afro-traditional attitudes and methods are antithetical to the standard American quiltmaking tradition--practiced by both whites and blacks--in which great value is placed on precise measurement and exact pattern replication. Instead they bear a keen likeness to the improvisatory practices of the textile-makers of Kongo and West Africa, regions from which American slaves were taken. These antipathies and affinities suggest an enduring African influence on the Afro-traditional quilt.
Catalog of a traveling exhibition first held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Apr. 2-Aug. 28, 1995.
L'ouvrage de Frank Willett a été qualifié par le Times Literary Supplément de « meilleure introduction générale à l'étude de l'art africain, pleine d'informations de premier ordre, stimulante et fascinante ».
Throughout, the authors emphasize the cultural contexts in which art is produced and imbued with meanings. Among the ancient works illustrated are masterpieces in brass, gold, ivory, stone and terracotta.
Through the prism of America's most enduring African-inspired art form, the Lowcountry basket, Grass Roots guides readers across 300 years of American and African history. In scholarly essays and beautiful...
Catalog of an exhibition held at Smith College Museum of Art, Feb. 1-Jun. 15, 2008.
Images of Power: Understanding Bushman Rock Art
This work presents 75 pieces of sculptural art in various mediums from across sub-Saharan Africa, including masks, carved figures, furniture, ceramics and jewellery. Brief entries accompany each object, none of...
At long last, the Blue Dog Man, as Rodrigue calls himself, sheds light on his creation as he guides us through this remarkable collection of over sixty new Blue Dog...
The South Africans David Koloane , Pat Mautloa , Sam Nhlengethwa and Kay Hassan are some of the permanent resident artists who regularly exhibit their works here . The Bag Factory also displays works by non - resident South African ...
Beautifully produced and illustrated, this study of the Zimbabwean birds is more than a description or history of the eight soapstone carvings found at the Great Zimbabwe historical site. It...