8 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
Looking for Africa in
Carl Einstein’s Negerplastik
Z.S. Strother
all photos by the author except where otherwise noted
I
n 1914, two men strove to publish the first theoretical
treatise on African art composed in a European lan-
guage. The Latvian painter Voldemārs Matvejs and the
German author Carl Einstein worked virtually simulta-
neously and without knowledge of one another. Matvejs
died precipitously in May, delaying publication of his
manuscript, Iskusstvo Negrov (“Negro Art”) until 1919. During
his lifetime, Latvia was part of the Russian Empire and Matvejs
wrote in Russian under the pseudonym of “Vladimir Markov.”
When published, after the Revolution, his text exercised a for-
mative impact on the Soviet avant-garde, for instance, on Malev-
ich, Tatlin, and Rodchenko, before the Stalinist art establishment
consigned it to oblivion in the 1930s. Einstein’s book Negerplastik
(“Negro sculpture”) appeared in 1915 with notable success, but
then also gradually disappeared from view.1 Since 1961, the text
has garnered increasing attention thanks to the rising profile of
Einstein himself. For both men, the claim to be the “discoverer
of African art”2 has helped shaped their image as culture heroes
suitable for canonization in the twenty-first century.
But what role was there for Africa in theories of African art?
Simon Gikandi warns us: “Much has been written on Picasso and
primitivism but little on his specific engagement with Africa”
(2006:33).3 By so doing, he argues that scholars replicate Picasso’s
own strategies in separating works of art from the people and
societies that produced them and perhaps for the same reason:
“to minimise … the constitutive role of Africa in the making of
modernism” (ibid., p. 34). The questions asked of Picasso need
to be posed for the larger community of European modernists
fascinated by art objects from other parts of the world. This essay
takes up Gikandi’s challenge to query what the critic Carl Ein-
stein believed about Africans and what his sources were.4
The FirsT LiFe oF NegerpLasTik: The phoTographs5
“Another hole in the classical canon of beauty.”—Hermann Hesse
Both Matvejs and Einstein recognized instantly that they
could not write critically about African art without first gen-
erating a substantial body of images. At the beginning of his
book, Matvejs emphasized how few photographs of freestand-
ing African sculptures existed when he began his project. As a
consequence, he was forced to travel extensively across Europe
in order to document outstanding sculptures in museum collec-
tions (2009 [1919]:79–80). In contrast, Einstein took advantage
of his connections in the art world to scavenge for professional
photos. Both books provide striking confirmation for Frederick
Bohrer’s thesis that photography was essential to the invention of
art history because it was able to generate a body of comparisons
and (as Bern.
A Mythology Of Forms Carl Einstein On PicassoFinni Rice
This document summarizes and discusses Carl Einstein's writings on Pablo Picasso from the 1920s-1930s. It makes the following key points:
1. Einstein saw Picasso's art as having radical transformative power by destroying conventional reality and generating new forms of visuality and subjectivity.
2. Einstein's longest and most in-depth analysis of Picasso's work was in his three editions of The Art of the 20th Century from 1926-1931, constituting the longest text on Picasso at the time.
3. For Einstein, an artwork's power relied on achieving "totality" - a state of radical autonomy that disrupted conventional order and temporarily seized the beholder. Picasso's
The document discusses Cubism and Abstraction in early 20th century art, describing how Cubism revolutionized the treatment of form and space by abandoning traditional perspective techniques and focusing on geometric shapes and multiple viewpoints. It explains that Cubism was influenced by theories of relativity, psychoanalysis, and non-Western art, seeking to depict new conceptualizations of objects rather than realistic illusions. The movement transformed painting and sculpture through techniques like collage, facets, and abstraction of form.
Maurits Cornelis Escher-6ISTITUTO DI ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE "G.LAPIRA"- Mihaela Ursachi
Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch graphic artist known for his mathematically inspired and impossible objects. He was inspired by the intricate tile designs of the Alhambra in Spain. While some viewed his work as too intellectual, Escher explored mathematical concepts like tessellation, hyperbolic geometry, perspective and symmetry. Some of his most famous works include Tower of Babel, Gravitation, and Waterfall which features the Penrose triangle, an impossible object.
Elisabeth Penker's solo show at the HTTP Gallery in London featured her sound installation "Die Bildhauerin" which breaks down the grammatical structure of words into phonetic units that shape the surrounding space. Her performance involved playing a geometric wooden structure covered with industrial flooring that amplifies sounds produced with wooden blocks and sandpaper. Penker's work successfully rephrases the avant-garde idea of incorporating industrial materials and linguistics into music production. For her upcoming show, she plans to create a "First Nation Pavilion" that examines colonial consciousness and reimagines cultural plurality in contemporary art.
Eduardo Paolozzi created a series of collages in the late 1940s-early 1950s called the "Bunk" collages that are considered prototypical works of Pop art. The collages incorporated cutouts from American magazines featuring consumer goods, sex symbols, and advertisements combined in dynamic compositions. While in Paris in the late 1940s, Paolozzi was exposed to Surrealism but the "Bunk" collages used contemporary advertising imagery in a direct style rather than the Surrealist aesthetic of his other works. Paolozzi's 1952 presentation of the collages was met with disbelief but they later became known through a print series made from them in the 1970s.
Expressionism was an early 20th century art movement characterized by subjective expression over objective reality. Two major German groups were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Die Brücke, formed in Dresden in 1905, sought to reject academic styles through emotional use of color and distortion. Key members included Kirchner, Heckel, and Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Blaue Reiter, led by Kandinsky and Franz Marc from 1911-1914, was more focused on abstraction and the spiritual expression of color. Both groups made significant contributions to the development of modern abstract art before being disrupted by World War I.
From Object to concept: environment, performance, and installation artDeborahJ
This document provides an overview of postmodern art movements that emerged in response to modernism, including minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, body art, earthworks, and installation art. It discusses how these genres emphasized ideas over visual forms, incorporated elements of theatre and audience participation, and challenged definitions of art. Key artists mentioned include Robert Morris, Joseph Kosuth, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Richard Serra, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, and Bruce Nauman. It also summarizes Michael Fried's criticism of minimalism and Rosalind Krauss' theory of sculpture's "expanded field."
Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest)(b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1.docxcatheryncouper
Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest)
(b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1925; d Captiva Island, FL, 12 May 2008).
American painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer, and performance artist. While too much of an individualist ever to be fully a part of any movement, he acted as an important bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art and can be credited as one of the major influences in the return to favour of representational art in the USA. As iconoclastic in his invention of new techniques as in his wide-ranging iconography of modern life, he suggested new possibilities that continued to be exploited by younger artists throughout the latter decades of the 20th century.
1. Training and early work, to 1953.
Rauschenberg studied at Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design from 1947 to 1948 under the terms of the GI Bill before travelling to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian for a period of about six months. On reading about the work of Josef Albers he returned to the USA to study from autumn 1948 to spring 1949 at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, where he was taught byAlbers and his wife Anni Albers; he moved in spring 1949 to New York, where he attended the Art Students League until 1952. During this period he continued to visit Black Mountain College, where he came into contact with members of the department of music and dance, in particularJOHN CAGE and MERCE CUNNINGHAM, who helped shape his own ideas and in particular his reliance on chance methods, daily experiences and found material as elements of his art.
In the early 1950s, just as Abstract Expressionism was being recognized as the most important avant-garde movement to have emerged in the USA, Rauschenberg produced several series of abstract paintings: a group of White Paintings (1951; e.g. artist’s col., see 1980–81 exh. cat., p. 259), followed by Black Paintings (1951–2; e.g. artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 67) and Red Paintings (1953; e.g. Beverly Hills, CA, Frederick R. Weisman priv. col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 75). His concern, however, was not so much to project his personality through the individuality of the brushwork, as in action painting, but to present the textured surfaces of these essentially monochromatic works as screens whose appearance changed in response to the lighting conditions and the shadows cast on them by the spectators.
The first of Rauschenberg’s monochromes, some of which were painted on multiple panels measuring over 3 m in width overall, were made as backdrops for dance performances. While their austerity of form prefigures Minimalism of the 1960s, they were thus conceived largely in relation to the human figure. Rauschenberg’s importance and influence, in fact, were centred from the beginning on the highly original ways in which he reintroduced recognizable imagery. From 1949 to 1951 he and his wife, Susan Weil, whom he had met as a fellow student in Paris and married in 1950, produced a group of large-scale monoprints by shining a s ...
A Mythology Of Forms Carl Einstein On PicassoFinni Rice
This document summarizes and discusses Carl Einstein's writings on Pablo Picasso from the 1920s-1930s. It makes the following key points:
1. Einstein saw Picasso's art as having radical transformative power by destroying conventional reality and generating new forms of visuality and subjectivity.
2. Einstein's longest and most in-depth analysis of Picasso's work was in his three editions of The Art of the 20th Century from 1926-1931, constituting the longest text on Picasso at the time.
3. For Einstein, an artwork's power relied on achieving "totality" - a state of radical autonomy that disrupted conventional order and temporarily seized the beholder. Picasso's
The document discusses Cubism and Abstraction in early 20th century art, describing how Cubism revolutionized the treatment of form and space by abandoning traditional perspective techniques and focusing on geometric shapes and multiple viewpoints. It explains that Cubism was influenced by theories of relativity, psychoanalysis, and non-Western art, seeking to depict new conceptualizations of objects rather than realistic illusions. The movement transformed painting and sculpture through techniques like collage, facets, and abstraction of form.
Maurits Cornelis Escher-6ISTITUTO DI ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE "G.LAPIRA"- Mihaela Ursachi
Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch graphic artist known for his mathematically inspired and impossible objects. He was inspired by the intricate tile designs of the Alhambra in Spain. While some viewed his work as too intellectual, Escher explored mathematical concepts like tessellation, hyperbolic geometry, perspective and symmetry. Some of his most famous works include Tower of Babel, Gravitation, and Waterfall which features the Penrose triangle, an impossible object.
Elisabeth Penker's solo show at the HTTP Gallery in London featured her sound installation "Die Bildhauerin" which breaks down the grammatical structure of words into phonetic units that shape the surrounding space. Her performance involved playing a geometric wooden structure covered with industrial flooring that amplifies sounds produced with wooden blocks and sandpaper. Penker's work successfully rephrases the avant-garde idea of incorporating industrial materials and linguistics into music production. For her upcoming show, she plans to create a "First Nation Pavilion" that examines colonial consciousness and reimagines cultural plurality in contemporary art.
Eduardo Paolozzi created a series of collages in the late 1940s-early 1950s called the "Bunk" collages that are considered prototypical works of Pop art. The collages incorporated cutouts from American magazines featuring consumer goods, sex symbols, and advertisements combined in dynamic compositions. While in Paris in the late 1940s, Paolozzi was exposed to Surrealism but the "Bunk" collages used contemporary advertising imagery in a direct style rather than the Surrealist aesthetic of his other works. Paolozzi's 1952 presentation of the collages was met with disbelief but they later became known through a print series made from them in the 1970s.
Expressionism was an early 20th century art movement characterized by subjective expression over objective reality. Two major German groups were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Die Brücke, formed in Dresden in 1905, sought to reject academic styles through emotional use of color and distortion. Key members included Kirchner, Heckel, and Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Blaue Reiter, led by Kandinsky and Franz Marc from 1911-1914, was more focused on abstraction and the spiritual expression of color. Both groups made significant contributions to the development of modern abstract art before being disrupted by World War I.
From Object to concept: environment, performance, and installation artDeborahJ
This document provides an overview of postmodern art movements that emerged in response to modernism, including minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, body art, earthworks, and installation art. It discusses how these genres emphasized ideas over visual forms, incorporated elements of theatre and audience participation, and challenged definitions of art. Key artists mentioned include Robert Morris, Joseph Kosuth, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Richard Serra, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, and Bruce Nauman. It also summarizes Michael Fried's criticism of minimalism and Rosalind Krauss' theory of sculpture's "expanded field."
Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest)(b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1.docxcatheryncouper
Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest)
(b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1925; d Captiva Island, FL, 12 May 2008).
American painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer, and performance artist. While too much of an individualist ever to be fully a part of any movement, he acted as an important bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art and can be credited as one of the major influences in the return to favour of representational art in the USA. As iconoclastic in his invention of new techniques as in his wide-ranging iconography of modern life, he suggested new possibilities that continued to be exploited by younger artists throughout the latter decades of the 20th century.
1. Training and early work, to 1953.
Rauschenberg studied at Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design from 1947 to 1948 under the terms of the GI Bill before travelling to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian for a period of about six months. On reading about the work of Josef Albers he returned to the USA to study from autumn 1948 to spring 1949 at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, where he was taught byAlbers and his wife Anni Albers; he moved in spring 1949 to New York, where he attended the Art Students League until 1952. During this period he continued to visit Black Mountain College, where he came into contact with members of the department of music and dance, in particularJOHN CAGE and MERCE CUNNINGHAM, who helped shape his own ideas and in particular his reliance on chance methods, daily experiences and found material as elements of his art.
In the early 1950s, just as Abstract Expressionism was being recognized as the most important avant-garde movement to have emerged in the USA, Rauschenberg produced several series of abstract paintings: a group of White Paintings (1951; e.g. artist’s col., see 1980–81 exh. cat., p. 259), followed by Black Paintings (1951–2; e.g. artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 67) and Red Paintings (1953; e.g. Beverly Hills, CA, Frederick R. Weisman priv. col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 75). His concern, however, was not so much to project his personality through the individuality of the brushwork, as in action painting, but to present the textured surfaces of these essentially monochromatic works as screens whose appearance changed in response to the lighting conditions and the shadows cast on them by the spectators.
The first of Rauschenberg’s monochromes, some of which were painted on multiple panels measuring over 3 m in width overall, were made as backdrops for dance performances. While their austerity of form prefigures Minimalism of the 1960s, they were thus conceived largely in relation to the human figure. Rauschenberg’s importance and influence, in fact, were centred from the beginning on the highly original ways in which he reintroduced recognizable imagery. From 1949 to 1951 he and his wife, Susan Weil, whom he had met as a fellow student in Paris and married in 1950, produced a group of large-scale monoprints by shining a s ...
Clyfford Still's Untitled (1960) painting is analyzed. The massive 113 by 146.5 inch abstract work utilizes thick layers of burgundy, maroon, orange and black paint applied with palette knives, creating a textured surface. It dissolves figuration and represents a radical modern style. The work challenges traditional concepts of space and the sublime. It creates an overwhelming absolute space that seems to extend beyond the canvas edges. The lack of color contrasts pulls the viewer into the work's immaterial void. The piece reflects Still's mature style of the late 1940s-1960s that broke new ground in realizing modern art's exploration of abstract space.
Spain and New Spain 729brought and the value of visual imChereCheek752
Spain and New Spain 729
brought and the value of visual imagery in communicating e!ec-
tively with a wide audience. "us both kings continued to spend
lavishly on art.
Juan Sánchez Cotán. One painter who made a major con-
tribution to the development of Spanish art, although he did not
receive any royal commissions, was J#$% S&%'()* C+,&% (1560–
1627). Born in Orgaz, outside Toledo, Sánchez Cotán moved to
Granada and became a Carthusian monk in 1603. Although he
painted religious subjects, his greatest works are the still lifes (paint-
ings of artfully arranged inanimate objects) that he produced before
entering monastic life (and never therea-er). Few in number, they
nonetheless established still-life painting as an important genre in
17th-century Spain.
Still Life with Game Fowl (./0. 24-25) is one of Sánchez Cotán’s
most ambitious compositions, but it conforms to the pattern he
adopted for all of his still lifes. A niche or a window—the artist
clearly wished the setting to be indeterminate—1lls the entire sur-
face of the canvas. At the bottom, fruits and vegetables, including
a melon—cut open with a slice removed—rest on a ledge. Above,
suspended on strings from a nail or hook outside the frame, are
a quince and four game fowl. All are meticulously rendered and
brightly illuminated, enhancing the viewer’s sense of each texture,
color, and shape, yet the background is impenetrable shadow. "e
sharp and unnatural contrast between light and dark imbues the
still life with a sense of mystery that is absent, for example, in Dutch
still-life paintings (./02. 25-1, 25-22, and 25-23).
"ere may, in fact, be a religious reference. Sánchez Cotán
once described his 11 paintings of fruits, vegetables, and birds as
“o!erings to the Virgin”—probably a reference to the Virgin as the
fenestra coeli (“window to Heaven”) and the source of spiritual food
for the faithful.
