Living with Folk Art [antikvár]

IntroductionMany years ago I ventured on a pilgrimage to one of the world's least known collections of ethnic art, kept within the musty edifice of the Homiman Museum in London, where the haphazard display of artifacts from faraway lands offered up a bewildering treat. I wandered from cabinet to cabinet, held at frequent intervals by the startling impact of dance masks from Mexico, Papua New Guinea and West Africa, or by the mesmerizing play of shadows cast by puppets from Indonesia and India. I remember that visit as a first stirring of the wonder that the ethnic arts continue to inspire in me.Living with Folk Art celebrates an appreciation for the creative expression and talent of the men and women of the lands more often referred to as 'less developed', and its limits are not too rigidly circumscribed by the murky areas that surround the semantics of the titles 'folk', 'tribal' or 'primitive'. My own personal taste and the collections that James and I have had the privilege to photograph have clearly had their influence on the scope of this book, which has inevitably meant that some folk traditions have had to be excluded. That apart, the interest and enthusiasm that inspired the collections featured here, and indeed the book itself, have ancient roots. The quest of the more 'civilized' world for the raw materials, artifacts and peoples of the lands beyond the horizon and, indeed, the realms of the imagination, stretch back at least to the days of the Roman Empire, from which time the exotic treasures of the 'primitive' world have proved a lasting source of stimulation to Western wonder and desire. In an age dominated by technology and an ever-accelerating pace of life, these sometimes imperfect and naive arts and crafts provide a feast of creativity, a fount of inspiration and an escape into a world where reason and order are not always the benchmarks of expression. Within this book can be found a rich and colourful introduction to the arts of a world past and present, that is influencing yet again a whole new generation of travellers, collectors, artists and designers.