Publisher's Synopsis
This publication details a 1984 special exhibition of African ivories drawn from outside institutions and meant to augment the understanding of the permanent collection of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition is an assemblage of more than seventy works, a selection of ivories from sub-Saharan Africa that, in craftsmanship and invention, are of an especially high level. We cannot help but marvel at the skill with which African artists have exploited ivory for maximum expressive and luxuriant effects. As a material, ivory also possesses qualities and associations that enhance the meanings of objects carved from it. The value of ivory as an article of trade, its identification with an animal as powerful as the elephant, and its physical properties such as color and hardness contribute to the signficance of ivory in African art. Because of its durability, ivory is one of the media in African art that has best survived the ravages of time and climate. A number of pieces in this exhibition date as far back as the late fifteenth century and testify to the courtly and structured societies that flourished in Africa. This evocation of the past is underscored by the wonderful tonal range in the patinas-those tawny, russet, or aureate surfaces often created through contact with human hands. [This book was originally published in 1984 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]