Fra Andrea Pozzo. Another master of ceiling decoration was
F3$ A%43)$ P+**+ (1642–1709), a lay brother of the Jesuit order
and a master of perspective, on which he wrote an in5uential trea-
tise. Pozzo designed and executed the vast ceiling fresco Glori!ca-
tion of Saint Ignatius (./0. 24-24) for the church of Sant’Ignazio
in Rome (see “How to Make a Ceiling Disappear,” page 728). Like
Il Gesù, Sant’Ignazio was a prominent Counter-Reformation
church because of its dedication to the founder of the Jesuit order.
"e Jesuits played a major role in Catholic education and sent
legions of missionaries to the New World and Asia.
SPAIN AND NEW SPAIN
During the 16th century, Spain had established itself as an interna-
tional power. "e Habsburg kings had built a dynastic state encom-
passing Portugal, part of Italy, the Netherlands, and extensive areas
of the New World. By the beginning of the 17th century, however,
the Habsburg Empire was in decline, and although Spain mounted
an aggressive e!ort during the "irty Years’ War, by 1660 the impe-
rial age of the Spa ...
ARTARCHITECTURE; The Truth Is Out How Realists Could Be So Reali.docxdavezstarr61655
ART/ARCHITECTURE; The Truth Is Out: How Realists Could Be So Realistic
By RICHARD B. WOODWARD
Published: Sunday, November 25, 2001
THOMAS EAKINS had a secret. For decades he engaged in a practice that many in late-19th-century Philadelphia would very likely have regarded as scandalous had they known. Not wanting to risk exposure, he kept quiet about it all his life. If any of his students or friends ever guessed -- and someone could easily have discovered him in the act -- they never talked either. His wife said in an interview that if he did it, he didn't enjoy it.
I refer, of course, to the stunning discovery -- revealed for the first time at the current Eakins retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum Art -- that the artist hailed by an 1882 critic as ''the greatest draughtsman in America'' often relied on projected images to make paintings and watercolors during the 1870's and 80's. To be blunt: he traced from photographs.
According to Darrell Sewell, the museum's chief curator of American painting and the show's organizer, ''This is big news.'' What was long suspected as a practice among realist artists of the time has finally been proven. Never before has a 19th-century painter -- and not just any painter -- been ''caught'' seeking such direct aid from the novel and then controversial 19th-century invention. Curators around the world must now re-examine all kinds of post-1839 work in the light of this new discovery. At the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where the exhibition travels next year, the process has already begun.
As a special video about the revelation spells out, uncovering the truth was fortuitous. Eakins left a trail in the form of hundreds of photographs. By chance, these were saved by his wife and then by an acolyte. The museum's conservators, Mark Tucker and Nica Gutman, knew what to look for when they began to study the paintings. Using infrared reflectography, they detected odd preparatory drawings beneath layers of pigment and were able to match them to the photographic prints and glass plates owned by Eakins.
In some cases, like ''Shad Fishing at Gloucester on the Delaware River,'' from 1881, Eakins drew from a single photograph projected on the canvas. But more commonly, as in an earlier version of the same painting, or in ''Mending the Net,'' also from 1881, the composition was built up from a half-dozen or more separate photographs. Like a digital film director, he would set the scene by choosing one image as the establishing shot, for drawing in trees and various landscape features. Then, from other photographs he had taken, he would project the human or animal figures he wanted in the painting.
The process involved planning and rigorous editing. A science-minded realist, Eakins never hid his appreciation for the new medium. He urged students to photograph one another nude for purposes of anatomical study and was an early champion of Eadweard Muybridge's attempts to capture motion with a camera. In 1878 he even a.
This document discusses how J.J. Winckelmann's ideas influenced the establishment of the classical paradigm for art museums in the 19th century. Specifically, it discusses how Winckelmann viewed art history as progressing through distinct periods and styles, and how he believed Greek art represented the pinnacle of beauty. This hierarchical, period-based view of art history shaped how the Louvre museum in Paris organized and displayed its collection, establishing the Louvre as the model for art museums worldwide. The Louvre arranged its works by historical period and national school according to Winckelmann's ideas, aiming to reveal the unique character of each culture.
- Expressionism emerged in early 20th century art as a style focused on emotional and spiritual expression. It drew inspiration from Van Gogh, Munch, Fauvism, German Gothic art, and primitive art.
- Two major German Expressionist factions were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Die Brücke was an artistic community in Dresden that aimed to overthrow traditions, while Der Blaue Reiter focused on finding common ground across diverse art forms.
- Expressionism spread through the work of individual artists after the groups disbanded and evolved the movement globally.
1) The document discusses the prevailing attitudes in 16th century Italy that viewed Netherlandish art as inferior to Italian art. Italian artists like Michelangelo felt their art was superior because it descended from Roman and Greek traditions.
2) Michelangelo is quoted as criticizing Netherlandish art, saying it appeals only to certain groups and fails to achieve "true harmony." Northern artists like Massys and Bosch responded to such criticism through humor and by challenging Italian conventions.
3) The document argues that Northern art should not continue to be viewed through an Italian framework, and that what Netherlandish art truly excelled at was challenging traditions and conventions through humor rather than rigidly following formulas.
Optical illusions have appealed to the mind of spectators throughout
history, and have had great impact when combined with architectural
elements. Illusionary methods have been used by artists and architects
since antiquity, but only during the Renaissance were they scientifically
analysed to produce the techniques of perspective, anamorphosis,
and their integration with trompe l’oeil. This paper is a study of these
methods employed by artists and architects, focusing on the invention
and evolution of the technique of anamorphosis from its birth during
the Italian Renaissance. By analysing a compilation of early and
contemporary cases of architectural illusionism in two and three
dimensions, the methods used to manipulate observers’ perceptions
are explored in detail. By reintroducing these techniques of the past
into contemporary practice they can prove very beneficial by
producing enhancing spaces when spatial or economic restraints must
be overcomeUccello, Mantegna, masschio, and Leonardo da Vince
The document provides an overview of art history from 1911-1917, covering the development of Cubism, Dada, abstraction, and other modern art movements. It discusses key artists and works, including Picasso and Braque's experiments with Cubism, Duchamp's readymades, Malevich's suprematist paintings, and Mondrian's transition to pure abstraction through his Neoplastic style. The document also covers the origins of Dada in Zurich during World War I and Alfred Stieglitz's promotion of modernist photography in America through his journal Camera Work.
Installation art aims to transform viewers' perceptions by filling spaces with constructed environments that utilize various materials and locations. It differs from traditional art forms by incorporating the changing perspectives of moving viewers who can interact within the pieces. Key developments included early 20th century experiments, 1960s "happenings", and emerging technologies now enable interactive digital installations. Installation art remains a dominant contemporary medium due to its immersive experiences for viewers.
Cover Page
Subject
Your name
Course title
Professor’s name
Date
Favorite Artist:
Picture of your artist
Favorite Artist:
Biography of your artist
Image of the first artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the first artwork
Image of the second artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the second artwork
Image of the third artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the third artwork
Conclusion
Works cited
Pablo Picasso
(you can be creative to choose a title)
Art 100 Art Appreciation
Student’s name
Professsor’s name
Date submitted
Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)
Biography
Pablo Picasso is considered to be one of the most famous painters in the twentieth century. He was born in Malaga, Spain on October 20, 1881. In addition to painting, Picasso was also a printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright. He spent most of his adult life in France.
Early life
Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil". From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, the father felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him and vowed to give up painting.
Fame
Picasso grew up to become one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso is now regarded as one of the artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century
Personal life and Death
Picasso had affairs with a lot of women and was married twice and had four children, Paulo, Maya, Claude and Paloma by three women. He died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Chateau of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral. Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.
The weeping woman
October 26, 1937
Oil on canvas
t has been in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987 and is currently located there.
Analysis
The color scheme used in the painting seems like a mystery. Picasso frequently used a monochrome or even a grisaille ...
A permanent Japonisme display [New Jersey]S.E. Thompson
The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University has inaugurated the first permanent display devoted to Japonisme, the international aesthetic movement documenting the cultural exchange between Japan and the West from the mid-19th to early 20th century. Though the works are not masterpieces, the gallery effectively presents the admiration, disdain, and misunderstandings Western artists had in adapting Japanese culture in their works. It also shows the positive and negative depictions Japanese artists had when incorporating Western culture into their works. The display provides rich evidence of the shaping of 19th-century European modernism and East Asian art through this cultural exchange.
THE DIVERSE BEAUTY OF MATHILDENHÖHE: AN INSIGHT INTO AESTHETIC PHILOSOPHY AND...John1Lorcan
This article aims to look at the World Heritage Site from the perspective of curatorial studies and aesthetic
philosophy. The Darmstadt Artists' Colony made an enormous contribution to art and formed a bridge
between the British Arts & Crafts movement and the German Association of Craftsmen, which eventually
led to the Bauhaus movement. The last Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine was not only a patron who
founded this Artists' Colony, but also a prominent curator together with the Austrian architect and one of
the founders of the Vienna Secession, Joseph Maria Olbrich. Together they combined economic
development with artistic innovation. The establishment of the Darmstadt Artists' Colony was a sensation
in the art world. Itmarked the beginning of the 20th century, turning everyday life into an aesthetic
experience.
Assemblage involves bonding found objects together to create sculptures. It allows artists to give new meaning to everyday items. Famous assemblage artists include Marcel Duchamp, who created readymades like Bicycle Wheel and Fountain, and Louise Nevelson, who assembled wood scraps into monumental black sculptures. Robert Rauschenberg is also known for his combines, which merged paintings and found objects into mixed media works like Monogram, featuring a stuffed goat.
TOK - Theory of knowledge essay (what counts as knowledge in the arts)Sarah Lee
1. The essay discusses what counts as knowledge in the arts by comparing it to knowledge in mathematics. Knowledge in art includes an artist's intentions in creating a work, as well as audience interpretations, which can vary unlike the fixed truths in mathematics.
2. Cultural and historical context also provide knowledge in art by revealing aspects of societies and traditions. In contrast, mathematics is a more universal language where concepts remain the same across cultures.
3. Emotions may result from artistic works but are not knowledge in mathematics, which is about tangible discoveries rather than intangible human experiences captured by art.
This document discusses abstract art and its history. It defines abstract art as art that departs from natural appearances by modifying or changing forms to emphasize certain qualities rather than representing nature. Wassily Kandinsky is identified as one of the first abstract artists, creating non-representational paintings using color and form rather than depicting objects. Abstract art aims to give pictorial form to emotions and sensations through conceptual or absolute elements rather than realistic images. It extracts the essence of things to represent ideas through structures and shapes.
The document discusses Post-Impressionism and focuses on Paul Gauguin's contributions. It analyzes four of Gauguin's paintings chronologically to show his departures from Impressionism in content and composition. The first painting depicted a vision with symbolic religious figures. The second was a self-portrait of Gauguin as Christ reflecting personal struggles. After moving to Tahiti, his paintings incorporated local folk cultures but with European themes. He transformed European subjects with his interpretations of exotic ones. Gauguin's works emphasized expression over naturalism and showed his rejection of Impressionist conventions.
The document discusses the origins and purposes of cave paintings. It notes that the earliest cave paintings in Europe date back 40,000 years ago in Spain. While the exact purpose is unknown, theories suggest they were not merely decorations but may have been used to communicate or for religious/ceremonial purposes. The first cave paintings were discovered in 1870 in Altamira, Spain and were painted between 16,000-9,000 BC by the Magdalenian people, mainly depicting bisons.
For this assignment, review the articleAbomhara, M., & Koie.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, review the article:
Abomhara, M., & Koien, G.M. (2015). Cyber security and the internet of things: Vulnerabilities, threats, intruders, and attacks.
Journal of Cyber Security, 4
, 65-88. Doi: 10.13052/jcsm2245-1439.414
and evaluate it in 3 pages (800 words), in APA format with in-text citation using your own words, by addressing the following:
What did the authors investigate, and in general how did they do so?
Identify the hypothesis or question being tested
Summarize the overall article.
Identify the conclusions of the authors
Indicate whether or not you think the data support their conclusions/hypothesis
Consider alternative explanations for the results
Provide any additional comments pertaining to other approaches to testing their hypothesis (logical follow-up studies to build on, confirm or refute the conclusions)
The relevance or importance of the study
The appropriateness of the experimental design
When you write your evaluation, be brief and concise, this is not meant to be an essay but an objective evaluation that one can read very easily and quickly. Also, you should include a complete reference (title, authors, journal, issue, pages) you turn in your evaluation. This is good practice for your literature review, which you’ll be completing during the dissertation process.
.
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus N.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus National Security
. This is a particularly "hot topic" because of recent actions by the federal government taken against Apple. So, please use information from reliable sources to support your perspective.
This assignment should be 1.5 pages in length, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced on a Word documen
.
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy vers.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus National Security
. This is a particularly "hot topic" because of recent actions by the federal government taken against Apple. So, please use information from reliable sources to support your perspective.
This assignment should be 1.5 pages in length, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced on a Word document.
.
For this Assignment, read the case study for Claudia and find two to.docxsleeperharwell
For this Assignment, read the case study for Claudia and find two to three scholarly articles on social issues surrounding immigrant families.
In a 2- to 4-page paper, explain how the literature informs you about Claudia and her family when assessing her situation.
Describe two social issues related to the course-specific case study for Claudia that inform a culturally competent social worker.
Describe culturally competent strategies you might use to assess the needs of children.
Describe the types of data you would collect from Claudia and her family in order to best serve them.
Identify other resources that may offer you further information about Claudia’s case.
Create an eco-map to represent Claudia’s situation. Describe how the ecological perspective of assessment influenced how the social worker interacted with Claudia.
Describe how the social worker in the case used a strengths perspective and multiple tools in her assessment of Claudia. Explain how those factors contributed to the therapeutic relationship with Claudia and her family.
.
For this assignment, please start by doing research regarding the se.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, please start by doing research regarding the severity of prejudicial aggression/violence from the past. After you do this, research the severity of prejudicial aggression/violence that has gone on in the past decade. Target the same specific groups that have been the aggressor and victim in both your historical group and your present-day group. For instance, if you choose "black vs. white" in the 1950s, you must use the same group for your present-day group. Once you do this, discuss various ways that it is the same, as well as why it is different between the time periods. What influences have changed? Why is it better now, or worse now than in the past? Please discuss how the advancements in media (news, entertainment, and social media) have had on this issue, along with whatever you come up with outside of media influence. Make sure you back your information up with citations from your sources.
.
More Related Content
Similar to 8 african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4Looking for Afr.docx
Clyfford Still's Untitled (1960) painting is analyzed. The massive 113 by 146.5 inch abstract work utilizes thick layers of burgundy, maroon, orange and black paint applied with palette knives, creating a textured surface. It dissolves figuration and represents a radical modern style. The work challenges traditional concepts of space and the sublime. It creates an overwhelming absolute space that seems to extend beyond the canvas edges. The lack of color contrasts pulls the viewer into the work's immaterial void. The piece reflects Still's mature style of the late 1940s-1960s that broke new ground in realizing modern art's exploration of abstract space.
Spain and New Spain 729brought and the value of visual imChereCheek752
Spain and New Spain 729
brought and the value of visual imagery in communicating e!ec-
tively with a wide audience. "us both kings continued to spend
lavishly on art.
Juan Sánchez Cotán. One painter who made a major con-
tribution to the development of Spanish art, although he did not
receive any royal commissions, was J#$% S&%'()* C+,&% (1560–
1627). Born in Orgaz, outside Toledo, Sánchez Cotán moved to
Granada and became a Carthusian monk in 1603. Although he
painted religious subjects, his greatest works are the still lifes (paint-
ings of artfully arranged inanimate objects) that he produced before
entering monastic life (and never therea-er). Few in number, they
nonetheless established still-life painting as an important genre in
17th-century Spain.
Still Life with Game Fowl (./0. 24-25) is one of Sánchez Cotán’s
most ambitious compositions, but it conforms to the pattern he
adopted for all of his still lifes. A niche or a window—the artist
clearly wished the setting to be indeterminate—1lls the entire sur-
face of the canvas. At the bottom, fruits and vegetables, including
a melon—cut open with a slice removed—rest on a ledge. Above,
suspended on strings from a nail or hook outside the frame, are
a quince and four game fowl. All are meticulously rendered and
brightly illuminated, enhancing the viewer’s sense of each texture,
color, and shape, yet the background is impenetrable shadow. "e
sharp and unnatural contrast between light and dark imbues the
still life with a sense of mystery that is absent, for example, in Dutch
still-life paintings (./02. 25-1, 25-22, and 25-23).
