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CONTENTS
Preface xv
The Powers of Art: Bringing Faith To Life 7
Prehistoric Art and Magical Powers 7
The Power of Art for Tribal Peoples 9
A Global View:
The Horse from the Battle of Little Big Horn 10
The Power of Religious Art 11
Art Represents Ideals 11
Art as a Declaration of Power 13
PA RT O N E The Power to Convey Immortality 14
The Power to Change Our Beliefs 14
The Language of Art The Power to Shock
Art News:
15
Controversy Over the Vietnam Memorial 16

Chapter 1: The Power of Art 2 The Power to Touch Our Emotions 17
The Power to Awaken Our Senses 17
Art News:
The Power to Transform The Ordinary 18
The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen! 3
The Power of Art for the Artist 19
Looking at Art 4
Self-Expression 19
Learning How To See 4
The Artist at Play 19
Methods and Materials 5
The Artist’s Memory 20
Placing Art and Artist in Historical Context 5
Art and Culture 6 Defining Art 21
Folk Art 22
Craft and Decorative Art 22
Lives of the Artists:
Nick Cave: The World Is His Palette 23
Design 24
Art is Beauty 27
Art is Originality and Creativity 28
Ways to Understand Art 28
The Artist and the Art 29
Art and Art History 30
When We Know More, We See More 32
Beginning the Journey 32
Chapter 2:
The Pr imar y Elements 34
Space 34
Line 35
Shape 37
The Spirit of the Forms 39
Light, Shadow, and Value 40
Texture 41
Color 43
Describing Color 44
Color Wheel 45
The Science of Color 46
Art News:
Augustus: In Living Color 47
A nton i G au dí, La Sagrada Familia, interior, 1882–present. Naturalistic Versus Arbitrary Color 50
Barcelona, Spain. Emotional Resonance 50
viii
Z H A N WA N G, Urban Landscape, 2003. Stainless steel, garden rocks,

pots, pans, eating utensils, and mirror. Hayward Gallery, 2006. Photo by
Stephen White, Pekin Fine Arts Co. Ltd. © Zhan Wang
Chapter 3: The Principles Brush And Ink 80

o f D e s ig n 52 Wash 80
Contemporary Approaches To Drawing 81
Placement 52
Balance 54
Symmetry and Asymmetry 55 Chapter 5: Painting 84
Emphasis 57
Unity and Variety 58 Encaustic 84
Proportion and Scale 59 Fresco 86
Art News: Tempera Panel 86
Scale on Trial: The Tilted Arc Controversy 64
Oil Painting 87
Designing and Organizing Space with Depth 66
Watercolor and Gouache 90
Linear Perspective 68
Acrylic 91
A Modern Way of Seeing: Cubism and Nonperspective Space 69
Contemporary Approaches to Painting 92
A Global View:
Tibetan Sand Painting 93
PA RT T WO Unique Materials 94
The Artist’s Materials

and Tools
Chapter 4: Drawing 72
Graphite 73
Art News:
The Lost Drawings of Michelangelo 74
Charcoal 76
Chalk and Pastel 76
Crayon 78 A Sand Mandala is constructed of grains of col-
ored sand during an eight-day ritual by monks
Pen and Ink 78 from the D repung Loseling Monastery in India.
contents
ix
Chapter 8: New M edia:

Time and Digital Ar ts 1 28
Time as an Artist’s Medium 128
Moving Pictures 130
Video Art 131
The Artist and the Computer 134
The Pioneers of Digital Art 135
The Digital Studio 137
Hardware 137
U TAGAWA (A N D O) H I R O -
S H I G E , Maple Leaves The Digital Media 138
at the Tekona Shrine, Image Editing 138
Mamma, 1857. Color Graphic and Type Design 139
woodcut, 13 3 ⁄ 4 " × 9 3 ⁄ 8 ".
Brooklyn Museum of Digital Video 140
Art (Gift of Ann a Ferris), Digital Animation 141
New York. A Global View:
Japanese Anime 144
Video Games 145
Interactive 145
Chapter 6: Printmaking 96 Chapter 9: Sculptur e 1 48

Relief Printmaking 97 Relief Sculpture 149
Woodcut 97 Sculpture in the Round 150
Wood Engraving 99 Kinetic Sculpture 150
Intaglio Printmaking 99 Performance Art 152
Metal Engraving 100
Installations 153
June Wayne: Artist, Printmaker, Catalyst 102 Earth Art 154
Etching 103 A Global View:
Aquatint 104 Eighth-Century Earth Artists 157
Lithography 104 Sculptural Methods 158
Silkscreen 105
Art Issues:
What’s the Difference Between a Print and a Poster? 106
Unique Prints 109
Contemporary Approaches 110
Chapter 7: Photography 112

Technique and Development 112
The Camera 114
Styles of Photography 115
Straight Photography 115
Beyond Reproduction: Fine Art Photography 118
Photomontage 119 G I U S E P P E P E N O N E,
Art Issues: Cedre de Versailles,
Can Art Be Obscene? 121 2002. © 2 0 1 2 A r tists
R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( A R S ) , New
Contemporary Approaches 123 Yo r k / A D A G P, Pa r i s .
x
Modeling 158
Casting 158
Wood Carving 160
The Wood Sculptures of Martin Puryear: Handmade
Contemporary Art 162
Stone Carving 163
Modern Sculptural Methods: Constructing and Assembling 164
D eath mask of
Contemporary Approaches 164 Tutankhamen, from
Mixed Media 165 the innermost coffin
in his tomb at Thebes,
Egypt, 18th Dynasty,
Chapter 10: Architecture 168 ca. 1323 b c e . Gold
with inlay of precious
stones, 1' 9 1 ⁄ 4 " high.
The Art of Architecture 168 Egyptian Museum,
The Architect as Artist and Engineer: Planning 168 Cairo.
Harmony of Exterior and Interior Design 170
Harmony with Natural Setting 171 Stone 177
Art To Be Lived In 172 Wood 179
A Global View: Iron and Glass 181
The Wonders of the World 173 Steel and Glass 181
The Parthenon 174 Reinforced Concrete 183
The Greek Orders 175 Mixed Building Materials 184
Materials and Methods 176 Architecture Is a Product of Its Time and the Past 185
Earth, Clay, and Brick 176 Saint Peter’s 185
Monticello 187
Urban Planning 188
Contemporary Approaches 189
Chapter 11: Decor ative Ar ts,

Cr afts, and Design 192
The Craft Media 193
Ceramics 193
Glass 195
A Global View:
Japanese Aesthetics: The Tea Ceremony and the Zen Garden 196
Metalwork 198
Fiber Arts 198
Wood 200
The Studio Crafts Movement 201
Contemporary Approaches In Crafts 204
Design 206
Graphic Design 207
Industrial Design 208
Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion As Art 209
Fashion Design 210
Interior Design 211
Ryoanji Zen Temple, Japanese Sand Garden, Kyoto, c. 1525. Landscape Design 213
Stones, bare white sand.
contents
xi
Chapter 14: The Renaissance 2 74

PA RT T H R E E
The Idea of the Renaissance 276
Early Renaissance Sculpture and Architecture 277
A Global Heritage Donatello 278
Early Renaissance Painting: Mastering Perspective 281
Chapter 12: Ancient Empires, A Love of Learning and Grazia
Leonardo Da Vinci
281
282
A n c ie n t G o d s 216 Art News:
The Birth of Modern Anatomy 283
The First Civilizations 218
Art Issues: The High Renaissance 284
Preserving the Past: A Race Against Time 219 Michelangelo 287
Egypt 220 Art Issues:
Ancient China 223 The Cost of Restoration: The Sistine Chapel
and the Last Supper 290
The Classical World: Greece 224
Raphael 292
The Classical Age 225
A Global View:
A World Mountain For Worship 228
Art Issues:
The Elgin Marbles Controversy 230
Classical Greek Sculpture 231
A Global View:
Fertility Goddesses 233
Hellenistic Greece 234
The Classical World: Rome 236
Imperial Rome 236
Roman Architecture 238
Organized Conquerors 239
Roman Temples 241
Roman Painting and Mosaics 242
The Decline of Rome 243
Chapter 13: The Age of Faith 246

Religious Images or Sacrilege? 249
Early Christian and Byzantine Art 250
The Early Middle Ages 252
Islam 255
A Global View:
A World Apart: Mesoamerica 256
Buddhism 260
Hinduism 262
The Middle Ages 264
The Romanesque Style 265
The Gothic Style 267
Art News:
A Modern Cathedral Is Born 269 F I L I P P O B R U N E L L E S C H I , Dome of the Florence
Medieval Art in Italy 270 Cathedral, 1420–1436. Florence, Italy.
xii
The Renaissance In Venice 294 Neoclassicism 345

