This text demonstrates the difference between Westerners' passive admiration of representational images and the intense interaction with art characteristic of native African and American cultures. Westerners may have extended the use of the art-image beyond the purely representational, but in Ethiopia the power transmitted from art to believers is actually used to heal. "Art that Heals" examines a variety of colourful objects: church frescos from the 15th to the 20th century, processional crosses, drawings, codices, and ...
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This text demonstrates the difference between Westerners' passive admiration of representational images and the intense interaction with art characteristic of native African and American cultures. Westerners may have extended the use of the art-image beyond the purely representational, but in Ethiopia the power transmitted from art to believers is actually used to heal. "Art that Heals" examines a variety of colourful objects: church frescos from the 15th to the 20th century, processional crosses, drawings, codices, and icons - all used by the clergy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church not as passive objects but as active forces to heal the sick. In particular, the book provides an analysis of key examples of the beautiful parchment scrolls used from the 18th to the 20th century. In Ethiopia when a person is physically, mentally, or spiritually ill a scroll is usually commissioned either by himself or his immediate family. Using a complex iconography developed from various religious traditions (ancient Greek, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish), the priest paints vivid images and writes prayers on the scroll to call upon God and the spirits who have caused the illness. In addition to abstract talismanic patterns and the frequent use of brightly coloured eyes, the scrolls often depict the story of Solomon or feature pictures of lions and birds. It is the trance induced by staring at this scroll that reputedly heals patients "through their eyes". Investigating the iconography of these objects, this work explains the cultural and spiritual origins of each. These are images which challenge our whole perception of art.
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Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in good condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 1100grams, ISBN: 9783791316062.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good jacket. Size: 11x8x0; 1997 Prestel / Museum for African Art (New York), 9 3/8 x 12 1/8 inches tall burgundy cloth hardcover in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, yellow lettering to front cover and spine, copiously illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs and reproductions of artwork, 126 pp. A couple of tiny white stains to the rear cover. Prior owner name to top margin of blank front free-endpaper. Otherwise, a very good to near fine copy-clean, bright and unmarked-in an only very slightly edgeworn dust jacket which is nicely preserved and displayed in a clear archival Brodart sleeve. Note that this is a heavy and oversized book, so additional postage will be required for international or priority orders. ~QQ~ [3.0P] In part one, Art That Heals opens a methodological discussion of the idea of healing art, fast becoming meaningful today to the Western public. The history and ideas of healing images in the Mediterranean world (Greek, Jewish, Christian, Muslim) is traced. This ancient link between art and therapy, reestablished early in the twentieth century by Prinzhorn and Morgenthaler, is presented through their pioneer work with the art of the mentally ill. Finally, there is a discussion on the museum display of healing objects that is intended to reveal to the museum visitor the connection between the object and the body. An installation that provides an experience analogous to the actual healing process is presented as a model. Part two relates the most fundamental Ethiopian healing images to the various underlying ideas about their effectiveness. Some of those included are images having sacrificial status, images of fascinating spirits who dwell in our body, images representing the sum of the visions of the sick, and images which are both real and fake medicine. Images, chosen from the centuries-old parchment scrolls, are made of intricate abstract patterning and fascinating, semi-figurative images, some are derived from Greek Gorgon, and Christian iconography. A variety of other compelling media such as books of talismans, icons, church frescoes, and crosses dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries are also featured in connection with recurring images. In conclusion Art That Heals examines the connection between Ethiopian scroll art and other African art, inviting the reader to consider more general rather than mere inter-ethnic relationships. If African healing art is of so muchinterest today it is due to its discovery or rediscovery in a world where alternative medicines are being sought and our relationship to art is being questioned. Contents: Healing art: an introduction / Jacques Mercier; History: therapeutic and salvational images in the West / Jacques Mercier; Plastic meaning and psychosis: anthropological meaning and therapeutic effects of the works of the mentally ill / Henri Maldiney; Ethopian identities; Wise men and their works; Spirituality and representation; Original aspects of the effectiveness of the scroll images; The object and the body: analogic installations / Jacques Mercier.