"ere may, in fact, be a religious reference. Sánchez Cotán
once described his 11 paintings of fruits, vegetables, and birds as
“o!erings to the Virgin”—probably a reference to the Virgin as the
fenestra coeli (“window to Heaven”) and the source of spiritual food
for the faithful.
Fra Andrea Pozzo. Another master of ceiling decoration was
F3$ A%43)$ P+**+ (1642–1709), a lay brother of the Jesuit order
and a master of perspective, on which he wrote an in5uential trea-
tise. Pozzo designed and executed the vast ceiling fresco Glori!ca-
tion of Saint Ignatius (./0. 24-24) for the church of Sant’Ignazio
in Rome (see “How to Make a Ceiling Disappear,” page 728). Like
Il Gesù, Sant’Ignazio was a prominent Counter-Reformation
church because of its dedication to the founder of the Jesuit order.
"e Jesuits played a major role in Catholic education and sent
legions of missionaries to the New World and Asia.
SPAIN AND NEW SPAIN
During the 16th century, Spain had established itself as an interna-
tional power. "e Habsburg kings had built a dynastic state encom-
passing Portugal, part of Italy, the Netherlands, and extensive areas
of the New World. By the beginning of the 17th century, however,
the Habsburg Empire was in decline, and although Spain mounted
an aggressive e!ort during the "irty Years’ War, by 1660 the impe-
rial age of the Spa ...
ARTARCHITECTURE; The Truth Is Out How Realists Could Be So Reali.docxdavezstarr61655
ART/ARCHITECTURE; The Truth Is Out: How Realists Could Be So Realistic
By RICHARD B. WOODWARD
Published: Sunday, November 25, 2001
THOMAS EAKINS had a secret. For decades he engaged in a practice that many in late-19th-century Philadelphia would very likely have regarded as scandalous had they known. Not wanting to risk exposure, he kept quiet about it all his life. If any of his students or friends ever guessed -- and someone could easily have discovered him in the act -- they never talked either. His wife said in an interview that if he did it, he didn't enjoy it.
I refer, of course, to the stunning discovery -- revealed for the first time at the current Eakins retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum Art -- that the artist hailed by an 1882 critic as ''the greatest draughtsman in America'' often relied on projected images to make paintings and watercolors during the 1870's and 80's. To be blunt: he traced from photographs.
According to Darrell Sewell, the museum's chief curator of American painting and the show's organizer, ''This is big news.'' What was long suspected as a practice among realist artists of the time has finally been proven. Never before has a 19th-century painter -- and not just any painter -- been ''caught'' seeking such direct aid from the novel and then controversial 19th-century invention. Curators around the world must now re-examine all kinds of post-1839 work in the light of this new discovery. At the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where the exhibition travels next year, the process has already begun.
As a special video about the revelation spells out, uncovering the truth was fortuitous. Eakins left a trail in the form of hundreds of photographs. By chance, these were saved by his wife and then by an acolyte. The museum's conservators, Mark Tucker and Nica Gutman, knew what to look for when they began to study the paintings. Using infrared reflectography, they detected odd preparatory drawings beneath layers of pigment and were able to match them to the photographic prints and glass plates owned by Eakins.
In some cases, like ''Shad Fishing at Gloucester on the Delaware River,'' from 1881, Eakins drew from a single photograph projected on the canvas. But more commonly, as in an earlier version of the same painting, or in ''Mending the Net,'' also from 1881, the composition was built up from a half-dozen or more separate photographs. Like a digital film director, he would set the scene by choosing one image as the establishing shot, for drawing in trees and various landscape features. Then, from other photographs he had taken, he would project the human or animal figures he wanted in the painting.
The process involved planning and rigorous editing. A science-minded realist, Eakins never hid his appreciation for the new medium. He urged students to photograph one another nude for purposes of anatomical study and was an early champion of Eadweard Muybridge's attempts to capture motion with a camera. In 1878 he even a.
This document discusses how J.J. Winckelmann's ideas influenced the establishment of the classical paradigm for art museums in the 19th century. Specifically, it discusses how Winckelmann viewed art history as progressing through distinct periods and styles, and how he believed Greek art represented the pinnacle of beauty. This hierarchical, period-based view of art history shaped how the Louvre museum in Paris organized and displayed its collection, establishing the Louvre as the model for art museums worldwide. The Louvre arranged its works by historical period and national school according to Winckelmann's ideas, aiming to reveal the unique character of each culture.
- Expressionism emerged in early 20th century art as a style focused on emotional and spiritual expression. It drew inspiration from Van Gogh, Munch, Fauvism, German Gothic art, and primitive art.
- Two major German Expressionist factions were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Die Brücke was an artistic community in Dresden that aimed to overthrow traditions, while Der Blaue Reiter focused on finding common ground across diverse art forms.
- Expressionism spread through the work of individual artists after the groups disbanded and evolved the movement globally.
1) The document discusses the prevailing attitudes in 16th century Italy that viewed Netherlandish art as inferior to Italian art. Italian artists like Michelangelo felt their art was superior because it descended from Roman and Greek traditions.
2) Michelangelo is quoted as criticizing Netherlandish art, saying it appeals only to certain groups and fails to achieve "true harmony." Northern artists like Massys and Bosch responded to such criticism through humor and by challenging Italian conventions.
3) The document argues that Northern art should not continue to be viewed through an Italian framework, and that what Netherlandish art truly excelled at was challenging traditions and conventions through humor rather than rigidly following formulas.
Optical illusions have appealed to the mind of spectators throughout
history, and have had great impact when combined with architectural
elements. Illusionary methods have been used by artists and architects
since antiquity, but only during the Renaissance were they scientifically
analysed to produce the techniques of perspective, anamorphosis,
and their integration with trompe l’oeil. This paper is a study of these
methods employed by artists and architects, focusing on the invention
and evolution of the technique of anamorphosis from its birth during
the Italian Renaissance. By analysing a compilation of early and
contemporary cases of architectural illusionism in two and three
dimensions, the methods used to manipulate observers’ perceptions
are explored in detail. By reintroducing these techniques of the past
into contemporary practice they can prove very beneficial by
producing enhancing spaces when spatial or economic restraints must
be overcomeUccello, Mantegna, masschio, and Leonardo da Vince
The document provides an overview of art history from 1911-1917, covering the development of Cubism, Dada, abstraction, and other modern art movements. It discusses key artists and works, including Picasso and Braque's experiments with Cubism, Duchamp's readymades, Malevich's suprematist paintings, and Mondrian's transition to pure abstraction through his Neoplastic style. The document also covers the origins of Dada in Zurich during World War I and Alfred Stieglitz's promotion of modernist photography in America through his journal Camera Work.
Installation art aims to transform viewers' perceptions by filling spaces with constructed environments that utilize various materials and locations. It differs from traditional art forms by incorporating the changing perspectives of moving viewers who can interact within the pieces. Key developments included early 20th century experiments, 1960s "happenings", and emerging technologies now enable interactive digital installations. Installation art remains a dominant contemporary medium due to its immersive experiences for viewers.
Cover Page
Subject
Your name
Course title
Professor’s name
Date
Favorite Artist:
Picture of your artist
Favorite Artist:
Biography of your artist
Image of the first artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the first artwork
Image of the second artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the second artwork
Image of the third artwork
Title, date if known, medium, size, current location
Description and analysis of the third artwork
Conclusion
Works cited
Pablo Picasso
(you can be creative to choose a title)
Art 100 Art Appreciation
Student’s name
Professsor’s name
Date submitted
Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)
Biography
Pablo Picasso is considered to be one of the most famous painters in the twentieth century. He was born in Malaga, Spain on October 20, 1881. In addition to painting, Picasso was also a printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright. He spent most of his adult life in France.
Early life
Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil". From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, the father felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him and vowed to give up painting.
Fame
Picasso grew up to become one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso is now regarded as one of the artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century
Personal life and Death
Picasso had affairs with a lot of women and was married twice and had four children, Paulo, Maya, Claude and Paloma by three women. He died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Chateau of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral. Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.
The weeping woman
October 26, 1937
Oil on canvas
t has been in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987 and is currently located there.
Analysis
The color scheme used in the painting seems like a mystery. Picasso frequently used a monochrome or even a grisaille ...
A permanent Japonisme display [New Jersey]S.E. Thompson
The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University has inaugurated the first permanent display devoted to Japonisme, the international aesthetic movement documenting the cultural exchange between Japan and the West from the mid-19th to early 20th century. Though the works are not masterpieces, the gallery effectively presents the admiration, disdain, and misunderstandings Western artists had in adapting Japanese culture in their works. It also shows the positive and negative depictions Japanese artists had when incorporating Western culture into their works. The display provides rich evidence of the shaping of 19th-century European modernism and East Asian art through this cultural exchange.
THE DIVERSE BEAUTY OF MATHILDENHÖHE: AN INSIGHT INTO AESTHETIC PHILOSOPHY AND...John1Lorcan
This article aims to look at the World Heritage Site from the perspective of curatorial studies and aesthetic
philosophy. The Darmstadt Artists' Colony made an enormous contribution to art and formed a bridge
between the British Arts & Crafts movement and the German Association of Craftsmen, which eventually
led to the Bauhaus movement. The last Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine was not only a patron who
founded this Artists' Colony, but also a prominent curator together with the Austrian architect and one of
the founders of the Vienna Secession, Joseph Maria Olbrich. Together they combined economic
development with artistic innovation. The establishment of the Darmstadt Artists' Colony was a sensation
in the art world. Itmarked the beginning of the 20th century, turning everyday life into an aesthetic
experience.
Assemblage involves bonding found objects together to create sculptures. It allows artists to give new meaning to everyday items. Famous assemblage artists include Marcel Duchamp, who created readymades like Bicycle Wheel and Fountain, and Louise Nevelson, who assembled wood scraps into monumental black sculptures. Robert Rauschenberg is also known for his combines, which merged paintings and found objects into mixed media works like Monogram, featuring a stuffed goat.
TOK - Theory of knowledge essay (what counts as knowledge in the arts)Sarah Lee
1. The essay discusses what counts as knowledge in the arts by comparing it to knowledge in mathematics. Knowledge in art includes an artist's intentions in creating a work, as well as audience interpretations, which can vary unlike the fixed truths in mathematics.
2. Cultural and historical context also provide knowledge in art by revealing aspects of societies and traditions. In contrast, mathematics is a more universal language where concepts remain the same across cultures.
3. Emotions may result from artistic works but are not knowledge in mathematics, which is about tangible discoveries rather than intangible human experiences captured by art.
This document discusses abstract art and its history. It defines abstract art as art that departs from natural appearances by modifying or changing forms to emphasize certain qualities rather than representing nature. Wassily Kandinsky is identified as one of the first abstract artists, creating non-representational paintings using color and form rather than depicting objects. Abstract art aims to give pictorial form to emotions and sensations through conceptual or absolute elements rather than realistic images. It extracts the essence of things to represent ideas through structures and shapes.
The document discusses Post-Impressionism and focuses on Paul Gauguin's contributions. It analyzes four of Gauguin's paintings chronologically to show his departures from Impressionism in content and composition. The first painting depicted a vision with symbolic religious figures. The second was a self-portrait of Gauguin as Christ reflecting personal struggles. After moving to Tahiti, his paintings incorporated local folk cultures but with European themes. He transformed European subjects with his interpretations of exotic ones. Gauguin's works emphasized expression over naturalism and showed his rejection of Impressionist conventions.
The document discusses the origins and purposes of cave paintings. It notes that the earliest cave paintings in Europe date back 40,000 years ago in Spain. While the exact purpose is unknown, theories suggest they were not merely decorations but may have been used to communicate or for religious/ceremonial purposes. The first cave paintings were discovered in 1870 in Altamira, Spain and were painted between 16,000-9,000 BC by the Magdalenian people, mainly depicting bisons.
Similar to 8 african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4Looking for Afr.docx (17)
For this assignment, review the articleAbomhara, M., & Koie.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, review the article:
Abomhara, M., & Koien, G.M. (2015). Cyber security and the internet of things: Vulnerabilities, threats, intruders, and attacks.
Journal of Cyber Security, 4
, 65-88. Doi: 10.13052/jcsm2245-1439.414
and evaluate it in 3 pages (800 words), in APA format with in-text citation using your own words, by addressing the following:
What did the authors investigate, and in general how did they do so?
Identify the hypothesis or question being tested
Summarize the overall article.
Identify the conclusions of the authors
Indicate whether or not you think the data support their conclusions/hypothesis
Consider alternative explanations for the results
Provide any additional comments pertaining to other approaches to testing their hypothesis (logical follow-up studies to build on, confirm or refute the conclusions)
The relevance or importance of the study
The appropriateness of the experimental design
When you write your evaluation, be brief and concise, this is not meant to be an essay but an objective evaluation that one can read very easily and quickly. Also, you should include a complete reference (title, authors, journal, issue, pages) you turn in your evaluation. This is good practice for your literature review, which you’ll be completing during the dissertation process.
.
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus N.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus National Security
. This is a particularly "hot topic" because of recent actions by the federal government taken against Apple. So, please use information from reliable sources to support your perspective.
This assignment should be 1.5 pages in length, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced on a Word documen
.
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy vers.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, provide your perspective about Privacy versus National Security
. This is a particularly "hot topic" because of recent actions by the federal government taken against Apple. So, please use information from reliable sources to support your perspective.
This assignment should be 1.5 pages in length, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced on a Word document.
.
For this Assignment, read the case study for Claudia and find two to.docxsleeperharwell
For this Assignment, read the case study for Claudia and find two to three scholarly articles on social issues surrounding immigrant families.
In a 2- to 4-page paper, explain how the literature informs you about Claudia and her family when assessing her situation.
Describe two social issues related to the course-specific case study for Claudia that inform a culturally competent social worker.
Describe culturally competent strategies you might use to assess the needs of children.
Describe the types of data you would collect from Claudia and her family in order to best serve them.
Identify other resources that may offer you further information about Claudia’s case.
Create an eco-map to represent Claudia’s situation. Describe how the ecological perspective of assessment influenced how the social worker interacted with Claudia.
Describe how the social worker in the case used a strengths perspective and multiple tools in her assessment of Claudia. Explain how those factors contributed to the therapeutic relationship with Claudia and her family.
.
For this assignment, please start by doing research regarding the se.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, please start by doing research regarding the severity of prejudicial aggression/violence from the past. After you do this, research the severity of prejudicial aggression/violence that has gone on in the past decade. Target the same specific groups that have been the aggressor and victim in both your historical group and your present-day group. For instance, if you choose "black vs. white" in the 1950s, you must use the same group for your present-day group. Once you do this, discuss various ways that it is the same, as well as why it is different between the time periods. What influences have changed? Why is it better now, or worse now than in the past? Please discuss how the advancements in media (news, entertainment, and social media) have had on this issue, along with whatever you come up with outside of media influence. Make sure you back your information up with citations from your sources.
.
For this assignment, please discuss the following questionsWh.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, please discuss the following questions?
What was the name of the first computer network?
Who created this network
When did this network got established?
Explain one of the major disadvantages of this network at its initial stage
What is TCP?
Who created TCP?
What is IP?
When did it got implemented
How did the implementation of TCP/IP revolutionize communication technology?
Requirements:
You must write a minimum of two paragraphs, with two different citations, and every paragraph should have at least four complete sentences for each question. Every question should have a subtitle (Bold and Centered). You must also respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts with at least 100 words each before the due date. You need to use the discussion board header provided in the getting started folder. Please proofread your work before posting your assignment.
.
For this assignment, locate a news article about an organization.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, locate a news article about an organization who experienced an ethical issue related to communication. In 1,200 to 1,550 words, complete the following:
Discuss the circumstances of the incident, the organization’s decision making process, and the public and media reaction to the organization’s decision.
Presume you have been hired by that organization to help strengthen their communication efforts. Outline at least
four strategies
you would recommend the organization follow in the future to enhance the ethics of their communication.
.
For this assignment, it requires you Identifies the historic conte.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, it requires you Identifies the historic context of ideas and cultural traditions outside the U.S., and how they have influenced American culture.