Palladio and Architecture 294 David and the French Revolution 346
The End of the High Renaissance in Italy 295 Canova and Neoclassical Sculpture 348
The Beginning of the Northern Renaissance 297 Romanticism 350
Art in the Courts of the Duke of Burgundy 297 Goya and the Romantic Reaction 350
Jan Van Eyck 299 The Birth of Romanticism 352
Albrecht Dürer 299 The English Landscape and Romanticism 352
Hans Holbein and the Protestant Reformation 300 Romanticism and Politics in France 353
A Global View: Art News:
The Gold of the New World 301 Turner, The Fire King 354
Ingres and Late Neoclassicism 357
Northern Renaissance: The Darker Side 303 The French Art World Divided 358
Genre: Scenes From Ordinary Life 305 A Global View:
Orientalism 359
American Romanticism: The Hudson River School 361
C h a p t e r 1 5 : D r a m a a n d L i g h t: Realism: Politics and Nature 362
Ma n n e ri s m , T h e B a r o q u e , a nd Lives of the Artists:
Rosa Bonheur Wears Pants! 364
Rococo 308 Neoclassicism and Romanticism Merge in Academic Art 365
Mannerism 310
The Counter-Reformation and Tintoretto 311
The Baroque Period 313
Chapter 17: Out of the
El Greco 313 Studio and into the
Caravaggio And Naturalism
314 Light: Impr essionism and
Tumultuous and Tortured Lives: Postimpr essionism 368
Caravaggio and Gentileschi 316
Artemisia Gentileschi: The Spread of Tenebroso 318 The Salons and Academic Art 371
Bernini 319 Impressionism 372
Baroque Naturalism In Spain: Velázquez 322 The Salon Des Refusés and Manet 372
A Global View: Out of the Studio and Into the Light 373
Mexican Baroque 323 Monet, The Pure Impressionist 375
Monet in Giverny 376
The Baroque Period in the North 326
Rubens 326
The Dutch Republic 328
Art News:
Judith Leyster Rediscovered 331
Rembrandt 332
The Baroque In France 335
Louis XIV and Versailles 336
The Rococo In France: The Aristocracy at Play 338
C h a p t e r 1 6 : B a t t l e o f t h e I sms:
N e o c la ss i c i s m , R o m a n t i c i s m,
and Realism 342
The Enlightenment 344
English Art Becomes Respectable: Reynolds 344 B E RT H E M O R I S OT, Woman at her Toilette, c. 1879. Oil on
Thomas Gainsborough 345 canvas, 23 3 ⁄ 4 " × 31 5 ⁄ 8 ". The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois.
contents
xiii
Renoir 377
Morisot 378
Degas And Cassatt 379
Art News:
Artist vs. Critic 380
Rodin’s Touch 382
The Postimpressionists 383
Toulouse-Lautrec 384
Seurat and Pointillism 384
Gauguin and the Search For Paradise 386
Van Gogh: Father of Expressionism 387
A Global View:
Japonisme: Pictures of the Floating World 388
Cézanne’s Revolution 392
F R A N K L LOY D W R I G H T, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, 1943–1959.
PA RT F O U R
Chapter 19: The Invisible

The Modern Era M ade Visible: Abstr act and
Chapter 18: The Real World Nonr epr esentational Ar t 4 22
o n Tria l: T h e E a r l y Tw e n t i e t h The Spiritual Path to Nonrepresentation 424
C e n t u ry 394 Mondrian: A Logical Approach To
Non-Representation 426
The Birth of a New Century 396 De Stijl 428
Munch: “Inner Pictures of the Soul” 396 The International Style 428
German Expressionism 397 Le Corbusier: Master of the “New Spirit” in Architecture 429
Fauvism 398 Frank Lloyd Wright 430
Matisse 399 Abstract Art in America: O’Keeffe 431
Picasso and Cubism 401 Straight Photography 433
A Global View: Art News:
The Living Art of Africa 402 The War Against Modern Art: Degenerate Art 434
The Dove: The Rivalry Between Matisse and Picasso 407
The Center of Western Art Shifts 435
Abstracting Sculpture: Brancusi 408
Abstract Expressionism: Modern Art Created
“All Things Are Rapidly Changing”: Futurism and Speed 409
In America 435
Pollock’s Action Painting 436
Modern Warfare for a Modern World: World War I 411 Color-Field Painting 438
Dada: To One Madness We Oppose Another 411 Teacher to the Next Generation 438
Art News: The New York School 439
Modern Art Invades America: The Armory Show 412 Nonrepresentational Sculpture 440
Marcel Duchamp and International Dada 413 Architecture: The Glass Box 441
The New Objectivity 415 Organic Abstraction 442
Surrealism 417 The Challenge of Nonrepresentational Art 444
Surrealist Juxtaposition 418
Dalí 418
Getting The Real World Back Into Art:
Magritte: The Real World On Trial 420 Rauschenberg and Johns 444
xiv
Chapter 20: A Storm of Art Issues:

Why Isn’t A Woman’s Place in the Museum? 464
Images: Art in the The Art World Becomes Global:
Contemporary World 446 Postmodern Art and the New Image 466
Pop Art 448 Postmodern Architecture 468
Venturi: Pop Architecture 450 Contemporary Nonrepresentation 470
The End of Art: Minimalism 451 Contemporary Installations and Sculpture 471
Return of Representation: Superrealism 452 New Media and The Web 474
Architecture: Breaking Down Barriers 454
Fame Comes To Two British Bad Boys: Hirst and Banksy 477
Art News:
The Mud Angels of Florence 455 A Global Art World with a Rich History 479
Going Beyond The Art World 457
Art Issues:
Pilgrimages For A New Age 458 Glossary 485
Making Room For Women: Judy Chicago 460 Photo Credits 495
Changing the Nature of the Gallery Space: Performance Art 461 Index 505
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Slave Auction , 1982. Collage, oil pastel, and acrylic paint on canvas, 6’ × 10’. Centre
Pompidou, Paris, France.
P R E FA C E
E
very two years in Venice, Italy, a sleepy park the artist had collected from people around the world.
and an abandoned medieval shipyard come to For her, keys not only protect what we care about, but
life. Enormous luxury yachts crowd the famous are filled with “memories” from their daily use. Under
lagoon; glamorous celebrities can be seen cruis- the overhanging cloud of keys, the artist placed two
ing up the Grand Canal in motorboats. Partygoers, some old boats, which represented “life’s journey,” as well
in gowns, others with backpacks, pour into the streets as hands catching recollections like falling rain. Shiota
and galleries. The art world has returned to Venice. hoped to bring people together by mixing the memories
Artists, art historians, collectors, critics, museum in the keys with those who saw them at the Biennale.
curators, gallery owners, and art lovers have come to see Viewers were free to consider the symbolic message of
the oldest and most important exhibition of contempo- this piece, or simply become entranced by the play of
rary art—La Biennale di Venezia—or simply the Biennale intense color and a downpour of keys. Either way, Shiota
During its first week, crowds fill the many exhibition areas aimed at a universal message using the language of art.
eager to get a look at what has been selected as the The Biennale began in 1895 as an event in the center
most exciting and important art of our time. A spirit of of Venice at Caffè Florian, Europe’s oldest coffee house
child-like delight fills even the most jaded of viewers, and a meeting place of writers and artists. The café’s
impatient to see what surprises are ahead. first International Exhibition of Contemporary Art was an
At the 2015 Biennale, one artwork that surprised immediate success, with over 200,000 visitors. By 1909,
and delighted both critics and the public was Chiharu the exhibition, already known as the Biennale, moved to
Shiota’s magical installation for the Japanese Pavilion, its present location in the Giardini, a park constructed by
The Key in the Hand. Visitors wandered through what Napoleon. A central exhibition hall was built, along with
looked like a red mist but was actually a dense web the first of the ultimately thirty permanent national pavil-
of yarn from which were suspended thousands of keys ions. Interrupted only by the two World Wars, the Biennale
Gallery view, Venice Biennale.
xvi
has continued to grow and hold exhibitions every two and have included a series of boxes called “Lives of
years for over a century. In 1980, the gigantic Arsenale, the Artists” that will give you a peek behind the cur-
once home to the huge shipyards that built Venice’s fleets tain so you can better understand the lives they lived.
in Europe, became a second Biennale site, adding more The exciting convergence of artistic media and cross-
than 50,000 square feet of exhibition space. Today, the pollination of artists across the globe enabled by the
Biennale regularly attracts 500,000 visitors during its six internet, as described in previous editions, has only
months. It has outgrown the Giardini and the Arsenale expanded. New technologies like three-dimensional
and includes exhibitions of artists and temporary national printing have added even more tools to the deep
pavilions in palazzos and storefronts throughout the city toolbox of today’s artists. Our access to informa-
and out into the islands of the lagoon. tion, images, videos, and sounds is unprecedented in
The multiple artistic styles faced by Biennale visitors human history, showering us with an embarrassment
can result in a sense of confusion, not unlike the reac- of riches. This text is designed to help you navigate
tion of a student facing the rich, complex history of art this flood of imagery in a clear, understandable, and
for the first time. At the Biennale, as in this text, you can enjoyable way.
see the wide range of tools artists work with. Traditional We do not expect that you will rush out to see
media like painting, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking each of the artworks you will be introduced to in this
are well represented. But part of the excitement of art book. That is the project of a lifetime, not a semester.
viewing today is to see new media—installations and ani- These works of art are held in museums and galleries
mations, film and video, works made with thread, neon, across the globe. Our goal is to inspire you to look at
feathers, and dozens of other unexpected materials. art and to give you the tools to enjoy the experience.
It appears that every society in history has made We hope to help you understand why the visual arts
and admired art of some kind. The creative urge itself are treasured by people of widely diverse backgrounds.
seems to be primal and an essential part of being human. We also try to make sense of why so much money and
Recently, prehistoric cave art made by children over thir- effort has been spent (and will continue to be spent)
teen thousand years ago was discovered in caves in both to create, preserve, conserve, and protect the most
Europe and Australia. famous works of art, so that the power of art can be
Whether prehistoric or twenty-first century, art’s enjoyed not only today, but tomorrow by your children
power continues to transcend time and geography. Why and future generations.
else would over a billion peo-
ple each year visit museums
across the globe? In the United
States alone, 850 million peo-
ple enter museums annually,
many more than the 470 mil-
lion who go to theme parks and
all the major league sporting
events combined.
The writing of this revised
third edition is a good time to
take stock of recent changes in
the art world. We have made a
special effort in this edition to
reflect the increasing impact of
women and non-Western paint-
ers, sculptors, architects, pho-
tographers, and designers in the
art world today. We also wanted
to present artists as real people, Chiharu Shiota, The Key in the Hand, 2015. Japan Pavilion, Venice Biennale.
preface
xvii
5: Painting. New art and artists: Diego Rivera, Detroit

