Zimbabwe. Art, symbol and meaning.
5 Continents| N° d'inventaire | 23075 |
| Format | 25.5 x 31.5 |
| Détails | 256 p., publisher's binding. |
| Publication | Milan, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9788874399468 |
This book takes an in-depth look at the historical art of Zimbabwe's three main cultures: Shona, Ndebele, and Tonga. It traces how art is never separated from life in a historical African context, but remains an important existential tool, an integral part of life. This is why art is found in sacred or functional objects, in interiors, fashion, personal gestures, and ordinary events. In this context, art functions differently, as it is the language of the symbol, a language that accounts for the human psyche's exchanges with others and with the universe. This book opens a window onto the symbolism of Africa, attesting that the mind naturally accounts for two parallel codes: the external code of sensory consciousness and the internal code of subjective awareness. To trace the functioning of the aesthetic code of sub-Saharan Africa, present in all its cultures, is to reveal the symbolism of Africa as a parallel language and expression of its philosophy. This is the purpose of this book. The 200 photographs illustrating Zimbabwe's historic art, taken at a time when it was more readily available, show how art expresses itself through life as a language, with spiritual and cultural meaning, ensuring that this meaning is never alien to the individual consciousness. Most of the photographs were taken in the "Communal Lands," a region "set apart" for Africans during the colonial era. It was here that an African sense of identity, culture, and history survived, first during colonial rule and then during a ruthless dictatorship. The majority of the photographs date from a period between 1998 and 2015, during which Duncan Wylie returned repeatedly to his homeland to undertake what he describes as "a work of transmission and, for the non-African world, a means of deeper appreciation of African art forms and the possibilities of art in general, a key to the discovery of a world that few people have had the chance to explore." Zimbabwe offers an exceptional opportunity to revisit a thousand years of the history of symbolism in this country through the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, a vast medieval city built of stone, unique in its architecture, style and richness of symbolism, with its enigmatic and solid stone tower and walls without defensive function, or its "Birds of Zimbabwe" - ancient sculptures from the 1350s that marked the height of Great Zimbabwe's power -, the country's national emblem. A highly symbolic step in the artist's work was taken with the photographing of these birds from Zimbabwe, not in the museum where they are kept, but amidst the ruins, in other words on the site where they once stood; a way of completing this photographic campaign relating to the historical art of Zimbabwe in the very places where it played its role. The book is the result of the collaboration between the artist who took the photographs over a period of seventeen years and the author of the texts who has dedicated her long career to the arts of Zimbabwe and sub-Saharan Africa as curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The important role played by the local communities must be emphasized: without their active participation, this book intended to evoke their culture, threatened with disappearance and oblivion, would never have seen the light of day.
This book takes an in-depth look at the historical art of Zimbabwe's three main cultures: Shona, Ndebele, and Tonga. It traces how art is never separated from life in a historical African context, but remains an important existential tool, an integral part of life. This is why art is found in sacred or functional objects, in interiors, fashion, personal gestures, and ordinary events. In this context, art functions differently, as it is the language of the symbol, a language that accounts for the human psyche's exchanges with others and with the universe. This book opens a window onto the symbolism of Africa, attesting that the mind naturally accounts for two parallel codes: the external code of sensory consciousness and the internal code of subjective awareness. To trace the functioning of the aesthetic code of sub-Saharan Africa, present in all its cultures, is to reveal the symbolism of Africa as a parallel language and expression of its philosophy. This is the purpose of this book. The 200 photographs illustrating Zimbabwe's historic art, taken at a time when it was more readily available, show how art expresses itself through life as a language, with spiritual and cultural meaning, ensuring that this meaning is never alien to the individual consciousness. Most of the photographs were taken in the "Communal Lands," a region "set apart" for Africans during the colonial era. It was here that an African sense of identity, culture, and history survived, first during colonial rule and then during a ruthless dictatorship. The majority of the photographs date from a period between 1998 and 2015, during which Duncan Wylie returned repeatedly to his homeland to undertake what he describes as "a work of transmission and, for the non-African world, a means of deeper appreciation of African art forms and the possibilities of art in general, a key to the discovery of a world that few people have had the chance to explore." Zimbabwe offers an exceptional opportunity to revisit a thousand years of the history of symbolism in this country through the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, a vast medieval city built of stone, unique in its architecture, style and richness of symbolism, with its enigmatic and solid stone tower and walls without defensive function, or its "Birds of Zimbabwe" - ancient sculptures from the 1350s that marked the height of Great Zimbabwe's power -, the country's national emblem. A highly symbolic step in the artist's work was taken with the photographing of these birds from Zimbabwe, not in the museum where they are kept, but amidst the ruins, in other words on the site where they once stood; a way of completing this photographic campaign relating to the historical art of Zimbabwe in the very places where it played its role. The book is the result of the collaboration between the artist who took the photographs over a period of seventeen years and the author of the texts who has dedicated her long career to the arts of Zimbabwe and sub-Saharan Africa as curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The important role played by the local communities must be emphasized: without their active participation, this book intended to evoke their culture, threatened with disappearance and oblivion, would never have seen the light of day.