Topic for this paper:
The history of ramen (technically started in China, moved and developed in Japan) now a pop culture cuisine in the U.S.
The paper should be in APA format and two full pages with double-spaced. Also, since you are researching and writing about new information, be sure cite your source (website name, address, date you visited it) at the end of the two pages, so I know where you got your information.
.
For this assignment, create a framework from which an international .docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, create a framework from which an international human resource management function can address cultural challenges. Within your framework, devise a model that includes due diligence steps, merger steps, and post-merger steps that specifically address cultural acclimation and environmental acclimation, as well as bringing two workforces together.
Supported by a minimum of two academic sources.
.
For this assignment, create a 15-20 slide digital presentation in tw.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, create a 15-20 slide digital presentation in two parts to educate your colleagues about meeting the needs of specific ELLs and making connections between school and family.
Part 1
In the first part of your presentation, provide your colleagues with useful information about unique factors that affect language acquisition among LTELs, RAELs, and SIFEs.
This part of the presentation should include:
A description of the characteristics of LTELs, RAELs, and SIFEs
An explanation of the cultural, sociocultural, psychological, or political factors that affect the language acquisition of LTELs, RAELs, and SIFEs
A discussion of factors that affect the language acquisition of refugee, migrant, immigrant and Native American ELLs and how each of these ELLs may relate to LTELs, RAEL, or SIFEs
A discussion of additional factors that affect the language acquisition of grades K-12 LTELs, RAEL, and SIFEs
Part 2
In the second part of the presentation, recommend culturally inclusive practices within curriculum and instruction. Provide useful resources that would empower the family members of ELLs.
This part of the presentation should include:
Examples of curriculum and materials, including technology, that promote a culturally inclusive classroom environment.
Examples of strategies that support culturally inclusive practices.
A brief description of how home and school partnerships facilitate learning.
At least two resources for families of ELLs that would empower them to become partners in their child’s academic achievement.
Presenter’s notes, title, and reference slides that contain 3-5 scholarly resources.
.
For this assignment, you are to complete aclinical case - narrat.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are to complete a
clinical case - narrated PowerPoint report
that will follow the SOAP note example provided below. The case report will be based on the clinical case scenario list below.
You are to approach this clinical scenario as if it is a real patient in the clinical setting.
Instructions:
Step 1
- Read the assigned clinical scenario and using your clinical reasoning skills, decide on the diagnoses. This step informs your next steps.
Step 2
- Document the given information in the case scenario under the appropriate sections, headings, and subheadings of the SOAP note.
Step 3
- Document all the classic symptoms typically associated with the diagnoses in Step 1. This information may NOT be given in the scenario; you are to obtain this information from your textbooks. Include APA citations.
Example of Steps 1 - 3:
You decided on Angina after reading the clinical case scenario (Step 1)
Review of Symptoms (list of classic symptoms):
CV: sweating, squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightening, burning across the chest starting behind the breastbone
GI: indigestion, heartburn, nausea, cramping
Pain: pain to the neck, jaw, arms, shoulders, throat, back, and teeth
Resp: shortness of breath
Musculo: weakness
Step 4
– Document the abnormal physical exam findings typically associated with the acute and chronic diagnoses decided on in Step 1. Again, this information may NOT be given. Cull this information from the textbooks. Include APA citations.
Example of Step 4:
You determined the patient has Angina in Step 1
Physical Examination (list of classic exam findings):
CV: RRR, murmur grade 1/4
Resp: diminished breath sounds left lower lobe
Step 5
- Document the diagnoses in the appropriate sections, including the ICD-10 codes, from Step 1. Include three differential diagnoses. Define each diagnosis and support each differential diagnosis with pertinent positives and negatives and what makes these choices plausible. This information may come from your textbooks. Remember to cite using APA.
Step 6
- Develop a treatment plan for the diagnoses.
Only
use National Clinical Guidelines to develop your treatment plans. This information will not come from your textbooks. Use your research skills to locate appropriate guidelines. The treatment plan
must
address the following:
a) Medications (include the dosage in mg/kg, frequency, route, and the number of days)
b) Laboratory tests ordered (include why ordered and what the results of the test may indicate)
c) Diagnostic tests ordered (include why ordered and what the results of the test may indicate)
d) Vaccines administered this visit & vaccine administration forms given,
e) Non-pharmacological treatments
f) Patient/Family education including preventive care
g) Anticipatory guidance for the visit (be sure to include exactly what you discussed during the visit; review Bright Futures website for this section)
h) Follow-up appointment with a.
For this assignment, you are to complete aclinical case - narr.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are to complete a
clinical case - narrated PowerPoint report
that will follow the SOAP note example provided below. The case report will be based on the clinical case scenario list below.
You are to approach this clinical scenario as if it is a real patient in the clinical setting.
Instructions:
Step 1
- Read the assigned clinical scenario and using your clinical reasoning skills, decide on the diagnoses. This step informs your next steps.
Step 2
- Document the given information in the case scenario under the appropriate sections, headings, and subheadings of the SOAP note.
Step 3
- Document all the classic symptoms typically associated with the diagnoses in Step 1. This information may NOT be given in the scenario; you are to obtain this information from your textbooks. Include APA citations.
Example of Steps 1 - 3:
You decided on Angina after reading the clinical case scenario (Step 1)
Review of Symptoms (list of classic symptoms):
CV: sweating, squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightening, burning across the chest starting behind the breastbone
GI: indigestion, heartburn, nausea, cramping
Pain: pain to the neck, jaw, arms, shoulders, throat, back, and teeth
Resp: shortness of breath
Musculo: weakness
Step 4
– Document the abnormal physical exam findings typically associated with the acute and chronic diagnoses decided on in Step 1. Again, this information may NOT be given. Cull this information from the textbooks. Include APA citations.
Example of Step 4:
You determined the patient has Angina in Step 1
Physical Examination (list of classic exam findings):
CV: RRR, murmur grade 1/4
Resp: diminished breath sounds left lower lobe
Step 5
- Document the diagnoses in the appropriate sections, including the ICD-10 codes, from Step 1. Include three differential diagnoses. Define each diagnosis and support each differential diagnosis with pertinent positives and negatives and what makes these choices plausible. This information may come from your textbooks. Remember to cite using APA.
Step 6
- Develop a treatment plan for the diagnoses.
Only
use National Clinical Guidelines to develop your treatment plans. This information will not come from your textbooks. Use your research skills to locate appropriate guidelines. The treatment plan
must
address the following:
a) Medications (include the dosage in mg/kg, frequency, route, and the number of days)
b) Laboratory tests ordered (include why ordered and what the results of the test may indicate)
c) Diagnostic tests ordered (include why ordered and what the results of the test may indicate)
d) Vaccines administered this visit & vaccine administration forms given,
e) Non-pharmacological treatments
f) Patient/Family education including preventive care
g) Anticipatory guidance for the visit (be sure to include exactly what you discussed during the visit; review Bright Futures website for this section)
h) Follow-up appointment wit.
For this assignment, you are provided with four video case studies (.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are provided with four video case studies (linked in the Resources). Review the cases of Julio and Kimi, and choose either Reese or Daneer for the third case. Review these two videos: •The Case of Julio: Julio is a 36-year-old single gay male. He is of Cuban descent. He was born and raised in Florida by his parents with his two sisters. He attended community college but did not follow through with his plan to obtain a four-year degree, because his poor test taking skills created barriers. He currently works for a sales promotion company, where he is tasked with creating ads for local businesses. He enjoys the more social aspects of his job, but tracking the details is challenging and has caused him to lose jobs in the past. He has been dating his partner, Justin, for five years. Justin feels it is time for them to commit and build a future. Justin is frustrated that Julio refuses to plan the wedding and tends to blame Julio’s family. While Julio’s parents hold some traditional religious values, they would welcome Justin into the family but are respectfully waiting for Julio to make his plans known. Justin is as overwhelmed by the details at home as he is at work. •The Case of Kimi: Kimi is a 48-year-old female currently separated from her husband, Robert, of 16 years. They have no children, which was consistent with Kimi’s desire to focus on her career as a sales manager. She told Robert a pregnancy would wreck her efforts to maintain her body. His desire to have a family was a goal he decided he needed to pursue with someone else. He left Kimi six months ago for a much younger woman and filed for divorce. Kimi began having issues with food during high school when she was on the dance team and felt self-conscious wearing the form-fitting uniform. During college, she sought treatment because her roommate became alarmed by her issues around eating. She never told her parents about this and felt it was behind her. Her parents are Danish and value privacy. They always expected Kimi to be independent. Her lack of communication about her private life did not concern them. They are troubled by Robert’s behavior and consider his conspicuous infidelity as a poor reflection upon their family. Kimi has moved in with her parents while she and Robert are selling the house, which has upended the balance in their relationship. For a third case, choose one of these videos: •The Case of Reese: -Reese is a 44-year-old married African American female. Her parents live in another state, and she is their only child. Her father is a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel who was stationed both in the United States and overseas while Reese was growing up. She entered the Air Force as soon as she graduated high school at age 17 and has achieved the rank of Chief Master Sergeant. She has been married 15 years to John, and they recently discovered she is pregnant. The unexpected pregnancy has been quite disorienting for someone who has planned.
For this assignment, you are going to tell a story, but not just.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are going to tell a story, but not just any story. It will be a First Nations story, and it will be your version of it.
Choose one of the two stories at the end of this unit, either "Why the Flint-Rock Cannot Fight Back"
You can write of yourself telling one of the stories.
In telling your story, here is what you will need to consider:
Clarity of speech
Intonation
Pacing and pauses
You will also have to work out how to make this telling of the story yours. You might want to read it aloud with point form notes for a prompt or to memorize it. Perhaps you want to rewrite it so that it sounds more like your words. Maybe you will change names and place-names to those you are familiar with. If you are making a video or performing this live, you should practice facial and hand gestures as well as stance and body language. The purpose of all of this is to bring your own meaning to the story.
HERE IS THE STORY
Why the Flint-Rock Cannot Fight Back
Sto-Way’-Na—Flint—was rich and powerful. His lodge was toward the sunrise. It was guarded by Squr-hein— Crane. He was the watcher. He watched from the top of a lone tree. When anybody approached, Crane would call out and warn Flint, and Flint would come out of his lodge and meet the visitor.
There was an open flat in front of the lodge. Flint met all his visitors there. Warriors and hunters came and bought flint for arrow-points and spear-heads. They paid Flint big prices for the privilege of chipping off the hard stone. Some who needed flint for their weapons were poor and could not buy. These poor persons Flint turned away.
Coyote heard about Flint and, as he wanted some arrow-points, he asked his squas-tenk’ to help him. Squas-tenk’ refused.
“Hurry, do what I ask, or I will throw you away and let the rain wash you— wash you cold,” said Coyote, and then the power gave him three rocks that were harder than the flint-rock. It also gave him a little dog that had only one ear. But this ear was sharp, like a knife; it was a knife- ear.
Then to his wife, Mole, Coyote said: “Go and make your underground trails in the flat where Sto-way’-na lives. When you have finished and see me talking with him, show yourself so we can see you.”
Then Coyote set out for Flint’s lodge. As he got near it, he had his power make a fog to cover the land, and thick fog spread over everything. Crane, the watcher, up in the lone tree, could not see Coyote. He did not know that Coyote was around.
Coyote climbed the tree and took Crane from his high perch and broke his neck. Crane had no time to cry out. Then Coyote went on to Flint’s lodge. He was almost there when Flint’s dog, Grizzly Bear, jumped out of the lodge and ran toward him.
Coyote was not scared, and he yelled at Flint: “Stop your grizzly bear dog! Stop him, or my dog will kill him.”
That amused Flint, who was looking through the doorway. He saw that Coyote’s one-eared dog was very small, hardly a mouthful for Grizzly Bear. Fli.
For this assignment, you are asked to prepare a Reflection Paper. Af.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are asked to prepare a Reflection Paper. After you finish the reading assignment, reflect on the concepts and write about it. What do you understand completely? What did not quite make sense? The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with the opportunity to reflect on the material you finished reading and to expand upon those thoughts
A Reflection Paper is an opportunity for you to express your thoughts about the material by writing about them.
The writing you submit must meet the following requirements:
be at least two pages;
include your thoughts about the main topics
APA Stlye
.
For this assignment, you are asked to prepare a Reflection Paper. .docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are asked to prepare a Reflection Paper. After you finish the reading assignment, reflect on the concepts and write about it. What do you understand completely? What did not quite make sense? The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with the opportunity to reflect on the material you finished reading and to expand upon those thoughts. If you are unclear about a concept, either read it again, or ask your professor. Can you apply the concepts toward your career? How?
This is not a summary. A Reflection Paper is an opportunity for you to express your thoughts about the material by writing about them.
The writing you submit must meet the following requirements:
be at least two pages;
include your thoughts about the main topics; and
include financial performance, quality performance, and personnel performance.
Format the Reflection Paper in your own words using APA style, and include citations and references as needed to avoid instances of plagiarism.
The reading assignment that you are to reflect on is Chapter 11, in the text. My written lecture for this Unit is basically a reflection on Chapter 11. Find an interesting part or two of the chapter and tell me what you got out of it. It's not a hard assignment. If you read my lecture, you will see the part of Chapter 11 that intrigued me the most was the subject of codetermination on page 367. Anything that intrigues you in Chapter 11 is fine with me.
Written Lecture
Does the ringisei decision-making process by consensus, which is used by the Japanese, reach the same conclusion as the top-down methods, which are used by American management? Some might label the Japanese decision-making system as simply procrastination. Others appreciate the method and expect productive outcomes. One major challenge is to build an organizational culture to adopt the practice of ringisei. If only half of an organization uses ringisei, it is likely to cause miscommunication and result in frustration.
The ringisei is based on the theory that the employee is an important part of the overall success of an enterprise. It is common to hear a lot about
empowering the employees
. Is creativity and innovation rewarded, ignored, or punished for the lower level employee in America?
Could the Japanese system of decision making have led to the controversy of what Toyota knew about unintended acceleration problems? This may be the best example of the use of silence in the Japanese culture frustrating Americans as a nation. This is not an explicit accusation of Toyota or of Japanese culture. Rather, it is inserted here to demonstrate potential consequences of management methods, processes, systems, and decision making. Read pages 106-108 of Luthans and Doh (2012) concerning this topic. The cause of the unintended acceleration problem announced by the United States government was due to bad floor mats or driver error. Initially, electronic problems were not mentioned.
The March 2011 Fuku.
For this assignment, you are asked to conduct some Internet research.docxsleeperharwell
This document instructs students to research a malware, virus, or DOS attack by summarizing findings from an internet source in 3-4 paragraphs. The summary should include the name of the malware/virus, date of incident, impact/damage caused, how it was detected, and a reference citation.
For this assignment, you are a professor teaching a graduate-level p.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, you are a professor teaching a graduate-level public administration administrative law course at a traditional state university. Your task is to develop a formal presentation providing an overview of administrative law—specifically by comparing and contrasting the key defining aspects of administrative law within the American three-branch federal government structure, explaining how these functions are overseen/regulated, and ultimately, interpreting how they serve the common good of the public-at-large.
Your presentation must include the following with specific examples:
Articulate an understanding of how federal agencies enforce their regulations.
Explain the fundamental role that agency rulemaking plays in regulating society-at-large.
Compare both formal rulemaking and informal rulemaking.
Articulate the similarities and differences between rulemaking and adjudication.
Analyze the various methods of oversight exercised by the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of the federal government over administrative agencies.
Articulate how special interest groups (to include the media) can influence and/or shape public opinion about administrative agencies and place a spotlight on individual policies.
Incorporate appropriate animations, transitions, and graphics as well as speaker notes for each slide. The speaker notes may be comprised of brief paragraphs or bulleted lists and should cite material appropriately. Add audio to each slide using the
Media
section of the
Insert
tab in the top menu bar for each slide.
Support your presentation with at least seven scholarly resources
.
In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources may be included.
Length: 15 slides (with a separate reference slide)
Notes Length: 200-350 words for
each slide
Be sure to include citations for quotations and paraphrases with references in APA format and style where appropriate.
.