KEY CHANGES IN THE REVISED Industry, fresco; John Singer Sargent, Venice: La Salute,
T H I R D E DI T I O N watercolor; Jean Michel Basquiat, Slave Auction, collage
and mixed media; and Wangechi Mutu, One Hundred
The revised Third Edition of the POWER OF ART retains Lavish Months of Bushwack, mixed media.
the new images of the original third edition, with further 6: Printmaking. New art and artist: Betsabeé Romero,
updates as noted below in blue. In this revision, we Always finding another cage. Box: “June Wayne—Artist,
continue to strive for more geographic, cultural, racial, Printmaker, Catalyst.”
and gender diversity, as well as the inclusion of impor- 7: Photography. New art and artists: Thomas Demand,
tant recent works of art and contemporary artists who Backyard; Nan Goldin, Yogo Putting on Powder; and
have gained reputation and popularity. Our updates are Laila Essaydi, La Femmes du Maroc: La Grande
spread throughout the book in order to bring each sec- Odalisque.
tion up-to-date. 8: New Media:Time and Digital Arts. New art and artists:
An exciting new feature, “Timeless Links,” has Bill Viola, Martyrs; Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Vietnam-A
replaced the previous timelines as the introductions Memorial Work; Nina Paley, Sita Sings the Blues; Cory
to all historical chapters (timelines have been moved Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds (modified videogame); and
online, to MindTap, where they include new interactive teamLab, Life Survives by the Power of Life (computer ani-
abilities). These Timeless Links explore the themes that mated video).
have inspired artists for centuries and create links across 9: Sculpture. New discussions on the digital technique
space and time. For example, Chapter 13, The Age of Faith, of 3D printing and an explanation of patina. New art
links works where artists have portrayed heaven and hell; and artists include: Sarah Sze, Corner Plot; Marina
Chapter 18, The Real World on Trial, focuses on the long- Abramovic, The Artist is Present; Louise Nevelson, Royal
standing importance of artist networks in the art world. Tide IV; and Stephanie Lampert, Fly Away?, 3D printed
These links open connections between the artists and art sculpture.
of different periods and cultures throughout the book 10: Architecture. New in-depth discussion of Frank
Gehry, Guggenheim Museum of Art, Bilbao, Spain. New
art and artists: Zaha Hadid, Riverside Museum, Glasgow,
Scotland, and Thomas Heatherwick, Seed Cathedral,
CHAPTER BY CHAPTER CHANGES Shanghai, China.
11: Decorative Arts, Crafts, and Design. Section
1: The Power of Art. New discussion of Paleolithic on Fashion Design added. New art and artists:
Australian cave painting. New art and artists: Vincent Rei Kawakubo, Blue Witch, fashion design; George
van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows; Grandma Moses, July Nakashima, Conoid Bench, furniture design; Dale
Fourth; and a new box on Joseph No Two Horns in “The Chihuly, Inside and Out; Marian Bantjes, Valentine.
Horse from the Battle of the Little Big Horn.” Updated box: “Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion as Art” with
2: The Primary Elements. New discussion on the Hindu Elsa Schiaparelli, Lobster Dress, and Salvador Dali,
festival of Holi. New art and artists: Hokusai, Boy Playing Lobster Telephone.
a Flute; Calder, Josephine Baker; Olaf Eliasson, The 12: Ancient Empires, Ancient Gods. New theme:
Weather Project at the Tate Modern; and Lucia Koch, “Timeless Links—The Test of Time.” New art and artists:
Spaghetti (2 windows). Mask of Tutankhamen; Underwater Scene, mosaic from
3: The Principles of Design. New art and artists: Henri Pompeii; Tschumi and Photiadas, New Acropolis Museum,
Matisse, Jazz (The Burial of Pierrot), paper cutouts; Athens; Apollonius (attr.), The Seated Boxer; Gardenscape
Gabriel Orozco, La D.S., modified Citroen; Andrea Dezsö’s from the Villa of Prima Porta. Box: “The Elgin Marbles
tunnel book, Gentle Beast Hiding Among Leaves; and Controversy.”
George Caleb Bingham, Card Players. 13: The Age of Faith. New theme: “Timeless Links—
4: Drawing. New art and artists: Egon Schiele, Self Heaven and Hell.” New art and artists: Anthemius of
Portrait with Nude Model, graphite; Odilon Redon, Sita, Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, Interior of Hagia Sophia
pastel; Rembrandt, A Sleeping Woman, ink. and Kosho, Portrait statue of the priest Kuya preaching.
xviii
New box: “A Modern Cathedral is Born—La Sagrada

