ART 111 - Art Appreciation: Art of Africa & the Pacific Islands

The art of the Fang, the BaTeke, the BaKota, and other African peoples is extraordinarily vigorous and shows a brilliant sense of form. The substantial aesthetic impact that their works have had on the development of twentieth-century Western art--on Picasso, Derain, Braque, and Modigliani, among others--continues to this day.

No matter what form it has taken, the tattoo has always embodied social standing, aesthetics, ethics, culture, gender, and sexuality. Tattoos are personal and corporate, private and public. They mark the profane and the sacred, the extravagant and the essential, the playful and the political. From the Pacific islands to the world at large, tattoos are a symbolic and often provocative form of expression and communication.

Including both traditional and contemporary arts, this book introduces the rich artistic traditions of these two regions, traditions that have had a considerable impact on western art in the twentieth century through the influence of artists such as Gauguin.