For this assignment, we will be visiting the PBS website,Race .docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, we will be visiting the PBS website,
Race: The Power of Illusion
. Click on the "Learn More" link, and proceed to visit these links:
What is Race? (View All)
Sorting People (Complete both "Begin Sorting" and "Explore Traits")
Race Timeline (View All)
Human Diversity (Complete both the Quiz and "Explore Diversity")
Me, My Race & I (View Slideshow Menu)
Where Race Lives (View All)
Given the
enormous
amount of information presented in this website, discuss what was most interesting and surprising to you in
EAC
H of the links.
Post your 200 word assignment.
Discussion Board Activity:
Now that you have learned that the race is a social concept rather than a biological truth respond to TWO fellow students with your thoughts on prejudice and discrimination pertaining to deviance, social class, and race.
(I'll send you two replies)
Due November 3rd
.
For this assignment, the student starts the project by identifying a.docxsleeperharwell
For this assignment, the student starts the project by identifying a clinical population of interest. Then, the student is to locate (10) nursing research articles from peer-reviewed nursing journals that reflect the clinical population of their interest. From the articles, the student identifies what has been researched and is currently known about their clinical population. The student is to write a summary of each article in a tabular format and submit a single summary table of all articles that provides a review of current knowledge on the selected population ( example and form will be provided ).
.
LAND USE LAND COVER AND NDVI OF MIRZAPUR DISTRICT, UPRAHUL
This Dissertation explores the particular circumstances of Mirzapur, a region located in the
core of India. Mirzapur, with its varied terrains and abundant biodiversity, offers an optimal
environment for investigating the changes in vegetation cover dynamics. Our study utilizes
advanced technologies such as GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and Remote sensing to
analyze the transformations that have taken place over the course of a decade.
The complex relationship between human activities and the environment has been the focus
of extensive research and worry. As the global community grapples with swift urbanization,
population expansion, and economic progress, the effects on natural ecosystems are becoming
more evident. A crucial element of this impact is the alteration of vegetation cover, which plays a
significant role in maintaining the ecological equilibrium of our planet.Land serves as the foundation for all human activities and provides the necessary materials for
these activities. As the most crucial natural resource, its utilization by humans results in different
'Land uses,' which are determined by both human activities and the physical characteristics of the
land.
The utilization of land is impacted by human needs and environmental factors. In countries
like India, rapid population growth and the emphasis on extensive resource exploitation can lead
to significant land degradation, adversely affecting the region's land cover.
Therefore, human intervention has significantly influenced land use patterns over many
centuries, evolving its structure over time and space. In the present era, these changes have
accelerated due to factors such as agriculture and urbanization. Information regarding land use and
cover is essential for various planning and management tasks related to the Earth's surface,
providing crucial environmental data for scientific, resource management, policy purposes, and
diverse human activities.
Accurate understanding of land use and cover is imperative for the development planning
of any area. Consequently, a wide range of professionals, including earth system scientists, land
and water managers, and urban planners, are interested in obtaining data on land use and cover
changes, conversion trends, and other related patterns. The spatial dimensions of land use and
cover support policymakers and scientists in making well-informed decisions, as alterations in
these patterns indicate shifts in economic and social conditions. Monitoring such changes with the
help of Advanced technologies like Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems is
crucial for coordinated efforts across different administrative levels. Advanced technologies like
Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems
9
Changes in vegetation cover refer to variations in the distribution, composition, and overall
structure of plant communities across different temporal and spatial scales. These changes can
occur natural.
Leveraging Generative AI to Drive Nonprofit InnovationTechSoup
In this webinar, participants learned how to utilize Generative AI to streamline operations and elevate member engagement. Amazon Web Service experts provided a customer specific use cases and dived into low/no-code tools that are quick and easy to deploy through Amazon Web Service (AWS.)
How to Build a Module in Odoo 17 Using the Scaffold MethodCeline George
Odoo provides an option for creating a module by using a single line command. By using this command the user can make a whole structure of a module. It is very easy for a beginner to make a module. There is no need to make each file manually. This slide will show how to create a module using the scaffold method.
This slide is special for master students (MIBS & MIFB) in UUM. Also useful for readers who are interested in the topic of contemporary Islamic banking.
This presentation was provided by Steph Pollock of The American Psychological Association’s Journals Program, and Damita Snow, of The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), for the initial session of NISO's 2024 Training Series "DEIA in the Scholarly Landscape." Session One: 'Setting Expectations: a DEIA Primer,' was held June 6, 2024.
বাংলাদেশের অর্থনৈতিক সমীক্ষা ২০২৪ [Bangladesh Economic Review 2024 Bangla.pdf] কম্পিউটার , ট্যাব ও স্মার্ট ফোন ভার্সন সহ সম্পূর্ণ বাংলা ই-বুক বা pdf বই " সুচিপত্র ...বুকমার্ক মেনু 🔖 ও হাইপার লিংক মেনু 📝👆 যুক্ত ..
আমাদের সবার জন্য খুব খুব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ একটি বই ..বিসিএস, ব্যাংক, ইউনিভার্সিটি ভর্তি ও যে কোন প্রতিযোগিতা মূলক পরীক্ষার জন্য এর খুব ইম্পরট্যান্ট একটি বিষয় ...তাছাড়া বাংলাদেশের সাম্প্রতিক যে কোন ডাটা বা তথ্য এই বইতে পাবেন ...
তাই একজন নাগরিক হিসাবে এই তথ্য গুলো আপনার জানা প্রয়োজন ...।
বিসিএস ও ব্যাংক এর লিখিত পরীক্ষা ...+এছাড়া মাধ্যমিক ও উচ্চমাধ্যমিকের স্টুডেন্টদের জন্য অনেক কাজে আসবে ...
How to Setup Warehouse & Location in Odoo 17 InventoryCeline George
In this slide, we'll explore how to set up warehouses and locations in Odoo 17 Inventory. This will help us manage our stock effectively, track inventory levels, and streamline warehouse operations.
Main Java[All of the Base Concepts}.docxadhitya5119
This is part 1 of my Java Learning Journey. This Contains Custom methods, classes, constructors, packages, multithreading , try- catch block, finally block and more.
How to Add Chatter in the odoo 17 ERP ModuleCeline George
In Odoo, the chatter is like a chat tool that helps you work together on records. You can leave notes and track things, making it easier to talk with your team and partners. Inside chatter, all communication history, activity, and changes will be displayed.
हिंदी वर्णमाला पीपीटी, hindi alphabet PPT presentation, hindi varnamala PPT, Hindi Varnamala pdf, हिंदी स्वर, हिंदी व्यंजन, sikhiye hindi varnmala, dr. mulla adam ali, hindi language and literature, hindi alphabet with drawing, hindi alphabet pdf, hindi varnamala for childrens, hindi language, hindi varnamala practice for kids, https://www.drmullaadamali.com
8 african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4Looking for Afr.docx
1. 8 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
Looking for Africa in
Carl Einstein’s Negerplastik
Z.S. Strother
all photos by the author except where otherwise noted
I
n 1914, two men strove to publish the first theoretical
treatise on African art composed in a European lan-
guage. The Latvian painter Voldemārs Matvejs and the
German author Carl Einstein worked virtually simulta-
neously and without knowledge of one another. Matvejs
died precipitously in May, delaying publication of his
manuscript, Iskusstvo Negrov (“Negro Art”) until 1919. During
his lifetime, Latvia was part of the Russian Empire and Matvejs
wrote in Russian under the pseudonym of “Vladimir Markov.”
When published, after the Revolution, his text exercised a for-
mative impact on the Soviet avant-garde, for instance, on
Malev-
ich, Tatlin, and Rodchenko, before the Stalinist art
establishment
consigned it to oblivion in the 1930s. Einstein’s book
Negerplastik
(“Negro sculpture”) appeared in 1915 with notable success, but
then also gradually disappeared from view.1 Since 1961, the
text
has garnered increasing attention thanks to the rising profile of
Einstein himself. For both men, the claim to be the “discoverer
of African art”2 has helped shaped their image as culture heroes
2. suitable for canonization in the twenty-first century.
But what role was there for Africa in theories of African art?
Simon Gikandi warns us: “Much has been written on Picasso
and
primitivism but little on his specific engagement with Africa”
(2006:33).3 By so doing, he argues that scholars replicate
Picasso’s
own strategies in separating works of art from the people and
societies that produced them and perhaps for the same reason:
“to minimise … the constitutive role of Africa in the making of
modernism” (ibid., p. 34). The questions asked of Picasso need
to be posed for the larger community of European modernists
fascinated by art objects from other parts of the world. This
essay
takes up Gikandi’s challenge to query what the critic Carl Ein-
stein believed about Africans and what his sources were.4
The FirsT LiFe oF NegerpLasTik: The phoTographs5
“Another hole in the classical canon of beauty.”—Hermann
Hesse
Both Matvejs and Einstein recognized instantly that they
could not write critically about African art without first gen-
erating a substantial body of images. At the beginning of his
book, Matvejs emphasized how few photographs of freestand-
ing African sculptures existed when he began his project. As a
consequence, he was forced to travel extensively across Europe
in order to document outstanding sculptures in museum collec-
tions (2009 [1919]:79–80). In contrast, Einstein took advantage
of his connections in the art world to scavenge for professional
photos. Both books provide striking confirmation for Frederick
Bohrer’s thesis that photography was essential to the invention
of
art history because it was able to generate a body of
3. comparisons
and (as Bernard Berenson believed) “[improve] upon the actual
experience of art” (2002:248–49) by granting viewers access to
what they might not normally be able to see or see well.
Negerplastik was published with 119 black-and-white photo-
graphs illustrating ninety-four different sculptures.6 Eighty per-
cent of the objects are presented from a single view, frontal or
three-quarters. The works were usually presented full-figure
from
a consistent vantage point. Frequently, skilled lighting
interprets
the sculpture as an interlocking series of planes (Fig. 1). The
emo-
tional tenor is cool and cerebral. Einstein worked primarily with
private collections and, with few exceptions, the objects have
been
stripped down to the wood carving. This means extracting the
blades and clothing from nkisi nkondi (Figs. 2–3), removing the
hats and raffia ruffs from masks, and toning down brightly
colored
paints (Figs. 4–5). As an ensemble, the systematic presentation
of a doctored and highly selective group of images from roughly
twenty countries conjured “African art” into being as a corpus
that
AF464_08-21_CS6.indd 8 8/23/13 2:16 AM
vol. 46, no. 4 winter 2013 african arts | 9
had literally never before existed.
It is worth contrasting the presentation of objects in Negerplas-
tik to its precedents. In Notes analytiques sur les collections
4. eth-
nographiques, published by the Musée du Congo in 1906, nearly
700 photographs were reproduced on the finest paper along with
a certain number of contextual field photos (Fig. 6). This was
one of the earliest and most lavish of publications devoted to
the
visual culture of Africa. Each sculpture was fully and evenly lit
and submitted to the rigor of full frontal and full profile
compar-
isons, reproduced with the highest resolution. Furthermore, the
1 carl einstein, Negerplastik, plate 71. senufo.
eighty percent of the objects illustrated in Neger-
plastik were presented from a single view, frontal or
three-quarter. the photograph interprets the sculp-
ture as an interlocking series of planes.
exact size of the figures was carefully calibrated from one to the
other, permitting scientific assessment of identity and
difference.
The layout of Negerplastik was also built around comparisons,
but the strategy was radically different. The open book invites
formal comparisons between facing images of one to three
objects, which are facilitated by the uniform scale, lighting, and
vantage point, seeking judgments on similarity and difference
(Figs. 7–8). For example, the viewer is invited to compare two
masks of (apparently) equal scale and surface patina (Figs. 9–
10).
In both cases, the features of the face are situated along the
lines
of a cross subdividing the face into four quadrants. This cross is
formed by cicatrization continuing the vertical line of the nose
and the horizontal line of the eyelids. Difference is subsumed
by
5. this structural logic into a play of opposites: the eyes are
convex,
the eyes are concave; the mouth is closed, the mouth is open;
ears, no ears; etc. The comparison manufactures a relationship
between dissimilar objects even as it acknowledges their indi-
viduality (Fig. 11).
Remarkably, seventeen sculptures were presented through
multiple views.7 And yet, pure profiles are rare, reserved for
the
unveiling of a visual surprise in the composition. Eschewing
scientistic models, Negerplastik instead invites poetic “reverie”
(Grossman 2007:296) through a variety of techniques: soft
focus, floating objects in space with only occasional whispers
of shadow, spot-lighting to heighten the sheen of patina when-
ever possible.
André Malraux has brilliantly argued that the circulation of
object photographs marked a critical development in the “intel-
lectualization of art.” As Mary Bergstein summarizes his posi-
tion: the photography of sculpture created “a homogeneous pool
of images” enabling the viewer to compare and contrast works
of
art in an “almost algebraic way.” The images increased the inti-
macy of the viewer’s engagement with the works by giving
equal
access to the object, no matter what the scale or setting of the
original. It abstracted the works from their geographic origins
(1992:476). In the case of Negerplastik, it does not matter
where
the work originated, whether Gabon or the Belgian Congo,
whether from the forest or savanna, whether for public display
or domestic interior. All such distinctions were obliterated in
the
search for “pure sculptural forms” (Einstein 2004 [1915]:128).
6. The resulting impression of stylistic unity is so compelling that
it wise to remember Allan Sekula’s warnings about how “archi-
val projects” achieve a fake coherence made credible by the
sheer quantity of images assembled. Photographic truth here
lies not in the argument but in the experience (1983:199). It is
the archive which “liberates” meaning from use, which extracts
the object from its context in order “to establish a relation of
abstract visual equivalence between pictures” (ibid., pp. 194–
95).
Even in 1915–20, a few of the better informed reviewers
resisted
the logic informing a compendium of “Negro sculpture.” Sascha
AF464_08-21_CS6.indd 9 8/23/13 2:16 AM
10 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
Schwabacher satirized the vagueness of the concept, comparing
it to a category like “Indo-European sculpture.” She wondered
how useful it was to lump together works from Benin, Kongo,
Melanesia and Polynesia (in Baacke 1990:120). Viktor Christian
argued that it would be more precise to locate the project in
West
African “kulturkreises” (ibid., p. 128).8 However, most
accepted
unquestioningly the cohesiveness of the ensemble and Einstein
fell prey to his own success. He later wrote that the “one fact”
governing the “painful sentiment of uncertainty” surrounding
African art was its “unity of style” (1922 [1921]:6).
No less a figure than Hermann Hesse voiced the impact of
Negerplastik’s photoarchive in decentering his expectations
about art: “Truly I cannot say that I find the Negro sculptures
beautiful.” Nevertheless, he was convinced by Einstein that,
8. dealers experimented with stripping sculptures of
their blades, clothing, and applied paints in order to
enhance the viewer’s appreciation of sculptural form.
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vol. 46, no. 4 winter 2013 african arts | 11
direct correspondence to the text?10 We may never know. Ein-
stein volunteered for service in World War I and suffered a seri-
ous head wound in November 1914 (Meffre 2002:52–53). A
letter
exists in French in which he regrets that his first book was pub-
lished as a “fragment” while he was in the hospital.”11 In the
same
letter, he tries to get his respondent to send him some photos of
objects in his personal collection with the promise of publish-
ing them in his next book (in Baacke 1980:142; Bassani
1998:102).
The cost of hiring a professional photographer was debilitating
for young authors. However, by 1913, serious collectors and
deal-
ers of African were having their objects photographed, partly
for
promotion and partly to exchange information.12 Although Ein-
stein is likely to have amassed images from diverse sources,
their
consistency indicates that a demonstrable style had emerged
for the presentation of “primitive art” in this community. The
difficulty in acquiring photographs lends credibility to Hans
Purrmann’s hunch that the art dealer Josef Brummer served as
4 Central Pende. Fumu (The Chief)
Artist: Gabama a Gingungu (ca. 1930)
10. (Bil-
deratlas).15 In fact, several scholars have observed that the
glossy
plates in Negerplastik had a far greater impact initially than the
text itself, consumed as they were by artists across Europe,
many
of whom did not read German (Zeidler 2004:122; Grossman
2007:297–99, 328). Even more importantly, from my perspec-
tive, the creation of a homogeneous archive of images, skillfully
sequenced for purposes of comparison and contrast, constituted
the founding act of African art history.
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BeFore aNd aFTer BrusseLs
“i am completely going black. excess of africa [sic].”
What did it mean to write a book on African art, 1913–14?