Familia.” ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
14: The Renaissance. New theme: “Timeless Links—
Patronage and Power.” New art and artist, Fra’ Filippo This book is the product of many years of teaching—our
Lippi, Madonna with Child and Angels. own as well as that we received as students. We would
15: Drama and Light: Mannerism, the Baroque, and like to acknowledge the excellence, dedication, and influ-
Rococo. New theme: “Timeless Links—Love and Romance.” ence of Abe Ajay, Rudolf Arnheim, George Bayliss, Antonio
New art and artists: Jacopo Pontormo, Deposition from the Frasconi, Al Hinton, Gerome Kamrowski, Al Mullen, and
Cross; Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofornes, Leonard Stokes, as well as Paul Berry, Dorothea Fisher,
Uffizi; Jan Vermeer, Girl with Pearl Earring. Box: “Tumultuous Eugenia Janis, Kenworth Moffet, Warren Roberts, and
and Tortured Lives: Caravaggio and Gentileschi.” Clara Tucker. The following colleagues at Marist College,
16: Battle of the -isms: Classicism, Romanticism, and Istituto Lorenzo de Medici, and SUNY New Paltz were
Realism. New theme: “Timeless Links—Exoticism.” especially supportive during this and previous revisions
New section on Barbizon School. New art and artists: of The Power of Art: Artin Arslanian, Fabrizio Guarducci,
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son; Charles- Dennis Murray, Steven Poskanzer, and Thomas Wermuth.
François Daubigny, The Creek; Jean-Léon Gérôme, The As we revised the manuscript, many friends and
Christian Martyr’s Last Prayer. Box: “Turner, the Fire King.” colleagues offered advice, inspiration, perceptive com-
17: Out of the Studio and into the Light: Impressionism ments, and analysis that aided us immensely. We are
and PostImpressionism. New theme: “Timeless Links— indebted to Lorenzo Casamenti, Stefano Casu, Donise
The Inspiration of Nature.” New art and artists: Alexandre English, Carlotta Fuhs, Thomas Goldpaugh, David
Cabanel, The Birth of Venus; Auguste Rodin, The Kiss. Krikun, James Luciana, Michele Rowe-Shields, Thomas
18: The Real World on Trial: The Early Twentieth Sarrantonio, Ed Smith, Steve Vinson, Tim Watson, Jerry
Century. New theme: “Timeless Links—Artist Networks.” White, and Beth E. Wilson. Over the years, we have been
New art and artists: Andre Derain, London Bridge; Henri encouraged by enthusiastic readers among younger
Matisse, Purple Robe and Anemones; Pablo Picasso, The friends like Sarah and Amy Gross, Hannah Shreefter,
Dove and The Studio (Pigeons). New box: “The Dove: the Allison Oldehoff, and Elizabeth Moskowitz; and older
Rivalry between Matisse and Picasso.” art aficionados like Belle Bennett, Marjorie Brockman,
19: The Invisible Made Visible: Abstract and Non- Dr. Jay Levine, Edward Lewis, Ruth Page, Abby
Representational Art. New theme: “Timeless Links — Schlossberg, and Scott Skodnek.
The Art that Shocks.” New section on Mondrian. New In developing the revised third edition, we responded
art and artists: Vasily Kandinsky, Panel for Edwin R. to the recommendations of the many instructors who
Campbell No. 1; Piet Mondrian, The Gray Tree, Tableau 2, used the earlier ones. We would like to thank in particu-
Broadway Boogie-Woogie; Imogen Cunningham, Leaf lar the following reviewers whose perceptive comments
Pattern; Mark di Suvero, The A Train. and analysis were extremely helpful in the preparation of
20: A Storm of Images: Art in the Contemporary World. this book:
New theme: “Timeless Links – Protest and Revolution.” Nicholas Alley, Austin Peay State University; Melanie
New art and artists: Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl; Atkinson, Hinds Community College; Rodrigo Benavides,
Ushio Shinohara, Boxing Painting; Ana Mendieta, Tree of St. Philip’s College; Shawn Camp, Austin Community
Life; Perkins+Will, Shanghai National Museum; SANAA, College; Nancy Cason, Belmont University; Claire Hampton,
Grace Farms, Connecticut; Julie Mehretu, Stadia I; Damián Volunteer State Community College; Stephen Henderson,
Ortega, Cosmic Thing (deconstructed Volkswagen Beetle); Quinnipiac University; Katherine Jones, Central Michigan
Petah Coyne, Buddha Boy; Damien Hirst, For the Love of University; Jennie Klein, Ohio University; Pamela Lee,
God (diamond encrusted platinum skull); Banksy, Cans Washington State University; Cynthia Mills, Brookhaven
Buffer (street art); Ai Weiwei, Leg Gun (Instagram pho- College; Susan Mulcahy, Volunteer State Community
tograph); Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Fragonard); College; Carol Norman, Jackson State Community College;
El Anatsui, Between Earth and Heaven; and teamLab, Aditi Samarth, Richland College; Betty Siber, Collin College;
Universe of Water Particles (interactive digital installa- Susana Sosa, Fresno City College; Sherry Stephens, Palm
tion). Two boxes: “The Mud Angels (of the 1966 Florence Beach Community College; Al Wildey, Central Michigan
flood)” and “British Bad Boys: Hirst and Banksy.” University; and Ted Wygant, Daytona State College.
preface
xix
Like the art world, the publishing world is in the

