African Art in Motion Icon and Act Author:Robert Farris Thompson Author Robert Farris Thompson provides entirely fresh and enlightening perspectives on the interrelationship of the arts and on the cultural role and meaning of art in traditional African societies. Textiles, sculptures, masks, costumes, and a variety of implements and musical instruments are lavishly illustrated and interpreted from the a... more »esthetic that in Africa, 'icon' and 'act' are one, that African art can best be understood in the context of dance.
The work is divided into three sections:
(1) a list of highly abstract concepts such as 'ephebism' and 'coolness' which Thompson contends underlie African aesthetics;
(2) an extended analysis of the significance of sculptures standing, sitting, riding, kneeling, supporting, and balancing; and
(3) descriptions of six different dance events combining masks, poetry, music, and religious ritual, and their effects on their audiences.
Representing scholarship and writing at its best, the work is a major contribution to the study of the arts as they are conceived, combined, and criticized by Africans.« less