Many
scholars have demonstrated a fatal desire to project backwards
onto his early writing what is known about the Einstein who
worked with Michel Leiris on Documents; the Einstein who
fought
in favor of the Republican cause in Spain; and the Einstein who
was hounded to his death by Nazis in France in 1940. To
appreci-
ate the originality and full eccentricity of Negerplastik, one
must
be vigilant to respect the arc of his intellectual development.
Einstein first made his name as a writer when he published
11. Bebuquin oder die Dilettanten des Wunders in 1912. At this
time, he
supported himself primarily by publishing cultural criticism on
a
broad slice of artistic life, although he began to concentrate
more
on art criticism in 1913, when the first known references to
African
6 Notes analytiques sur les collections eth-
nographiques. annales du Musée du congo (tervu-
ren), ethnographie et anthropologie (série 3), tome
1, fasc. 2 (les arts—religion): July 1906, plate 40.
the congo Free state supported ethnographic
and art publications as part of its public relations
program. this lavish volume reproduced nearly
700 photographs on the finest coated paper. every
sculpture was presented in full frontal and full profile
comparisons with the exact size calibrated from one
to the other, inviting scientific appraisal of identity
and difference.
art emerge. In August, 1913 Einstein wrote to the Director of
the
Department of Anthropology at the Museum für Völkerkunde in
Berlin, seeking assistance. Einstein cited the enthusiasm of
lead-
ing European artists for “primitive art” and proposed dedicating
a special supplement of the revue Der Merker to the subject,
pub-
lishing “a few of the wonderful things” belonging to the
museum
with the stated goal of arousing the interest of German
collectors
of modern art “in the great artistic value of Negro sculptures
12. [and]
Mexican works” (in Baacke 1990:136).
The supplement for Der Merker did not come to pass and Ein-
stein very quickly narrowed his interests. In November 1913, he
collaborated in organizing an exhibition at the Neue Galerie
in Berlin, which displayed the works of Picasso, Derain, and
Matisse alongside a room devoted to African sculptures (Neu-
meister 2008:173–75, 178). In December 1913, he included
what
one reviewer called “a series of superb Negro sculptures” in a
ret-
rospective of Picasso’s work, 1901–12 (in Neumeister
2008:175,
182 nn. 12–13).
As Heike Neumeister demonstrates, Einstein’s curatorial inter-
ventions provide crucial information on his mindset just prior
to or during the writing of Negerplastik (2008:175). He was
mov-
ing in a nexus of galerists and collectors who were intrigued by
the enthusiasm of avant-garde artists for so-called primitive art,
especially African sculpture. Brummer was in Berlin at the time
of the both exhibitions (ibid., p. 182 n. 8) and their proposed
col-
laboration on Negerplastik may date from this period. From this
chronology, it appears that Einstein wrote most of the text in
the
first half of 1914.
In August 1914, Einstein volunteered for service in World War
I (in striking opposition to his patron and brother-in-law Franz
Pfemfert, the publisher of Die Aktion) (Meffre 2002:52).
Einstein
was attracted his entire life to the romanticism of male camara-
derie during war, writing at this time: “We have entered into
13. a new human community; of men who wanted to die or to win
together” (in ibid., p. 52 n. 98). In November, he suffered a
serious
head wound in Belgium (ibid., p. 58) and spent over four
months
recuperating in a military hospital in Berlin, from January to
early
May 1915. As noted above, Einstein regretted that Negerplastik
was
assembled while he was recuperating in hospital.
After serving with light duties in Alsace, Einstein was trans-
ferred in spring 1916 to the colonial department of the civil
administration for the Gouvernement Général de Bruxelles.
Liliane Meffre hypothesizes that it was the publication of Neg-
erplastik itself which was responsible for this desirable posting
and she highlights the critical importance of this period for Ein-
stein’s future work on African topics (2002:62–66). Einstein
liked
his superior officer, Edmund Brückner, who was a career
admin-
istrator in the German colonial service and who had served as
Governor of Togo before the war. Finally, someone with
concrete
experience of Africa entered Einstein’s circle (ibid., p. 66).
As a colonial officer, Einstein enjoyed ready access to one of
the best libraries in the world on Africa, in particular, the art
and culture of Central Africa, in the Musée du Congo, at Tervu-
ren.16 As part of its public relations program, the scandal-
ridden
Congo Free State built a grand museum and funded many pub-
lications on art and culture, including the sumptuous Notes ana-
lytiques already described. When Belgium assumed control over
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the Congo Free State in 1908 (which had previously been gov-
erned as the private domain of King Leopold II), the new regime
(the “Belgian Congo”) continued its commitment to ethnogra-
phy, publishing four of the titles cited in the bibliography of
Ein-
stein’s second book on African art.
Einstein enjoyed a certain notoriety as someone who had pub-
lished on Africa and he sometimes misled people into believing
that he had actually traveled there (Meffre 2002:62–65). His
suc-
cess whetted his appetite for more ambitious projects. A giddy
let-
ter survives from this period when he wrote to his patron Franz
Blei from “the desk of the late Belgian colonial minister”: “i am
completely going black here. excess of africa [….] And this
time
I’ll collect Africa in two volumes [and the public] will even
have
occasion to remark on the Germanic thoroughness of my
work.”17
Einstein’s choice of words is fascinating. By writing “ich negri-
ere,” he implied that he was spending all his free time reading
and
thinking about Africa and promised that “this time” (in contrast
to Negerplastik) he would “collect” or “assemble” Africa
(Afrika
… versammeln) according to German standards for meticulous
attention to detail (die heimatliche Gründlichkeit).
15. Einstein served in Brussels from spring 1916 to October 1917
and there is clear evidence of his work in the library at Tervu-
ren in his future publications. In his project to “collect” Africa,
he began with legends, which comprised a lifelong interest for
him. In 1916–17, he began to publish translations in free verse
of
songs, prayers, and myths for various Central African
peoples.18
7–8 carl einstein, Negerplastik, plates 74–75.
left/ Kuba drinking cup. right/ Kuba drinking cup. ber-
lin: Museum für Völkerkunde #iii c 19637.
the layout of Negerplastik instead invited formal com-
parisons between two to three objects on facing pages.
In 1921, Einstein revealed that his search for oral texts was
partly
fueled by the hope that they would illuminate the visual arts but
found that they belonged to “diverging currents” (1922
[1921]:6).
Oddly enough, his conclusion echoes that of Friedrich Markus
Huebner, who reviewed Negerplastik in 1915, punning on the
title of Frobenius’s Und Afrika Sprach. Huebner wrote that it
was
tempting to seek connections between “terrifying idols carved
from garish painted wood” and “roughly carved ghost stories or
magic formulae” but that “Negro sculpture” and “Negro poetry”
belonged to two separate artistic branches: “Leo Frobenius wit-
nesses against Carl Einstein.”19
In October 1917, Einstein was sent back to the front, where he
wrote to his wife, “I can no longer stand the war. Everything is
falling apart; whatever I cared about has been destroyed”
(Meffre
2002:73). Einstein was quickly reinjured and hospitalized, pos-
16. sibly for psychological trauma (ibid., p. 73–75). It seems that it
was this experience that aroused Einstein’s political conscience,
as happened for so many (Kiefer 1987:149). After the war, he
sup-
ported the Spartacus League, which he described as “the will to
give the possibility of a human society to the human subject”
(Meffre 2002:88).
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14 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
Let us review the significance of this chronology. In 1913–14,
Einstein still had literary aspirations and was moving in a cir-
cle of galerists and collectors of modern art curious about “l’art
nègre.” He was not yet politically active on any significant
scale
and volunteered for service in the German army in the face of
family opposition. There is no evidence that Einstein was read-
ing or thinking deeply about Africa. The claim that Negerplastik
“places itself outside of colonialist discourse [and] is even a
cri-
tique of it” is wishful thinking (Kiefer 1987:152).
The change comes in 1916–17 with the success of Negerplas-
tik and his appointment to the colonial office in Brussels, where
he was forced to compete with men with direct experience
of the continent. Einstein’s declaration that “this time” he was
going to do a thorough job in collecting “Africa” does justice to
the radical differences between Negerplastik and Einstein’s fol-
low up volume, Afrikanische Plastik (1921). The former reads
as a self-confident work of criticism; the latter presents itself a
painstaking and up-to-date piece of scholarship.20 In contrast to
Negerplastik, the latter text bristles with named authors, quota-
17. tions, place names, and African terms for sculptural genres. The
bibliography provided at the end is carefully calibrated to the
objects selected for illustration and shows mastery of the con-
temporary literature.21
Scholars have universally commented on the disjunction in the
two texts, dismissing Afrikanische Plastik as “more
ethnographic,”
but that judgment is misleading. Einstein is interested neither in
the function of the objects nor how they are embedded in social
praxis. Instead, he clearly states that he gave himself the
mission
“of opening the door to specialized research addressing the
history
of sculpture and painting” rather than fueling the imagination
of impoverished European artists (1922 [1921]:3).22 This
revolu-
tionary project to write a history of art for Africa may have
been
inspired by reviews of Negerplastik, which often demanded a
more
historical methodology. In the second book, Einstein attempts to
establish historical relationships among varied artistic traditions
9–10 carl einstein, Negerplastik, plates 90–91.
left/ Kuba or lele Mask. Visible stamp in lower left
reads: “collection [charles] Vignier.” right/ Mask of
unknown origin, northeastern congo (?).
Negerplastik was assembled while einstein was recu-
perating from a head wound received during world
war i. probably the galerist Josef brummer was
responsible for gathering most of the photographs
and may also have financed the book’s publication
(paudrat 1984:144, 151). we do not know who was
responsible for the layout, but many of the facing
18. images were carefully calibrated to permit system-
atic comparison.
through visual analysis of specific objects and to provide dates
where possible. He prioritizes portraiture and raises the
question
of the relationship of sculpture to painting. Afrikanische Plastik
is only “ethnographic” in the sense that Einstein was privileging
authors with significant field experience over popular sources
like
newspapers, museum guidebooks, and travelogues.
LookiNg For aFrica iN Negerplastik
There are not many traces of Africa in Negerplastik, published
before Einstein’s sojourn in Brussels. In this regard, Einstein’s
text poses a significant contrast to its theoretical twin, Iskusstvo
Negrov. Matvejs opened his own book with a long synthesis of
the publications of Leo Frobenius since he believed it
imperative
for Russian-speaking artists to have access to this cutting-edge
research. Europeans were astounded by the German ethnolo-
gist’s archaeological discoveries in Nigeria, 1910–12. For
schol-
ars today, Frobenius is a mixed bag, to say the least, but what
he
demonstrated for Matvejs was that Africans have a history (and
a history of art) like anyone else: “It turns out that there is a
rich,
powerful, and fabulous past” (2009:84).
It is hard to believe that Berliner Einstein did not consult Und
Afrika Sprach, a sumptuous multivolume set, or other reports,
which began to appear in 1912 (Fig. 12).23 He opens Negerplas-
tik with the following condescending lament: “Perhaps the illus-
trations in this book will establish this much: the Negro is not
19. undeveloped; a significant African culture has gone to ruin;
perhaps the Negro of today relates to what may have been an
‘antique’ Negro as the fellah relates to the ancient Egyptian”
(2004:124). On the one hand, the discovery of accomplished,
naturalistic figures in brass and terracotta at Ife demonstrated
that sub-Saharan Africa was “once” a site for civilization. On
the other hand, for bourgeois observers schooled in the Greco-
Roman tradition, it implied that this civilization had been lost,
partly through contact with Europe: “The deeper one penetrates
the layers of ancient cultures, the more refined artefacts one
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finds. It follows from this that there was an ancient culture dur-
ing antiquity, which was far superior to what we find on African
soil today (Frobenius 2009 [1912]:195). Although Einstein did
not accept the superiority of naturalism, he seems to have been
affected nonetheless by the conviction of interminable
decline.24
The irony here is that most of the sculptures illustrated in
Neger-
plastik were not so old as Einstein imagined and testified to the
vitality of contemporary African art at the turn of the century.
With all its problems, Und Afrika Sprach made available a
wealth of data that challenged many prevailing models for
African
societies. It demonstrated enough historical complexity to
render
untenable the view of Africans as “people of an eternal
prehistory”
(as Einstein worded it). There is no need to look further than
20. Fro-
benius for Einstein’s conviction that a history of African art
existed
and that “one should disabuse oneself of the illusion that the
sim-
ple and the originary could possibly be identical.”25
And yet, Einstein’s section devoted to “Religion and Afri-
can Art” could not have stemmed from Frobenius, nor indeed
any respected contemporary work of scholarship. He begins
by asserting that “the art of the Negro is determined above all
by religion. As with many an ancient people, the sculptures
are worshiped. The maker creates his work as the deity” (2004
[1915]:129). Hear the jealousy, the desire, that Einstein
expresses
for the African artist (and he does say “artist”) who creates a
god,
whose “work … is self-sufficient, transcendent, and unentan-
gled” (ibid.). The African artist has no mandate to imitate
nature,
as in the European tradition: “Whom would a god imitate, to
whom would he submit?” Instead, the African work of art
“signi-
fies nothing, it does not symbolize; it is the god” (ibid., p. 130).
11 carl einstein, Negerplastik, facing plates 18–19.
left/ Fang reliquary head. right/ Kongo nkisi
n’kondi.
the play of opposites in the photographs can be
witty. in this case, the designer contrasts two heads;
one smooth, one rough; one blind and mute, the
other defined by bulging eyes and fleshy lips. the
game of formal contrasts subsumes differences in
meaning associated with scale, viewing conditions,
and cultural origins.
21. Einstein never once uses the term “fetish.”26 However, make
no mistake: the work that collapses signifier and signified, the
thing that is mistaken for a god, is none other than the “fetish.”
Jean Laude wrote in 1961 that assimilating African sculpture to
the fetish was “unacceptable” but attributes Einstein’s error to
the weakness of contemporary ethnography (1961:88). This
state-
ment has served as the alibi for innumerable apologists; how-
ever, it misrepresents the state of the field in 1914. Lurid
images
of natives worshipping so-called fetish-objects would continue
in the tabloids and in comic books like Tintin for some time,
but rarely in the professional literature on Africa. Einstein’s
for-
mulation recalls Charles de Brosses, who wrote in 1760, “These
divine fetishes are nothing other than the first material object
that it pleases each nation or each individual to choose…. They
are taken for Gods” (De Brosses 1760:18–19). According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, it was de Brosses who first argued
that a fetish was “worshipped in its own character, not as the
image, symbol, or occasional residence of a deity.” It is
precisely
this distinction that Einstein insists upon—the purported non-
symbolic, non-referential nature of the fetish.
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12 Following splashy newspaper coverage of
Frobenius’ expedition to nigeria, the publisher Vita
released Und Afrika Sprach in multiple editions,
1912–13, graded for every pocketbook. by publish-
22. ing antiquities from ile-ife, Frobenius established
with one blow that africa had both a history and an
art history. einstein was certainly aware of Froben-
ius’s work by the time of Negerplastik. he absorbed
some of its lessons on history while ignoring the
revelations about yoruba religion.
idols, they are not beings or objects that receive actual worship”
(Notes analytiques 1906:149). “It is an image, an effigy, a
symbol
invested with a temporary power” (ibid., p. 151). “The black
man
never prostrates himself before a fetish…. They do not adore it
like an idol, like a god” (ibid., p. 160). As the definitive publi-
cation of the Musée du Congo, the Notes analytiques served
as a reference guide for the world’s research museums and for
researchers like Matvejs. Frobenius also roundly denied that
Africans were subject to the “insensible fetish” (1912–13:xiii–
xiv)
Their analysis is incomplete, their interpretations in conflict,
their tone patronizing, but all these authors were grappling with
reality on a much more sophisticated level than what one finds
in Einstein.
What I am emphasizing is that Einstein’s choice of an anach-
ronistic model was deliberate and self-conscious. It is striking
that he abandoned it entirely in all his later writings.27 Yet, in
an
argument forwarding “pure sculpture,” the concept of the fetish
existing only for itself provided a powerful model for the auton-
omous art object advocated by European critics since the 1870s.
iN The dark?
To date no documentation has surfaced for the sources for Neg-
erplastik.28 Therefore, we are forced to turn to close analysis of
23. the text itself. One revealing clue lies in Einstein’s curious
claim,
repeated twice, that the “beholder often worships the images in
darkness” (2004:129–30). Travelogues and early ethnographies
on Africa were published with a steadily increasing number of
engravings and eventually photographs beginning in the 1870s.