midst of both a Digital and Global Age. The way this INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
text was produced reflects these important changes.
The publishing team for Cengage is not located in one Powerlecture Flashdrive
office building. It is spread across the United States This all-in-one presentation tool makes it easy to incorpo-
and works with sources all over the world. Despite rate high-resolution digital images into your lectures. You
the distances, we always felt a part of a talented and can assemble, edit, and present customized lectures with
dedicated team. We want to thank Marta Lee-Perriad, the Digital Image Library that provides high resolution
VP of Humanities, World Languages, and Curriculum images—maps, diagrams, and fine art images from the
Programmes; our dependable development editor, text. Use the PowerPoint presentation format or individual
Sharon Adams Poore, who managed to be the voice of file formats compatible with other image-viewing software
reason, encouragement, and faith in the long process programs and even add your own images. A zoom feature
of revision and production; our content project manager, enables you to magnify selected portions of an image
Lianne Ames, who once again kept a steady hand on for more detailed display in class. PowerLecture also
the steering wheel during the obstacle course that is includes an Instructor’s Manual and Educator’s Guide.
publishing today; Cate Rickard Barr, our talented and
resourceful art director; Jessica Badiner, content devel- M i n d Ta p , We b Tu t o r ™ o n B l a c k b o a r d ®
opment manager; our content developer, Jacqueline a n d We b C T ®
Czel, who was our go-to person throughout the process
Create and manage your custom course website by pro-
and cheerfully handled all issues; and to Jillian Borden
viding virtual office hours, syllabi, threaded discussions
for her marketing support.
and track student progress with the quizzing material, and
We also want to thank our production team mem-
much more. Student resources include access to an inter-
bers Jay Crowley of Jay’s Publisher Services’ and Ronald
active eBook; image flashcards that are linked to interac-
D’Souza from MPS Limited, who managed the com-
tive content so students can review related material and
plicated production process; and our ingenious and
test themselves, Video Study Tools, Audio Study Tools, and
persistent photo researcher, Cheryl Du Bois at Lumina
ArtTours. In addition, students can access the “Compare/
Datamatics Inc., who surprised us with her ability to find
Contrast” feature with interactive quizzes, “Foundations”
some quite challenging images.
modules that demonstrate art concepts and ideas, “In
Finally, we would like to thank our students, many
the Studio” video footage of interviews discussing the art-
of whom sent us links and brought us articles and cat-
making process, “A Closer Look” section that presents
alogs, but more importantly, who showed us the way
web links that expand on material in the book, and more.
to create a book that could transmit the power of art.
The enthusiastic love for art of Erich Alejandro, Mia
Blas, Jessica, Rachael, and Toni-Marie Chiarella, Joe
Concra, Zach Crittenden, Derek Cussen, Rich Dachtera, S tu d ent R esources
Matt Daly, Stefanie DeRario, Kim Dowd, Lauren Emory,
Jessica Friedlander, Ryan Khoury, Jonathan Kiselik, THE POWER OF ART, Revised 3rd Edition, delivers a
Heather Krumm, Kevin McKiernan, Mike Milano, Joe brief, yet comprehensive survey, demonstrating that art
Molloy, Danielle Morrison, Aisha Marie Muhammad, is everywhere and relevant to all students—no matter
Caitlin O’Hare, Matthew O’Neill, David Restiano, Richard what their majors happen to be. The text incorporates
Santiago, Rebecca Smith, Joe Ventura, and many more global material to demonstrate cultural intersections and
students like them, is what encouraged us in the many mutual influences. “Art News” boxes present real events
years it took to bring this text to completion. that connect art to students’ lives. “Timeless Links”
Last, but certainly not least, we would like to express explore themes that have inspired artists for centuries.
love and appreciation to our son, Rob, for putting up with In addition, this edition features a diverse mix of artists
constantly busy parents and a really messy house for his and spotlights the latest technologies used to create art.
entire childhood. Someday, we hope you will think it was Available digital options include image flashcards, an
worth it. interactive Foundations module, an interactive timeline,
videos, quizzes, an interactive book, and more.
CHAPTER 1
THE
POWER
OF ART
M
ore than eight million people enter the
Louvre Museum in Paris each year, mak-
ing it the world’s most visited museum. It
is estimated that the museum generates
the equivalent of nearly $1 billion in annual revenue for
France. Although the huge palace contains hundreds of
thousands of objects, many, if not most, visitors have
come to see the most famous painting in the world,
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1-1). Signs are posted
throughout the vast museum, marking the way to its leg-
endary masterpiece. Outside the room where the painting
hangs, there is often a long line just to enter and join the
crush of the crowd. Inside, there are other paintings by
some of the most talented artists in history, but viewers
surround only one, jostling each other, pushing toward it
to get a better look. Above the crowd, one can see arms
lifting cell phones and cameras and flashes going off.
Tourists treat the painting like a famous landmark, pos-
ing for their pictures beside it. Guards are always nearby,
and wooden barriers keep viewers at a distance. Deep
within a massive case of bulletproof glass that dwarfs
the small painting, the same elegant woman who has
1-1 L E O NA R D O DA V I N C I, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1505. Oil
on wood, approximately 30" × 2 1". Louvre, Paris, captivated generations of art lovers regards them with
France. her inscrutable smile.
ART N EWS
TH E M O N A LISA
HAS BEEN STOLEN!
The Mona Lisa was actually stolen from the Louvre in and left flowers where she had once hung. Investigators
1911, causing a national scandal. Although the com- turned up few clues beyond the now-empty frame. In
plete story will never be known, an ironic twist, Picasso, then
it is believed that the theft was an a young, impoverished artist,
attempt to sell not only the origi- became a suspect after two small
nal Mona Lisa but also many forged statues from the Louvre were dis-
copies. The forger’s plan was that covered in his studio. Meanwhile,
upon the shocking announcement Vincenzo Peruggia, still in Paris,
of the painting’s theft, unscru- hid the painting under a stove in
pulous wealthy collectors around his room.
the world could be easily duped Two years passed before
into buying his forgeries of the Peruggia wrote to an antiques
masterpiece. dealer in Florence, Italy, and
The forger contacted a for- offered the painting for sale.
mer employee of the Louvre, Mona Lisa’s homecoming to the
Vincenzo Peruggia, to arrange the city where she was painted was
theft. Peruggia and his accom- far from glorious. In December
plices, dressed as staff members, 1913, she traveled by train in a
entered the museum as it closed wooden trunk, under a false bot-
on Sunday afternoon, August 1-2 French officials examine the Mona tom, covered by old shoes and
Lisa after its return.
20, 1911. The museum would not clothing. When Peruggia pre-
open again until Tuesday. The sented the missing masterpiece
thieves hid in a broom closet and to the dealer and a museum direc-
slept overnight in the museum. Early the next morning, tor, he was promptly turned over to the authorities.
they removed the painting from its frame and carried it At the trial, the thief, who was born in Italy, claimed
through the many galleries, planning to tell anyone who that he had stolen Leonardo’s masterpiece to return it
saw them that they were bringing the Mona Lisa to the to its rightful place in his own country. A sympathetic
staff photography lab. The only one who did see them Italian jury sentenced Peruggia to only a few months in
was a plumber, who helped them open a stuck door. jail. After the trial, the Mona Lisa was displayed briefly
No one knew the painting was missing until the next in her birthplace and then was finally returned to the
day. As the word spread, art lovers flocked to the Louvre Louvre (1-2).
Painted at the height of the Italian Renaissance, this What is it about this painting that has elevated it,
fascinating portrait of a woman has attracted attention for not simply to the height of a masterpiece but to the sym-
centuries. Poems and songs have been written, essays bolic pinnacle of Western art? How can a work of art
and scholarly works composed, about an oil painting that become so valuable that it is seen as priceless? What
measures less than two feet by three feet. Even in our gives the Mona Lisa its power over people from differ-
contemporary world awash in digital images, the power of ent centuries and cultures? Although many people have
da Vinci’s portrait continues to transcend time. Legends spoken of the air of mystery that surrounds the picture
have grown up around the picture—for instance, that the of the woman with the haunting smile, on first viewing
Mona Lisa’s eyes follow one around the room. Another it is common to find the picture a disappointment. The
legend suggests that the painting on display is no longer glass makes it difficult to see, and what we see is not
the genuine Mona Lisa (see “Art News” box). exactly what Leonardo painted. The art historian Kenneth
4 C H A P T E R 1: T H E POW E R O F A RT
Clark described the Mona Lisa as “the submarine god- Let’s return to the Mona Lisa and look at her care-
dess of the Louvre,” a phrase that accurately reflects fully. First, the image is beautiful. It is not simply that
the dominant greenish tone of the painting as well as its this is the portrait of an attractive woman—in fact, La
aquarium-like casing. Yet the earliest known description Gioconda (Lisa del Giocondo) looks less than ideal to
of the portrait raves about the warmth of the colors, the contemporary eyes. Although it is safe to assume that
rosy nostrils and red lips, as well as the overall tone of she was considered nice-looking by the standards of the
the face that “seemed not to be colored but to be living sixteenth century, Leonardo did not give her face (see
flesh.” Not only has the color faded, but also at some detail, 1-3) the same perfect beauty he gave to his draw-
point in its history the painting was made smaller, prob- ings of angels, for example. But what makes a work of
ably to fit into a frame, slicing off a pair of columns that art famous is less the quality of the subject than the way
once surrounded her. it is interpreted by the artist. The Mona Lisa is beauti-
fully and gracefully painted. Viewers are attracted to da
Vinci’s work through the power of his skill as a drafts-
L O O K I N G AT A R T man and painter and his remarkable ability to bring his
subject to life.
This lifelike quality made the Mona Lisa famous in
LEARNING HOW TO SEE its own time. According to the painter Giorgio Vasari,
Despite these ravages of time, it is possible to consider Leonardo’s contemporary:
what makes the Mona Lisa a masterpiece. Whatever
Altogether this picture was painted in
the type of art in question, the first step in learning to
a manner to make the most confident
appreciate art is simply learning to look. This is more
challenging than is usually believed. We often think of
artists—no matter who—despair and lose
looking as a passive act, as in watching TV or clicking
heart . . . in this painting of Leonardo’s
through pictures on a webpage. But studying the visual
there was a smile so pleasing that it seemed
arts requires more than empty viewing; seeing can be divine rather than human; and those who
active rather than passive. When primitive people looked saw it were amazed to find that it was as
at the world, they had to observe nature because they alive as the original.
were hunters and gatherers; they depended on their eyes As Vasari recognized, the Mona Lisa revolutionized
for survival. In their world, everything was natural and the art of portraiture, adding movement and life in a way
real; very little was made by humans. We, on the other never seen before.
hand, live among literally millions of images, not only in
books or on a screen but also on almost everything we
touch—from cereal boxes to printed T-shirts. As opposed
to earlier periods, most of what we see and interact with
is human-made. This constant bombardment by printed,
video, and digital images has made us visually sophisti-
cated, but it can also leave our eyes numb.
Artists often say that someone can really “see,”
as if most people cannot. What an artist means by see-
ing is difficult to explain, but it is something like the
totally involved gaze of a newborn child, hungrily look-
ing at everything as if it had never been seen before,
not blinded by preconceptions. All of us like to see new
things, but in the midst of a busy life our seeing becomes
stale, our eyes jaded. Art can renew the pleasure of see-
ing and help us feel more alive. Many people have had
the exhilarating experience after leaving a museum of
noticing that the world outside looks much more interest- 1-3 Detail of figure 1-1: face of
ing and beautiful. Mona Lisa.
part 1
LO O K I N G AT A RT 5
M E T H O D S A N D M AT E R I A L S
Leonardo wrote in his notebooks, “moderated light will
add charm to every face,” as anyone who has been on
a date in a candle-lit restaurant knows. Leonardo used
oil paint to recreate this effect, which he called sfumato
lighting (in Italian, “the soft mist of a fountain”), a soft
light that dissolved edges and made details unclear. The
Mona Lisa’s eyes and mouth were bathed in sfumato light
by Leonardo because he knew those are the two most
important areas we look at on a face. Because they are
left unclear, our imagination fills them in; the lips seem
to move and give the Mona Lisa life. Leonardo’s use of
sfumato lighting is responsible for the legends surround-
ing this painting—her inscrutable smile and the eyes that
look at you and then away.
Leonardo generated a sense of movement in
another way. Notice how the background does not line
up on either side of the Mona Lisa’s shoulders. This was
intentional: Leonardo wanted to create the illusion that
his subject is shifting her shoulder while we are looking
at her. Leonardo understood how people see, perhaps
better than anyone who had ever lived, and he used this
knowledge in subtle ways to create the illusion that his
Mona Lisa was a real person. In fact, this is how viewers
have always responded to her.
P LAC I N G A RT A N D A RT I ST I N H I STO R I C A L 1-4 L E O NA R D O DA V I N C I, Drawing of Flowers and

