Style and meaning : essays on the anthropology of art / Anthony Forge ; edited by Alison Clark & Nicholas Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Forge, Anthony, author.

Contributor:

Clark, Alison, editor.

Thomas, Nicholas, editor.

Series:

Pacific Presences ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art and anthropology.

Art and society.

Forge, Anthony.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (306 pages) : illustrations (some color).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden, [Netherlands] : Sidestone Press, 2017.

Summary:

Anthropology's engagement with art has a complex and uneven history. While material culture, 'decorative art', and art styles were of major significance for founding figures such as Alfred Haddon and Franz Boas, art became marginal as the discipline turned towards social analysis in the 1920s. This book addresses a major moment of renewal in the anthropology of art in the 1960s and 1970s. British anthropologist Anthony Forge (1929-1991), trained in Cambridge, undertook fieldwork among the Abelam of Papua New Guinea in the late 1950s and 1960s, and wrote influentially, especially about issues of style and meaning in art. His powerful, questioning-raising arguments addressed basic issues, asking why so much art was produced in some regions, and why was it so socially important?

Contents:

Part 1. Anthony Forge on art, 1960-1990. Introduction to Primitive Art and Society ; Three Kamanggabi Figures from the Arambak People of the Sepik District New Guinea ; Notes on Eastern Abelam Designs Painted on Paper, New Guinea ; Paint: A Magical Substance ; Art and Environment in the Sepik ; The Abelam Artist ; Style and Meaning in Sepik Art ; The Problem of Meaning in Art ; Learning to See in New Guinea ; The Power of Culture and the Culture of Power ; Draft Introduction to Sepik Culture History, the Proceedings from the second Wenner-Gren conference on Sepik Culture History 1986, Mijas, Spain

Part 2. On Forge. Anthony Forge and Alfred Bühler: From Field Collecting to Friendship / Christian Kaufmann ; Style and Meaning: Abelam Art through Yolngu Eyes / Howard Morphy ; Anthony Forge and Innovation: Perspectives from Vanuatu / Lissant Bolton ; The problem of agency in art / Ludovic Coupaye ; Looking back: Abelam art and some of Forge's theses from a 2015 perspective / Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin ; Communicating with Anthony Forge / Michael O'Hanlon.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 17, 2017).

ISBN:

90-8890-448-0

OCLC:

1004624006