One need only flip the pages of these volumes to discover
enough
illustrations of daytime masquerades and the public display of
works of art to problematize Einstein’s assertion (Figs. 13–
14).29
Darkness was the trigger for the “dread” (Grauen vor dem
Gott) evoked by Einstein (1915:xiii). In his treatise on the sub-
lime, Edmund Burke had emphasized “how greatly night adds
to our dread” and claimed that “[a]lmost all the heathen tem-
ples were dark” (1968 [1757]:59).30 According to Matthew
Ram-
pley, the sublime became a “fundamental trope in theories of
primitive culture, and in particular, in theories of primitive and
prehistoric art” (2005:251). Between 1876–1903, the image of
prehistoric humans underwent a profound transformation. No
longer regarded as noble savages, nourished by fertile fields and
forests, they had become pitiful creatures struggling to survive
in
a dangerous world (Groenen 1994:328–29). The depth of change
is measured by the series of novels penned by J.-H. Rosny on
pre-
historic life, culminating in La Guerre du feu (1911), which
details
the perils besetting a family when their fire is extinguished and
they are plunged into “terrifying darkness” (1911 [1977]:5).
Darkness took on special urgency in the debates swirl-
ing around the discovery of Paleolithic paintings, beginning
at Altamira in 1880 (Fig. 15). The French archaeological estab-
24. lishment disputed their authenticity until 1902, when respected
archaeologist Émile Cartailhac published a dramatic retraction,
“Mea Culpa.” He explains how difficult he found it to believe
that
anyone could have executed works of such quality “in these
dark
caves, by the flickering light of smoky lamps” (1902:349).
Even after their authenticity was accepted, darkness remained
the single most important factor driving interpretations. In
1903,
The term “fetish” remained peppered through popular sources
on Africa (including art books) with no meaning more precise
than “African carving.” However, de Brosses’s interpretation of
the “fetish” as an object mistaken for a god was discredited by
the 1870s, when Europeans began to interview practitioners and
grapple with the complexity of African religious praxis. In John
Lubbock’s widely consulted compendium, The Origin of
Civilisa-
tion, he traces a proto-evolutionary spectrum from those with-
out religion, to “Negro” fetishism, to the dawn of religion in
totemism (1871:349–51). He cannot decide if “fetishism” is a
low
stage of religion or “anti-religion” because “the negro believes
that by means of the fetish he can coerce and control his deity”
(ibid., p. 164). Lubbock equates the fetish with witchcraft
images
in the European tradition, which could be used to inflict harm
on their models (ibid., pp. 164–65). Lubbock’s view that the
African “by means of witchcraft, endeavors to make a slave of
his deity” (ibid., p. 349) is the absolute reverse of Einstein, who
imagines the sculptor fabricating a god-object, adoring it, and
eventually being “consumed” by it.
Also in 1871, E.B. Tylor published an influential revision of
25. “fetishism” as “the doctrine of spirits … attached to, or convey-
ing influences through, certain material objects” (1871, II:144).
However, another influential text, Notes analytiques, disputed
this connection to spirits. As was not unusual in serious publi-
cations on Africa in the early twentieth century, one senses that
its authors felt a mission to overturn images of African religion
culled from newspapers. They stated (over and over again) that
Africans do not worship images as gods: “The fetishes are not
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Salomon Reinach wrote that the location of the paintings “in the
darkest part of the cavern” rendered their “religious and mysti-
cal character … incontestable” (1903:263). Like Lubbock
(above),
he was inspired by European witchcraft to interpret the image
(or “effigy”) as a means to influence or gain power over what
was
represented (1903:260). He cautiously drew analogies with
recent
ethnography on the Aruntas of Australia (who executed paint-
ings restricted from view by noninitiates with the goal of multi-
plying game animals): “If the troglodytes thought like Aruntas,
the ceremonies that they performed before these effigies would
help insure the proliferation of elephants, wild bulls, horses,
Cer-
vidae, which they used to eat” (1903:263). Truly lavish
publications
with color illustrations in the 1910s kept Paleolithic artists in
the
public eye. Reinach’s interpretation that the paintings were used
for “hunting magic” (as it came to be called) reigned for over
26. fifty
years. Whereas Einstein opposed the model that the artist was
seeking to control what was represented, he was still inspired to
believe that darkness was a key to interpretation, as could not
have
been supported by contemporary scholarship on Africa.
The psychoLogy oF The arTisT
Negerplastik ends with a discussion of tattoo and masquerading,
the originality of which has not been recognized. When Captain
James Cook published his travelogue on Tahiti in 1769, he initi-
ated a European obsession with tattoos, which continued
through
the early twentieth century. Travelers of scientific bent were
care-
ful to describe who wore tattoos (men, women, warriors, etc.)
and
where the designs might be located. Drawing on this
voluminous
literature, John Lubbock concluded: “Ornamentation of the skin
is almost universal among the lower races of men” (1871:43).
He
judged the Maori to have “the most beautiful of all” tattooing,
and
his illustration was reproduced by Alois Riegl, among many
others
(ibid., p. 47) (Fig. 16). The reason that tattooing became so
impor-
tant was that, as Lubbock indicates, it was imagined to offer
cru-
cial evidence on the history of ornament and, by extension, the
origins of art.31 Riegl argued that the “urge to decorate … is
one of
the most elementary of human drives” and cited the Polynesians
as proof that tattooing was invented before clothing (1992:31).
27. Modernist Adolf Loos gave one of the most notorious
statements
on this topic when he argued that human evolution could be
mea-
sured by the willingness to eschew ornament:
The Papuan tattoos his skin, his boat, his paddles, in short
everything
he can lay hands on. He is not a criminal. The modern man who
tat-
toos himself is either a criminal or a degenerate. There are
prisons
in which eighty per cent of the inmates show tattoos… If
someone
who is tattooed dies at liberty, it means he has died a few years
before
committing a murder (1964:19).32
Loos accepted that the origin of art arose from the “urge to
orna-
ment” one’s body for “erotic” purposes. The popularity of
Loos’s
lectures testifies to the continuing relevance of the subject at
the
time Einstein was writing.
Africans did not feature prominently in the theoretical litera-
ture on tattooing, although cicatrization was folded into the
gen-
eral category at this period.33 Cicatrization appears on
numerous
of the sculptures illustrated in Negerplastik, but Einstein
restricts
himself to discussing the human body and what its modification
reveals about the psychology of the artist. There are clear traces
28. of the literature on tattooing, e.g. in references to “erotic
power”
(Kraft der Erotik) or the debate on whether or not the design
“reinforces the form sketched by nature.”
Nevertheless, Einstein’s interpretation is unprecedented for the
period and delivered in one of the most highly styled passages
in
Negerplastik, both “terse and expressionistic.”34 He is struck
by
“What a remarkable sort of consciousness … which conceives
13 the temple of shango, ibadan, nigeria. 1910.
From Und Afrika Sprach…. (frontispiece) from a
watercolor by the expedition artist, carl arriens.
beginning in the 1880s, new photographic and
printing technologies allowed an increasing number
of images to be reproduced showing african art
objects in their original viewing conditions.
14 a photograph showing the public display of a
nkisi (power object like Figure 2) in a Kikongo-speak-
ing region during a medical diagnosis.
photo: J. a. da cunha Moraes, aFrica occidental.
lisbon: daVid corazzi, 1885, n.p. entitled “a FaMily, on
the banKs oF the zaire riVer.”
the baptist missionary w. holman bentley, who
worked for many years among the Kongo, published
an engraving drawn from Moraes’s photograph in
his widely consulted book Pioneering on the Congo
(london: religious tract society, 1900, vol. 1, p.
268). the label reads: “the practice of Medicine (the
29. girl on the left is the patient.)”
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18 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
of one’s own body as an unfinished work” (1915:137). Once
again,
he can only attribute to “despotic religion” the unflinching will-
power to “make the individual body into a universal one through
tattooing” (den individuaellen Leib durch Tätowierung zu einem
allgemeinen machen). He argues that the ability to see oneself
as
an object, as a medium, is a “tremendous gift for objective cre-
ation” (ibid., p. 137).
In this section, Einstein attempts to weave the anachronistic
notion of the fetish with its emphasis on the arbitrary over-
valuation
of things together with the burgeoning literature on totemism.
He
argues that it is understandable for someone who “deems
himself
a cat, a river, and weather to transform himself accordingly”
(ibid.).
It is no coincidence that Einstein uses forms of the word
“change”
or “transform” seven times in his short discussion of masks
(verän-
dern; verwandeln; Verwandlung). Spencer and Gillen, the
authors
of Native Tribes of Central Australia, used some form of the
verb
“transform” thirty-five times in their text: animals, birds, and
30. witch-
etty grubs all transform into humans and vice versa.
For twenty years, the publications of Spencer and Gillen were
of outstanding importance in European intellectual life since
they offered exhaustive, eyewitness descriptions of life and
culture among the Arrernte (Arunta) of Australia, who were
trumpeted as survivals from the Stone Age. Spencer and Gillen
provided the data which Frazer, Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, Rein-
ach, Henri Breuil, and a legion of others spun into golden theo-
ries about totemism and the psychology of the “primitive mind.”
In 1902, Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss argued that sto-
ries about “metamorphoses” were found around the world:
“They all presuppose the belief in the possibility of the
transfor-
mation of the most heterogeneous things one into another”
(1963
[1901/02]:6). Drawing on Spencer and Gillen and other ethnog-
raphers, they speculated that for the least evolved peoples:
Here, the individual himself loses his personality. There is a
complete
lack of distinction between him and his exterior soul or his
totem. He
and his “fellow-animal” together compose a single
personality…. The
Bororo sincerely imagines himself to be a parrot (ibid., p. 6).
In Durkheim and Mauss’s influential model, “transformation” is
predicated upon extinction of human personality.
In 1910, Lévy-Bruhl nuanced the discussion differently, draw-
ing on many of the same sources. In his view, it was more a
ques-
31. tion of “fusion” or “mystic participation” when a man dressed
in
an animal skin:
They are not concerned with knowing whether the man, in
becoming
a tiger, ceases to be a man, and later, when he becomes a man
again, is
no longer a tiger…. That which is of paramount importance to
them
is the mystic virtue which makes these individuals
“participable” …
of both tiger and man in certain conditions, and consequently
more
formidable than men who are never anything but men, and tigers
which are always tigers only.35
Although Lévy-Bruhl will become extremely important for Ein-
stein’s work in the 1930s, he leans more towards Durkheim and
Mauss’s perspective on the psychology of transformation in
Neg-
erplastik. Instead of fusion, as articulated by Lévy-Bruhl, he
insists
that “all individuality is annihilated” (1915:xxvi; 2004:137).
The mask
is expressionless because it is liberated from the “lived
experience
of the individual” (2004:137). The masquerader becomes the
God.
For Einstein, the stakes are higher in masquerade than in tattoo-
ing because dance induces ecstasy. He argues that the
masquerade
counterbalances the self-annihilation implicit in religious adora-
tion: he prays to God, he dances ecstatically for the clan (or
com-
munity), and “he transforms himself through the mask into the
32. clan and into the God.” In the emphasis on “the God,” one hears
the
echo of the fetish. Lévy-Bruhl defined ecstasy as one of the
“bor-
der states in which representation, properly so called,
disappears,
since the fusion between subject and object has become
complete”
(1926 [1910]:362). Einstein calls masks a “fixed ecstasy” (die
fixierte
Ekstase), meaning that they freeze-frame the fleeting passage of
ecstasy. In particular, he believed that certain grotesque masks
con-
veyed the experience of transformation (1915:xxvi). He even
won-
ders if donning the mask might not serve as a “stimulus” to
ecstasy.
Note Einstein’s emphasis on the masquerader’s experience.
Previous theorists were more interested in the audience. The
early Frobenius considered masks as representations of the
dead,
which were animated in performance (Streck 1995:256). For
James Frazer in The Golden Bough, masquerading was intended
to give a realistic representation of the gods in order to render
belief more persuasive (1913, part 6:374–75). Einstein’s
specula-
tions are an early expression of the seismic shift in masquerade
literature, as identified by historian of religion Henry Pernet
(1992:117), when a fascination emerges with the psychology of
the masquerader.
From the 1930s–60s, a circle of influential theorists transferred
theories on the psychology of the “archaic mind” to masquerade
(Lévy-Bruhl 1963 [1931]), Eliade 1964, Buraud 1948, and
Callois
33. 15 “bison ramassé,” reproduction of an origi-
nal painting by abbé h. breuil from the caverne
d’altamira. printed by b. sirven. Émile cartailhac and
abbé henri breuil, La Caverne d’Altamira (imprimerie
de Monaco, 1906), pl. 28.
einstein’s assertion in Negerplastik that african
sculptures were worshipped in the dark more likely
stems from writings on the sublime and from the
publicity surrounding the discovery of extraordinary
paleolithic paintings deep in caves than any contem-
porary publication on africa.
AF464_08-21_CS6.indd 18 8/23/13 2:17 AM
vol. 46, no. 4 winter 2013 african arts | 19
1961 [1958]). In 1964, Mircea Eliade summed up their position
in
terms curiously reminiscent of Einstein:
Whatever sort of mask is worn, the wearer transcends earthly
time.
Whether ritual, funerary, or for any spectacle, the mask is an
instru-
ment of ecstasy. He who wears one is no longer himself, since
he is pro-
jected beyond his personal temporary identity (Eliade 1964, 9:
col. 524).
It is interesting to observe that that the bibliography for Eli-
ade’s influential entry on the “mythological and ritual origins”
of
34. “masks” in the Encyclopedia of World Art cites six works on
Cen-
tral European masks, Caillois’s book Man, Play, and Games,
and
only one work on Africa (the early book by Frobenius, which
was
not based on fieldwork) (1964, 9: col. 568).
In fact, the transformation hypothesis only began to appear in
fieldwork-based studies in Africa in the 1970s. A pivotal figure
in this transfer was Herbert Cole, in his 1970 exhibition
“African
Arts of Transformation.” In 1985, he published a catalog of
grad-
uate student essays called I Am not Myself. The preface to this
modest publication has become the most quoted text on African
masquerade. He writes that speakers of English suggest that
by means of mask and costume a spirit is represented. This is
not the
African attitude…. The masker, the wearer who is now “ridden”
or
imbued by the spirit, also believes in his own new and altered
state.
His personal character and behavior are modified, fused with
those of
the spirit he creates and becomes. Human individuality is lifted
from
him. He is not himself (1985:20).
As Pernet argues, there are so many well-documented alterna-
tives to this theory that it is startling that it should be argued as
the rule, “the African attitude.” Although Cole conducted
impor-
tant fieldwork among the Igbo of Nigeria, masquerade was not
the focus of his research. He has generously admitted in inter-
35. views that he was inspired by Eliade (whose text he echoes)
although he stands by the argument.36
In a future publication, I will trace the genealogy of masquer-
ade theory for Africa (outlined in Strother 2002). What Ein-
stein makes clear is that the transformation hypothesis was not
born in Africa. Instead, it emerged from the transfer of theories
on the “primitive mind” to masquerade, in particular, the claim
that humans were transformed into their totem either through
“fusion” or through total alienation of personality.37
It is important to realize that Einstein was drawing not on Afri-
can ethnography but on a mishmash of sources on the so-called
primitive mind because it reveals something important about his
project. Negerplastik has presented a puzzle to scholars since
Ein-
stein describes his method as one based on “formal analysis”
(2004
16 illustration showing Maori tattoos. John lub-
bock, The Origin of Civilisation (new york: d. apple-
ton, 1871), p. 47.
europeans became fascinated by tattooing follow-
ing the publication of captain cook’s travelogues
in 1769. prominent art historians such as alois riegl
(who also illustrated this same image) believed that
tattooing offered important evidence on the history
of ornament and, by extension, the origins of art.
einstein drew on this literature to speculate about
the psychology of the african artist.