Diagrams . Study from the notebooks, c. 1490–151 9.
CONTEXT Black chalk and ink, 9 1 ⁄ 8 " × 6 1 ⁄ 2 ". Institut de France.
Great art reveals the spirit of the age that produced it.
Therefore, we need to know when and who made a work
of art so we can begin to consider how this affected its the first individuals to be considered a creative genius in
form. The grace and beauty of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, the modern sense.
for example, reflects the value placed on these qualities No one can really be sure why Leonardo painted
during the Italian Renaissance. She also illustrates the this portrait of twenty-four-year-old Lisa del Giocondo, the
highly prized attribute of aloofness—what the Italians wife of an important Florentine merchant, at the same
called sprezzatura, a kind of aristocratic refinement and time when the artist was refusing paid commissions
calm. from more notable persons. We do know that Leonardo
The life of Leonardo da Vinci represents many other worked on the Mona Lisa for decades and never consid-
Renaissance values as well. Leonardo was an indepen- ered it finished. Because he reworked the image over
dent thinker, a scientific observer of nature, an imagina- and over, carrying it with him on his travels, the painting
tive inventor, and a delightful conversationalist, as well must have exerted the same endless fascination over
as a talented artist. He filled many notebooks (1-4) with the artist as it has over its viewers. Leonardo died of a
his observations, drawings, poems, and philosophical stroke in France, the guest of King Francis I (who moved
theories. Above all, he exemplifies a crucial Renaissance his mother and sisters out of a chateau so da Vinci could
idea credited with giving birth to the modern age— take up residence there), so the Mona Lisa became part
individualism. Renaissance thinkers conceived of human of the royal art collection. That is how it came to be in the
beings as potentially godlike creatures with immense Louvre Museum in Paris, and why it eventually became
physical, intellectual, and creative powers. Part of the identified as not only a part of Italian culture but French
mystique of Leonardo’s art is that it was done by one of culture as well.
A R T A N D C U LT U R E
Western cultures are not the only ones to see
works of art as priceless. The Japanese, for
example, have an elaborate system of rating
works of art and their value to national heritage.
The most valuable artworks are designated as
Japanese National Treasures, while other signifi-
cant works of art are categorized as Important
Cultural Properties. Because of their historic
and aesthetic importance, National Treasures
(ranging from huge statues and painted screens
to fragile decorated boxes and ceramic vessels,
such as teacups) cannot be sold or taken out
of the country. In Japan, even people—such as
the most famous and accomplished living art-
ists—can be given the official title of National
Treasure.
One of the works of art designated as
a Japanese National Treasure is the wooden
statue of the Amida Buddha (the Buddha of the
West, 1-5), carved by the sculptor Jocho in the
eleventh century. This statue is part of an entire
sculptured environment, a grouping of many
gilded wooden figures that decorate the central
hall of a Buddhist temple designed for an aris-
tocratic family of the period. Because of their 1-5 Interior of the Ho-o-do or Phoenix Hall with Amida
Buddha by J O C H O, 1053. Gilded wood, 9' 4" high.
great age and the high quality of their design Byodo-in Temple at Uji, Japan.
and carving, all of the figures in this sculptural
group qualify as National Treasures, which are
considered as valuable to Japanese heritage as the descend and lead their souls to a blissful paradise. It
Statue of Liberty is to Americans. is this very descent, the floating of the Amida to earth,
Even if we know little about Buddhism, we can be and the celestial paradise of dancing and music-making
impressed by the elaborate carving and huge scale of angels, that Jocho brought to life.
this sculptural group. Just a few feet inside the tall central Just as the Mona Lisa reflects the ideals of
doors, one comes face to face with the towering Amida Renaissance Italy, this Japanese sculptural group reflects
Buddha on his lotus flower throne. Nearly twelve feet the taste and beliefs of the world in which it was created.
high, covered with gold leaf, he is surrounded by dozens Eleventh-century Japan was dominated by a ruling class
of music-making angels that hang on the walls. One is that valued elegance and courtly manners above all. The
also impressed by the excellent preservation of statues Amida cult appealed particularly to the upper classes
that will soon be a thousand years old. But try to imag- because its promised paradise resembled a continua-
ine it as it first was, when all the angelic bodhisattvas tion of the luxurious life of beauty and ease they knew on
were painted in bright colors, with white shrouds, blue earth. The Buddha, as seen by Jocho, is as refined and
hair, gold instruments, colorful tiaras, and necklaces. aloof as a prince who looks down graciously at his wor-
The Central Hall was painted in vivid colors—too-bright shippers; the dancing angels are like so many well-bred
red vermillion with bits of mirrors and mother of pearl royal attendants. The slimness and delicacy of the carv-
to reflect light—showing souls being welcomed to para- ings, the richness of the bright colors and shimmering
dise. Imagine how powerful this vision of paradise must gold with which they were painted (now except for a few
have seemed to the followers of the Pure Land Buddhist restored ones, see detail, 1-6, worn off), were perfectly
sect, who believed that when they died, their God would in tune with both the subject they represented and the
part 1
T H E POW E R S O F A RT: B R I N G I N G FA I T H TO LI F E 7
known as the Venus of Willendorf (1-7): Venus

because it is obviously female, Willendorf after
the town in Austria where it was found. Although
its exact purpose and meaning remain shrouded
in the mists of time, scholars have surmised that
this female fertility figure was used as some kind
of magical charm. With her exaggerated breasts,
belly, and buttocks, this faceless Stone-Age
Venus provides a powerful visual image of the
life-giving earth mother. Such fertility symbols
were repeated in many different materials and
1-6 Angel on c louds with restored colors from Phoenix Hall. locations throughout Europe and were probably
connected with rituals that associated human
fertility with the survival of the Ice-Age clan or
patrons for whom they were made. Yet even today, in a tribe. For the Stone-Age people who made and used them,
completely changed world, embracing different religious these were not works of art in the same sense that we
beliefs, brought up in a different culture, we can appre- understand the term. These amulets were made to be
ciate the skill and genius that make Jocho’s sculptural touched, held, carried, stroked, and worshipped—not
grouping a great work of art. to be viewed as beautiful objects in a glass cabinet, or
admired as the works of individual artists.
As old as the Venus is, we now know that artmaking
is much older. In 2011, a 100,000-year-old art workshop
TH E POWE RS OF ART:
B R I N G I N G FA I T H TO L I F E
Through art, the deepest and most intangible beliefs of

a culture can be translated into powerful images that
communicate specific spiritual messages to the people
who view them as part of their religious rituals. From
the beginning of humanity, people have expressed their
beliefs in material form. They pictured their gods and
goddesses in statues and paintings; they built places
for worship and religious rites. The Amida Buddha is an
excellent example of how art brings religious beliefs to
life. In some periods, such as the Middle Ages in the
Western world, most art was religious in character. So
much visual art is related to human beliefs and rituals of
worship that it would be easy to fill an entire library with
books exploring the relationship between art and faith in
different cultures.
P R E H I STO R I C A RT A N D M AG I C A L P OW E R S
Art need not be as beautiful as the Mona Lisa or as elegant
and sophisticated as Japanese sculpture to be considered
great art. Some of the most powerful art ever made was
done more than ten thousand years ago by the prehistoric
hunting tribes who inhabited Europe before and during
the last Ice Age. One of the very earliest known artworks 1-7 Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf), c. 30,000–
25,000 b c e . Limestone, 4 1 ⁄ 8 " high. Naturhisto-
of this period is a tiny (4 1 ⁄ 8 inch) carved stone figurine risches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
1-8 Paleolithic bulls and other animals crowd calcite walls, Lascaux, France.
was discovered in a South African cave. Inside were grind- young artists made thousands of decorative flutings, or
ing tools, paint pots, and even traces of yellow, reddish scraped finger tracings on the soft stone ceilings. By the
ocher, and black charcoal pigments. Evidence revealed size of the marks, we know some artists were as young
that the pigments were mixed with fat to make paint. as three years of age. The most flutings were done by
Although no paintings survived, handmade beads were a five-year-old, believed to be a girl. Wider marks reveal
also found. These art materials are at least sixty thou- that the adults also joined in.
sand years older than the first-known examples of cave Other creations of Ice-Age tribes living in what is
painting and sculpture. now France and also Spain include the earliest surviving
Also in 2011, prehistoric art by preschool-age art- paintings (1-8). Popularly known as cave paintings, these
ists was discovered in a series of caves in France. dramatic prehistoric pictures were done around 15,000
Apparently while sitting on the shoulders of their parents, bce. When the decorated caves at Lascaux, France, were
discovered (accidentally in 1940 by some boys looking for
an underground entrance to an old chateau), they caused
a sensation throughout the worlds of history, arche-
ology, and art. On these rocky walls, viewers can gaze
back at the handiwork of peoples whose culture remains
shrouded in mystery. Entering into the eerie, dark caves,
viewers find pictures of huge Ice-Age beasts. The primary
subjects of these early cave paintings are animals—most
often bulls, horses, and bison, sometimes mammoths
and woolly rhinoceroses. Humans were rarely shown.
The depiction of these wild animals was not simplified or
awkward; the cave paintings do not resemble the art of
children. They are naturalistic, because the animals were
drawn in motion, as if they were alive. Even without pho-
tographic details, contemporary viewers have no problem
telling that one form is a horse, another a bull (1-9).
Were these images meant as records of success-
ful hunts, or were they part of magical rituals meant to
ensure success for future hunting parties? We cannot be
absolutely sure of their purpose, but the most common
1-9 Scene of the Hunt. Prehistoric Cave Painting, Lascaux
explanation for the cave paintings is that they were used
Caves, Perigord, Dordogne, France. by their creators in magical rites. It is certainly unlikely
part 1
T H E POW E R S O F A RT: B R I N G I N G FA I T H TO LI F E 9
that these pictures were simply decoration for people’s

