Art and Religion in Africa

Art and Religion in Africa PDF Author: Rosalind Hackett
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826436552
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Africa's religious and artistic traditions constitute a primary example of its intellectual and cultural vitality. Artistic works play a vital role - especially where oral traditions dominate - in communicating ideas about the relationship between the human, spiritual and natural worlds. This work is a comparative study of Africa's visual and performing arts, concentrating on their geographical, material and gendered diversity, and focusing on the relation of these arts to African religion. The author combines ethnographic and art-historical methodology but does not assume any prior knowledge of African art or African religion. The text seeks a greater understanding of the philosophical and religious aspects of African art, thus challenging western perceptions of what is "important" in terms of artistic representation. This approach reveals the transformative capacities and multi-dimensionality of African art. The work also highlights the changes brought about by Christianity, Islam and the newer religious movements in post-colonial Africa.

Art and Religion in Africa

Art and Religion in Africa PDF Author: Rosalind Hackett
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826436552
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Africa's religious and artistic traditions constitute a primary example of its intellectual and cultural vitality. Artistic works play a vital role - especially where oral traditions dominate - in communicating ideas about the relationship between the human, spiritual and natural worlds. This work is a comparative study of Africa's visual and performing arts, concentrating on their geographical, material and gendered diversity, and focusing on the relation of these arts to African religion. The author combines ethnographic and art-historical methodology but does not assume any prior knowledge of African art or African religion. The text seeks a greater understanding of the philosophical and religious aspects of African art, thus challenging western perceptions of what is "important" in terms of artistic representation. This approach reveals the transformative capacities and multi-dimensionality of African art. The work also highlights the changes brought about by Christianity, Islam and the newer religious movements in post-colonial Africa.

The Art of Conversion

The Art of Conversion PDF Author: Cécile Fromont
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469618729
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity and actively participated in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, Cecile Fromont examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture and traces its development across four centuries marked by war, the Atlantic slave trade, and, finally, the rise of nineteenth-century European colonialism. By offering an extensive analysis of the religious, political, and artistic innovations through which the Kongo embraced Christianity, Fromont approaches the country's conversion as a dynamic process that unfolded across centuries. The African kingdom's elite independently and gradually intertwined old and new, local and foreign religious thought, political concepts, and visual forms to mold a novel and constantly evolving Kongo Christian worldview. Fromont sheds light on the cross-cultural exchanges between Africa, Europe, and Latin America that shaped the early modern world, and she outlines the religious, artistic, and social background of the countless men and women displaced by the slave trade from central Africa to all corners of the Atlantic world.

African Religions

African Religions PDF Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199790582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

Introduction to African Religion

Introduction to African Religion PDF Author: John S. Mbiti
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478628928
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In his widely acclaimed survey, John Mbiti sheds light on the survival and prosperity of African Religion in different historical, geographical, sociological, cultural, and physical environments. He presents a constellation of African worldviews, beliefs in God, use of symbols, valued traditions, and practices that have taken root with African peoples throughout the vast continent. Mbiti’s accessible writing style sympathetically portrays how African Religion manifests itself in ritual, festival, healing, the human life cycle, and interplay with the mystical and invisible world. The account embraces foundational traditions, while touching on elements that spawn transitions, including migration, the spread of Christianity and Islam, political-economic development, and modern communication. This popular introduction leaves readers with informed knowledge of the riches of African heritage.

Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa

Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa PDF Author: René A. Bravmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521201926
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Most writers have assumed that the spread of the Islamic faith has tended to weaken and undermine the foundations of traditional African society and culture. In this interesting and original study Professor Bravmann re-examines and refutes the assumption that the aniconic attitudes of Islam, especially the prohibition of representational imagery, have had a detrimental effect on the visual arts in the areas of West Africa influenced by this universalistic faith. The strength and flexibility of West African societies and their art forms is clearly revealed in the major part of this study, which is devoted to a detailed examination of the impact of Islam upon traditional art in the Cercle de Bondoukou and west central areas of Ghana. The text is illustrated with numerous photographs showing a variety of art forms and masquerades in the region.

Of Life and Health

Of Life and Health PDF Author: Alexis Bekyane Tengan
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1789201020
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
An anthropological study of the health system of the Dagara people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso, Of Life and Health develops a cultural and epistemological lexicon of Dagara life by examining its religious, ritual, and artistic expressions. Consisting of ethnographic descriptions and analyses of six Dagara cultic institutions, each of which deals with different aspects of sustaining and transmitting life, the volume gives a holistic account of the Dagara knowledge system.

Face of the Gods

Face of the Gods PDF Author: Robert Farris Thompson
Publisher: Museum for African Art/Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Thompson examines the altar traditions in cultures from the Atlantic coast region of Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States.

The Art of Conversion

The Art of Conversion PDF Author: Cecile Fromont
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781469618739
Category : Christian art and symbolism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practised Christianity, actively participating in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm on a par with European monarchies. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, this book examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture, traces its development across four centuries marked by war and the Atlantic slave trade, and finally narrates its unravelling as 19th-century European colonialism penetrated Africa.

African Theology in Images

African Theology in Images PDF Author: Martin Ott
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
This is a revised and updated edition of the comprehensive study of the role of art in the process of inculturation in Africa, first issued in 2000. The study is a substantial contribution toward a theology of inculcation in Africa, and enriches the debate on indigenous African and Christian artistic traditions. It represents the first systematic theology constructed in and from Malawi that establishes a theology of symbolic expression in Africa.

Christian Art and African Modernity

Christian Art and African Modernity PDF Author: Nicholas J. Bridger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783962031350
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description