living quarters. Most are painted in dark, difficult-to-reach
parts of the caves, portions that show no archeological
evidence of having been lived in. We do know that the
artists came to these special caves to paint on scaffolds
by the light of oil lamps; remnants of the lamps and their
palettes, along with the holes for their scaffolds, have
been found. After the paintings were completed, the
caves and their images seem to have been used in cer-
emonies for thousands of years.
Prehistoric rock art was not simply a European phe-
nomenon. Paintings and carvings on rocks can be found
in the Americas, Asia, and across Africa. These sites
reveal that art played a vital role in the rituals of tribal 1-10 Paleolithic Australian cave painting. Gwion Gwion
peoples for tens of thousands of years. In Northwestern (Bradshaw) Figures , rock paintings, Kimberly,
Australia. c. 15,000–3,000 b c e .
Australia, rock paintings known as Gwion Gwion art by
the indigenous peoples (or as “Bradshaw paintings”
after the man who first publicized them), show human
silhouettes that seem to sway in a graceful dance (1-10). variety of complex messages that are unknown to most
According to Aboriginal explanations, these elegant fig- museum viewers and are often obscure even to the col-
ures—pictured wearing elaborate headdresses and tas- lectors who purchase them.
sels—represent spirits associated with their creation Masks are meant to be worn in association with
story. The dating of these paintings remains controver- elaborate costumes, during ceremonies where traditional
sial, with estimates ranging from 50,000 to 3000 BCE. songs and dances are performed (1-11). Within these
New examples of Australian rock paintings are still being ceremonies, which are scheduled according to the agri-
discovered, while the culture that produced these sophis- cultural calendar and can last for several days, the masks
ticated images remains mysterious. have magical functions. For instance, some masks are
supposed to transmit the spirits of the gods or ancestors
T H E P OW E R O F A RT F O R T R I BA L
PEOPLES
Tribal art is the art of any area of the world where people
lived or still live in a preindustrial state—generally without
permanent buildings, written language, or modern tech-
nology. Such art is what art historians once called primi-
tive art, considered crude and uncivilized by Europeans
and Americans. Around the year 1900, their attitudes
changed. Tribal art was seen as new and exotic, valued
by collectors and artists for its immediacy and impact.
More recently, there has been an attempt to appreciate
and understand the arts of tribal peoples living around
the world as an expression of the cultures and beliefs
that produced them.
For instance, African masks have been popular with
European and American art collectors for more than a
century and had a dramatic impact on the development
of modern art. In museums, these sculptural masks are
displayed as isolated art objects. Masks exhibited in
this static way retain their visual power, but the power of
their original meaning has been lost. Within the culture 1-11 Ceremony in Dogon village of Tiogoï Republic, Mali,
and religion for which they were created, masks convey a West Africa.
A G LOBAL VI EW
Th e H o rs e f ro m t h e Batt l e o f
Little B ig H o r n
Lakota artist Joseph No Two Horns carved Horse Effigy their systematic slaughter of Indian ponies. Horse Effigy
(1-12) as a portrait of a beloved horse—one he rode to is a Dance Stick, used by the Lakotas in ceremonies and
victory four years earlier in the Battle of the Little Big dances to prepare for battle or celebrate victories.
Horn, popularly known as Custer’s Last Stand. Though a veteran of more than forty battles, Joseph
In 1876, No Two Horns (He Nupa Wanica), was a No Two Horns did not brag about his exploits. During
young Hunkpapa warrior following his cousin, Sitting ceremonies honoring the Battle of the Little Big Horn’s
Bull, into the most famous battle of the Great Sioux War, 50th anniversary, he said he danced for the “soldiers
known to the Lakota as the Battle of Greasy Grass. In it, who were so brave and foolish.”
No Two Horns’s blue roan suffered seven bullet wounds
before collapsing when it was over. His
horse’s death haunted the artist and he
portrayed this event in drawings, paint-
ings, and sculptures for the rest of his life.
Horse Effigy shows his galloping horse
in the midst of battle. It stretches and
strains, fighting to keep moving as death
nears. The eyes are brass tacks, the leather
ears are pulled back. Bullet wounds run
red across his body. Red-dyed horse hair
dangles to represent blood running from
his mouth.
1-12 J oseph N o T wo H orns, H e N upa Wanica (Hunkpapa Lakota),
The love of horses is an important Horse Effigy, c. 1880. Wood (possibly cottonwood), pigment, com-
part of Plains’ culture; one of the atroci- mercial and native-tanned leather, rawhide, horsehair, brass, iron,
and bird quill. Length: 38 1 ⁄ 2 " South Dakota State Historical Society,
ties of General Custer’s Seventh Army was Pierre.
they represent to the dancers, enabling them to dance pigment into the skin by a variety of means, most com-
for hours (see “A Global View” box). monly needles. Although a tattoo can still be controversial
The magical powers attributed to art by prehistoric in twenty-first-century America, it is just the opposite for the
peoples and “primitive” tribes are not generally accepted Maori tribes of New Zealand. Its creation is a sacred act,
in our modern scientific and industrialized world. Still, and the tattoo artist is considered a holy person. Their tra-
even if we do not believe that works of art can cure sick- ditional method utilizes very sharp bone chisels to cut lines
ness, placate dead spirits, assist us in predicting and into the skin. Next, a chisel is dipped into natural pigments
controlling the future, or put us in direct touch with super- such as charcoal or dried caterpillars, which are shaken into
natural forces, we are not totally immune to the magical the wounds to add colors. Tattooing was a coming-of-age
power in art. Imagine how you would feel if you discov- rite for young men and women that demonstrated an ado-
ered that someone had poked holes in a photograph of lescent’s strength and courage. It was a matter of pride
your grandmother’s face. Would you calmly reflect that it to never make a sound as the cuts were made. Because
was only a damaged piece of paper? Or would you con- the chisels left grooves, a long, painful healing process fol-
sider it an unjustifiable attack on a dearly loved person? lowed. While the recently tattooed young people rested and
Another sign that forces once called primitive are still fasted afterward, they were soothed by sweet flute music
alive today is the recent return of a prehistoric tribal art to and numbing leaves applied to their swollen skin.
high fashion. Tattoo, the marking of skin with designs, is an The most important Maori tattoo is the Ta-Moko,
art that has been practiced around the world for thousands or facial tattoo (1-13). Although it is a mix of many
of years. Its name originated in Polynesia and is from the traditional patterns, the design of curves and spirals
Tahitian word tatau. A tattoo is made by inserting permanent for each person’s ta-moko is unique. The markings are
part 1
A RT R E P R E S E N TS I D E A LS 11
a coded map that can be understood by other Maori

and explain the status and genealogy of its wearer. For
example, the sides of the face reveal one’s ancestry,
a father’s on one side, a mother’s on the other. A per-
son’s rank can be read by reading the designs on the
forehead. Only Maoris of the lowest status would not
have a ta-moko. One’s tattoo is one’s taonga or trea-
sure. It is also your identity. When their signature was
required on important documents, tribal chiefs would
draw a picture of their ta-moko.
T H E P OW E R O F R E L I G I O U S A RT
Religious art gives visual expression to inner belief and
has the ability to raise people’s spirits above the problems
of daily life. For centuries, humans have created special
places to worship with art. Such temples or churches are 1-13 Traditional Moko tattoo.
designed to convey particular religious messages and
spiritual values. These places of devotion often share
some of the magical quality of prehistoric caves. Both
magical and religious art express human belief in a spiri-
tual world. Magical art, however, supposes that images
have a living power, while religious art is more often sim-
ply the visual expression of an inner belief.
Just as the Amida Buddha (1-5) embodies the
beliefs of Japanese Buddhism, the Gothic cathedral of
Notre Dame (1-14) in Paris is a visual expression of the
Christian faith of the medieval era. With its soaring verti-
cal lines, the cathedral seems to lift the soul heaven-
ward, toward God. Its stained-glass windows tell biblical
stories (1-15); its paintings and statues can instruct
and even inspire the viewer. By transforming a material
as dense and heavy as stone into a structure of such
grace, the cathedral becomes a visual representation of
the Christian belief in a spiritual existence beyond and
above the limitations of physical reality. This heavenly
realm is visually symbolized as the viewer’s eye is drawn
up the soaring lines of the gothic arches to the very top
of the pointed vaults and into a space bathed in colored
light. Within Notre Dame cathedral, we can experience
the power of art to transform the physical act of viewing
into the spiritual act of worshipping.
ART R E PR ESE NTS

IDEALS
Statues of gods and goddesses also have the power

to express the ideals of a particular culture in physical
1-14 Looking up into the nave vaults of Notre Dame Cathedral,
form. The art of classical Greece, for example, expresses Paris, France, begun 1163, modified 1225–1250.
1-15 J E A N D E C H E L L E S , rose window of the north transept, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France, 1240–1250. Stained glass,
iron, and lead stone-bar tracery, diameter 43'.
the Greeks’ cultural ideals of physical beauty and ath- human form. Yet, as in the figure of Hermes illustrated
letic strength, as in the statue Hermes with the Infant here, they idealize the human body, making it more grace-
Dionysus by the great sculptor Praxiteles (1-16). For the ful and perfect than any real person could be. Greek sculp-
Greeks, a strong and healthy body was extremely impor- tures are not portraits of individuals but ideal types. The
tant, because physical development was considered Western conception of great art as a fusion of the real,
equally as important as mental and spiritual growth. They or truthful, with the ideal, or beautiful, is descended from
sought a perfect balance between body and mind, a natu- the aesthetics of ancient Greece. This philosophy was
ral harmony between muscular prowess, grace, mental expressed succinctly by the English Romantic poet John
vigor, and physical beauty. Keats in these famous lines from Ode on a Grecian Urn:
Greek art also aspired to another balance—between
realism and idealism. Greek statues are immediately Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
recognizable as lifelike, accurate representations of the Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
part 1
A R T A S A D E C L A R AT I O N O F P O W E R
Besides expressing spiritual beliefs or cultural ideals, art
from the earliest times has been used to declare the
power of rulers. The pharaohs of Egypt erected huge
structures to declare their strength; Roman emper-
ors constructed triumphal arches in conquered territo-
ries. For thousands of years, artists served kings and
queens. During the Renaissance, royal images were
not just stylized versions of majesty (as seen in Egypt)
but true portraits. One of the finest of the Renaissance
court painters was Hans Holbein the Younger, and our
image of Henry VIII (1-17) is forever that of an enormous,
insatiable powerhouse because of Holbein’s portraits.
His Henry VIII stands before us seeming larger than life,
almost bursting the edges of the picture frame. He is
dressed in stunning garments, made of the finest mate-
rials sewn with golden embroidery and jewels. Another
Holbein portrait (now lost) hung over the king’s throne
and, according to visitors, “abashed and annihilated”
them when they stood before it. That was the purpose
1-16 Roman copy of P R A X I T E L E S , Hermes with the Infant of all the king’s portraits—to glorify a man who had
Dionysus (detail), from Olympia, c. 340 b c e (?). Mar-
ble, approximately 7' high. Archeological Museum,
supreme power.
Olympia, Greece. Renato Bertelli’s Head of Mussolini (1-18) is a mod-
ern approach to paying tribute to a ruler—in this case,
1-18 R E NATO B E RT E L L I, Head of Mussolini

1-17 H A N S H O L B E I N T H E YO U N G E R, Henry VI I I, 1 540. Oil on (Continuous Profile), 1933. Painted ter-
panel, 32 1 ⁄ 2 " × 12 1 ⁄ 2 ". Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, racotta, 19" tall. Imperial War Museum,
Rome, Italy. London, Great Britain.
in the 1600s, directed his artists to portray him as hon-

estly as they could. Yet Jahangir did not totally renounce
flattery. Although the faces are naturalistic in the paint-
ing Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings (1-19),
the setting and events are not. The Emperor Jahangir
is the source of a brilliant light, too bright even for one
of the cupids. Great men have come to pay homage
to Jahangir: a wise old saint (who the emperor places
above all other admirers), the Sultan of the Ottoman
Empire, King James I of England, and the artist Bichitr
himself.
The Emperor Jahangir sits on a throne supported by
an hourglass whose sand has almost run out. Yet, on the
glass, cupids are painting a prayer that he might live for
a thousand years. What could resolve this contradiction?
It must be the act of painting itself, one of the great pas-
sions of the cultured emperor. There were many signs of
Jahangir’s special love during his reign. One of the great-
est royal patrons of arts in history, he provided studios in
the palace for his court artists and gave them the finest
and most expensive materials to work with. The artists
rewarded him with immortality.
THE POWER TO CHANGE OUR BELIEFS

Art also has the power to change the way we think,
1-19 B I C H I T R, Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings, from the way we understand the world around us. Many con-
the Leningrad Album, Mughal, India, early seventeenth
century. Color and gold on paper, 10 7 ⁄ 8 " high. Freer Gal - temporary artists use their work to express political
lery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. viewpoints, to lead their viewers to a moral lesson. In
The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1-20), Betye Saar com-
ments on the stereotyping of African-American women
Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator who led Italy dur- in advertising and the media. Saar creates her work by
ing World War II. Bertelli’s sculpture is infused with the incorporating so-called found objects, like the mammy
spirit of Futurism, a movement that celebrated progress doll and cutout pictures of Aunt Jemima from pancake
and called on Italians to embrace a fresh approach to packages. These are arranged inside a box as if the
art, unencumbered by the past. The Futurists called for artist were creating a diorama; the doll holds a broom
art “enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed” in one hand, and a small print of another happy mammy
(see Chapter 18). By rotating Mussolini’s profile in 360 holding a wailing white baby is propped up in front of her.
degrees, Bertelli’s “continuous profile” is meant to show But the familiarity and friendliness of these images is
the dynamism and modernity of Il Duce—”the Leader.” radicalized by the incorporation of a black power fist in
Mussolini’s rise to power in the 1920s was greeted the foreground of the box, as well as a rifle and chrome
with joy by Bertelli and his fellow Futurists. In return, the pistol. Here Aunt Jemima seems to express some of the
Italian dictator embraced Futurism’s ideals and made anger Saar felt, but never expressed, when she experi-
it the official style of his regime. This sculpture was enced discrimination as a young black woman growing
approved by the dictator, who ordered its mass produc- up in California. (For instance, Saar won several prizes
tion and distribution. for her designs for floats in the Tournament of Roses
parade before the judges realized she was an African
T H E P O W E R T O C O N V E Y I M M O R TA L I T Y American. After her race was disclosed, she was given
Unlike Henry VIII or Mussolini, Jahangir, the emperor of only honorable mentions.) By using real mementos of
India who ruled during the height of the Mughal dynasty contemporary culture like the advertising imagery of
part 1
Duchamp’s parody was upsetting on several levels.

First, he was making light of Leonardo’s great master-
piece. Because the Mona Lisa had come to symbolize
the best in Western art, he was symbolically rejecting
centuries of tradition. Second, Duchamp was taking a
reproduction of a painting by another artist, changing it
slightly, and claiming that it was a new work of art that
belonged to him—that is, he seemed to be stealing
someone else’s creative work and then (figuratively) spit-
ting on it. A beautiful image was made ugly, even silly. A
picture that had come to symbolize the mystery and ideal
nature of all women was turned into a joke. Worst of all,
he was suggesting that the Mona Lisa was “hot stuff.”
The creation of artworks meant to upset the view-
ing public is a recent development in the history of art.
In earlier times, the purpose of art was to please the
person who commissioned and paid for it—the patron.
1-20 B E T Y E SA A R, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972.

Mixed media, 11 3 ⁄ 4 " × 2 3 ⁄ 4 ". University Art Museum,
University of California at Berkeley, California.
Aunt Jemima, Saar creates a visual satire that shows

how photographic reproductions tend to reinforce racial
stereotypes in our society.
THE POWER TO SHOCK

Related to art’s power to change our point of view is its
power to shock us. In the early twentieth century, many
artists wanted to create works that would wake viewers
up and shake them out of their preconceptions about
art. One such artist was Marcel Duchamp, and one of
his most disturbing pictures was L.H.O.O.Q. (1-21), a sat-
ire of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Duchamp chose to
make fun of the Mona Lisa, especially because it was so
beloved and had become almost like a sacred image to
people who cared about art. He took a postcard repro-
duction of the painting, added a moustache, beard, and
dark pupils in pencil, and then printed a few initials at the
1-21 M A R C E L D U C H A M P, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919. Pencil on print,
bottom. When pronounced in French, these initials sound 7 3 ⁄ 4 " × 4 3 ⁄ 4 ". Private collection. © 2 0 1 2 A r t i s t s R i g h t s S o ciety
out the vulgar phrase, “she has a hot ass.” ( A R S ) , Ne w Yo r k / A D A G P, Pa r i s / S u c c e s s i o n M a r c e l D u c h a m p .
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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Controversy Over the Vietnam Memorial 16

Z H A N WA N G, Urban Landscape, 2003. Stainless steel, garden rocks,

Chapter 3: The Principles Brush And Ink 80

The Artist’s Materials

Chapter 8: New M edia:

Chapter 6: Printmaking 96 Chapter 9: Sculptur e 1 48

Chapter 7: Photography 112

Chapter 11: Decor ative Ar ts,

Chapter 14: The Renaissance 2 74

Chapter 13: The Age of Faith 246

The Renaissance In Venice 294 Neoclassicism 345

Chapter 19: The Invisible

Chapter 20: A Storm of Art Issues:

Gallery view, Venice Biennale.

5: Painting. New art and artists: Diego Rivera, Detroit

New box: “A Modern Cathedral is Born—La Sagrada

Like the art world, the publishing world is in the

P LAC I N G A RT A N D A RT I ST I N H I STO R I C A L 1-4 L E O NA R D O DA V I N C I, Drawing of Flowers and

known as the Venus of Willendorf (1-7): Venus

Through art, the deepest and most intangible beliefs of

that these pictures were simply decoration for people’s

a coded map that can be understood by other Maori

ART R E PR ESE NTS

Statues of gods and goddesses also have the power

1-18 R E NATO B E RT E L L I, Head of Mussolini

in the 1600s, directed his artists to portray him as hon-

THE POWER TO CHANGE OUR BELIEFS

Duchamp’s parody was upsetting on several levels.

1-20 B E T Y E SA A R, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972.

Aunt Jemima, Saar creates a visual satire that shows

THE POWER TO SHOCK

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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