[1915]:126) and yet frames his study with long exegeses on
religion
and psychology. Perhaps the problem lay in collapsing
Einstein’s
36. “analysis of forms” (Analyse der Formen) (1915:viii) with the
dry
description that passes today for “formal analysis.” Einstein was
seeking to recover “ways of seeing and the laws of perception”
(Seh-
weisen und Gesetze der Anschauung) (1915:viii). The term for
“vision”
or “perception” in German (Anschauung) has both physical and
philosophical dimensions.38 At the end of his note on
methodology,
Einstein acknowledges the “arbitrary” nature of artistic creation
due
to the “individual forms of vision/perception” (die einzelnen
Formen
der Anschauung). Therefore, vision itself is shaped by both
culture
and psychology. If Einstein wished to recover African “ways of
see-
ing” from the sculptures, it behooved him to explore what kind
of
psychology could have produced them.
a FiNaL word oN TraNsFormaTioN
“Voir ne signifie plus observer…”
Einstein continued to work through his ideas on transforma-
tion throughout his life and his most elaborate statement by far
on
primitivism comes, unexpectedly, in his monograph on Georges
Braque.39 Here “fetishist” is a dirty word, mockingly applied to
European aesthetes who venerate but secretly fear the art object
(“in the manner of primitives”) (1934:13, 54). By 1930,
Einstein
was influenced by a Jungian critique of Freud to argue that the
unconscious should be considered a creative, progressive force,
37. rather than a negative one (ibid., p. 118). He wrote that Braque
was a visionary because he explored the unconscious through
dreams or hallucinations, working courageously in isolation
without benefit of religion or the collective solidarity of “primi-
tives.” Although Einstein never mentioned Africa, he invoked
the
“ecstatic rupture” of masquerade and reiterated how the animist
or
totemist was “dominated by the need to destroy his own
subjectiv-
ity, in other words, dominated by the principle of metamorpho-
sis.”40 Braque was living this “drama,” which had freed him
from
the need to imitate nature, so that his art had become “a form of
magic, [which has] the power to transform reality [le réel]”
(ibid.,
p. 139). The mature Braque had experienced a “transformation
of
his vision” to achieve the transcendental state where: “Seeing
no
AF464_08-21_CS6.indd 19 8/23/13 2:17 AM
20 | african arts winter 2013 vol. 46, no. 4
longer signifies observing” (ibid., p. 140). The desire expressed
in
Negerplastik now becomes clearer. Einstein studied the forms
that
he admired from Africa and elsewhere in order to master the
psy-
chology that produced them.
Z.S. Strother is Riggio Professor of African Art at Columbia
38. University.
She is working with Jeremy Howard and Irēna Bužinska to issue
a new
critical edition on the essays and photography of Voldemārs
Matvejs and
Russian “primitivism.” [email protected]
Notes
Parts of this essay were first presented at the sympo-
sium “African Art, Modernist Photography, & the Politics
of Representation, organized by Wendy Grossman, at the
Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, on November 14, 2009.
The author is the source for all translations, unless otherwise
noted; in particular, all quotations from Einstein 1915 are
translated by the author; quotations from Einstein 2004
[1915] are by Haxthausen and Zeidler.
Originally published as: Z.S. Strother, “À la recherche
de l’Afrique dans Negerplastik de Carl Einstein,” Gradhiva
n.s., 2011 no. 14, 31–55, 257–59. The English version has been
lightly revised. The author wishes to thank the reviewers of
African Arts for their suggestions.
1 See the reviews for Negerplastik, 1915–20,
reproduced in Baacke 1990:85–133. The press Kurt Wolff
released a second edition in 1920.
2 Meffre book jacket.
3 An exception is Patricia Leighten, who exam-
ines reports on Africa in the French newspapers, ca.
1905–07 (1990).
4 Joyce Cheng argues that Einstein’s “reflections
on the social use of the objects, in particular their ritual
function” is critical to his theoretical project of “meta-
39. physical immanence” (2009:87–97). Where I differ from
her, as will become clear, is in the attribution of sources,
which leads to very different conclusions about the role
for Africa in his work.
5 Wendy Grossman has pioneered the study of
“how photographs functioned in promoting non-Western
objects as Modern art” (2009:4). For analysis of photogra-
phy in Negerplastik, see Grossman 2006; 2007; 2009:64–67.
6 Ezio Bassani attributes ten of the ninety-four
illustrated works in Negerplastik to sources in the Pacific
or Philippines, reflecting the state of knowledge at the
time (1998). The first edition (1915) was published with
111 plates containing 119 photographs. The second edi-
tion (1920) dropped three photographs (plates 106, 107,
111, including two objects from Melanesia) for a total of
108 plates, 116 photographs, and 91 sculptures.
7 Fourteen objects, two views; three objects, three
views; one object from Madagascar, five views. Gross-
man underscores the importance of multiple views in
Negerplastik, the originality of which was praised by a
contemporary reviewer (2009:67, 78 n. 21).
8 Christian was here invoking Frobenius’s model of
“cultural circles,” i.e. regions sharing clusters of stylistic or
historically defined cultural traits (Frobenius 1898).
9 I thank Sebastian Zeidler for bringing this text
to my attention. Today much more is known about the
history of sculpture in Eastern Africa, e.g. Van Wyk
2013; Jahn 1994.
10 Several reviewers criticized the omission of
dates, provenance, ethnic origins (see Baacke 1990:104,
40. 108, 128). Einstein was scrupulous about the labels for
his second book, Afrikanische Plastik.
11 “Mon premier bouquin c’est un torse [fragment]
parceque c’était publié par l’éditeur pendant que j’étai au
lazareth” (sic) (in Baacke 1980:142; Bassani 1998:102).
12 For example, Frank Haviland, who had his col-
lection photographed by Druet before 1914 and some
of whose photographs appear in Negerplastik (Laude
1968:115; Bassani 1998:106, 110).
13 Paudrat 1984:144, 151; Bassani 1998. Paudrat and
Bassani have determined that fourteen objects came
directly from Brummer’s collection and that a substan-
tial percentage came from his established clients. In
1913, Brummer had already made available nine photos
(six objects) from his collection for publication in the
Czech avant-garde magazine Umelecky mesicnik, which
were recycled in Negerplastik (pl. 6, 16–17, 46, 57, 86–87,
99–100) (Bassani and Paudrat 1998:114–20). For Ein-
stein’s continuing struggle to acquire photos of African
sculptures, see Neumeister 2012.
14 For example, one of the advertisements from 1915
promises “119 excellent, large plates … presented in an
instructive layout” (in Baacke 1990:112). However, Bassani
observes that he can discern no logic for the layout in
terms of ethnicity, region, function, or style—in striking
contrast to Einstein’s later volume, Afrikanische Plastik
(1998:102). Perhaps because of the differing conceptual
logic for grouping photos, the juxtapositions in the sec-
ond book are not visually interesting.
15 The phrase belongs to Friedrich Markus Hueb-
41. ner (in Baacke 1990:110).
16 Einstein even took the children of a literary
colleague on a visit to the library in April 1916 when he
discovered that they shared his passion for things Afri-
can (Meffre 2002:62).
17 “ich negriere hier gänzlich. ein afrikanischer
Excess [....] Also diesmal werde ich Afrika in zwei
Büchern versammeln man wird sogar Gelegenheit finden
die heimatliche Gründlichkeit in meiner Arbeit festzustel-
len [sic] (in Baacke 1990:138–39).
18 Reprinted by Baacke 1980:397–400, 414-15, 421–
37. In 1925, Einstein published a handsome expanded
collection, Afrikanische Legenden. Most of his sources
are drawn from Francophone Central Africa, e.g. Luba,
Holoholo, Kaniok, Kuba, and Fang.
19 “Leo Frobenius zeugt wider Carl Einstein.” In
Baacke 1990:110.
20 Klaus Kiefer has even documented a stylis-
tic shift in favor of modal verbs such as “scheinen” or
“mögen” to mark speculation (1987:156).
21 Sixty percent of the twenty-three titles cited date
from 1909 or later.
22 Didi-Huberman is the first scholar to recognize
the importance of art history in Afrikanische Plastik ;
however, he argues that it represents a “prolongement
systématique” of Negerplastik rather than a change of
direction (1998:52).
23 Einstein was wary of acknowledging Frobenius.
42. Although the latter had significant field experience, his
grandiose theories, bombastic style, populist publications,
and lack of formal academic credentials insured a ambiva-
lent reception from the German academy. In Afrikanische
Plastik, the prominence of the Yoruba, the selection of
certain images, and even the wording of some of the labels
demonstrate knowledge of Und Afrika sprach.
24 One of the few carry-overs from the first book
to Afrikanische Plastik was a nauseating elaboration
of this perspective on African regression, ending with
what could serve as a partial abstract for Und Afrika
sprach, “Les forces créatrices de la civilisation africaine
sont presque complètement épuisées. Peu à peu, la
colonisation a détruit l’ancienne tradition, et les apports
étrangers se sont mêlés au trésors héréditaire des idées
orginales” (1922 [1921]:3).
25 Einstein 2004 [1915], 125; Frobenius, Und Afrika
sprach, vol. 1 (1912), ch. 1. However, Riegl could also
have served as a theoretical source, as Cheng reminds
us (2009:88 n. 7).
26 “On donne souvent le nom de fétiche aux statues
africains; mais ce terme, dont on fait un emploi abusive,
finit par perdre sa signification veritable et ne sert sou-
vent qu’à cacher notre ignorance.” Einstein 1922 [1921]:6.
27 For example, his model in Afrikanishe Plastik is
“ancestor worship” as articulated by Bernhard Ankermann
in 1918 (1922 [1921]:13ff). Probably the emphasis on “ances-
tors” seemed to offer possibilities for historical analysis.
28 Cheng identifies Hedwig Fechheimer’s
1914 book Die Plastik der Ägypter as an antecedent
43. (2009:90). I am not convinced by some other sugges-
tions that stem from the bibliography of Afrikanische
Plastik, for reasons delineated elsewhere in the article.
29 Cheng raises the question of darkness in Ein-
stein’s formalist theory and goes so far as to say that he
was able to “deduce the presence-before-appearance
hierarchy of value” from the formal structure of African
sculpture. This is a dangerous game. She draws paral-
lels to Susan Vogel’s arguments about how the visibility
of art is carefully regulated among the Baule (1997).
However, even among the Baule, the ritual owner for
restricted sculptures may hold, caress, and examine
them closely. Restricting access is not equivalent to Ein-
stein’s model of worshipping the object in the dark.
30 I thank Noam Elcott and Ioannis Mylonopoulos
for debating with me the role of darkness in art histori-
cal writing. See Elcott’s forthcoming publication, Artifi-
cial Darkness: An Art and Media History, 1876–1930.
31 For example, Hirn 1900 and Grosse 1902. On
the ornament debate, see Rampley 2005:255–56.
32 Loos 1964:19. Loos first published his essay
“Ornament and Crime” in French in 1913; however,
he delivered public lectures on the topic beginning in
Berlin in 1909 and the “substance of his arguments” was
developed in talks delivered from the turn of the cen-
tury. See Long 2009 for clarification of the chronology
of lectures and formal essay.
33 An exception was in Belgium, where a flurry
of publications appeared on cicatrization in the Congo
Free State, 1892–97. In a provocative article, Debora
Silverman argues that Art Nouveau artist Henry Van
44. de Velde took inspiration from this literature for his
work in the 1890s, culminating in his formulation that
“ornament is the scarification of the object” (2012:176).
Einstein was unlikely to have had access to the Belgian
material before his posting to Brussels.
34 I thank Eberhard Fischer for his many insights
into this final section.
35 Lévy-Bruhl (1926 [1910]:99–100). Preceding this
discussion, Lévy-Bruhl makes reference to blizzards,
breezes, winds, rivers, and tigers (ibid., pp. 98–99).
Could this be the source for Einstein’s list of transforma-
tions into “a cat, a river, and weather” (2004 [1915]:137)?
36 Personal communication, UCLA, Spring 2005.
37 I am not arguing that Einstein invented the
transformation hypothesis but that he gave early expres-
sion to it. It is hard to document influence from the
text of Negerplastik (as opposed to the photographs) on
other authors before the 1990s.
38 I thank Jonathan Fine for alerting me to the
importance of philosophical terms in Negerplastik.
39 Kiefer gives a wonderful analysis of sources for
the term “metamorphosis” in Einstein’s work (1987:159–
64). He argues that the appearance of the term marks
an inversion of Einstein’s formalist or ethnological
methodologies, whereas I see it as a continuation of his
interest in “transformation.” For more on metamorpho-
sis, see Lichtenstern 1998 and Zeidler 2010.
40 “dominé par le besoin de détruire sa personne
(…) dominé, en d’autres mots, par le principe métamor-
45. phe” (Einstein 1934:137–38).
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vol. 46, no. 4 winter 2013 african arts | 21
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AF464_08-21_CS6.indd 21 8/23/13 2:17 AM
Context: Beyond the Static Object
In response to our discussion on the Global Perspective Exhibit,
most agreed AOA art (Africa, Oceania and Native America)
lacked context. With this assignment, return to Miami’s Art
52. Museum and their Global Perspective Exhibit and choose one
African object and develop 3 different strategies to better
contextualize your chosen object. With this assignment you will
create a powerpoint presentation. Submissions with a
Turnitin score above 7% will result in an automatic zero.
Requirements:
-Visit Global Perspective Exhibit once again and select one
African object
-Conduct preliminary library research into chosen object to
understand the object’s functions, meanings, symbolism and
uses. You can also use class materials as well.
-Develop 3 different ways/strategies to better contextualize your
chosen object for museum viewers (be creative with this--what
would you like to see!)
-Create a powerpoint presentation of at least 5 slides, but no
more than 10 slides, with your 3 ideas to better contextualize
the object, better informing its use, meanings, function,
aesthetic value, etc… to museum viewers.
-Format of Powerpoint: at least one slide introducing your
object (with image), at least one slide for each of your 3 ideas
to better contextual said object, and one slide with your
bibliography or list of every source consulted.
-library research: 5 peer-reviewed sources must be used and
listed in bibliography. This includes books as well as articles
via library databases (most of these are peer-reviewed but not
all so be careful. Hint: African Arts journal is a great peer
reviewed source available here as long as you are on campus or
logged in:
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/afar/51/3 (Links to an
external site.)Links to an external site.).
Powerpoints can include, text, images, graphics, video (hint:
youtube may be a good source for video), voice over, etc…
Powerpoints must be saved and uploaded as a PDF. No google
docs. If your own computer does not have/support powerpoint,
all library computers certainly do.
53. Research: with this assignment, as with all assignments and
exams, Academic Integrity matters. Books, images pulled from
the web, images scanned from books, and videos must be
properly cited. You are to cite your sources using the Chicago
Manual of Style (Author/Date) format. Refer to this link for
questions and how
to: http://libguides.williams.edu/citing/chicago-author-
date (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Here are some books available in the stacks at the Art and
Architecture Library (Alumni Hall). Note they are listed in
Chicago Manual of Style Author/Date format):
Bassani, Ezio. 2012. African Art. Milan: Skira.
Lamp, Frederick. 2004. See the Music, Hear the Dance:
Rethinking African Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Munich: Prestel.
Perani, Judith. 1998. The Visual Arts of Africa: Gender, Power,
and Life Cycle Rituals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Thompson, Robert Farris. 1974. African Art in Motion. Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Visona, Monica Blackmun et al. 2008. A History of Art in
Africa (second edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Visona, Monica Blackmun et al. 2001. A History of Art in
Africa. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
These books may not cover most African works on display at
museum. You are free to also research other books in our
library’s collection, which I assure you, is extensive.
I offer some examples of citation:
If you directly quote a sentence or paraphrase an idea from a
source, using the Chicago Manual of Style (Author/Date),
simply place an in-text (or in-slide) citation at the end of the
sentence or bullet point. It should appear as follows:
“Be sure to cite your sources” (Fenton, 2016, p. 1-2). Here is
the breakdown of the in-text citation: Author’s last name,
54. publication date, and page number.
Images and video: Generally speaking use this rule of thumb:
(source: Page title and site sponsor) for the in-slide citation,
and then visit the link above for your complete listing in your
bibliography. Do not paste website URLs into the in-slide
citations, Turnitin will go bonkers. Also avoid pasting the URL
in your bibliography slide; again, Turnitin will not accept this.
For your images, be sure to use "(Source: Page title and site
sponsor)". Images and video are the only cases where you will
have website sources.
For this assignment, feel free to use the Internet for images and
video, but for information and data, only use published, peer-
reviewed books. This is of course what you will find at the
library. As you can imagine, there is too much junk out there on
the web regarding African art and culture.
And finally, do not think of this a presentation (even in using
powerpoint), think of this as a digital poster presentation,
providing as much data for myself or viewer to best understand
your object and contextualization strategies.
Rubric
A= This powerpoint is exceptional in every way. You have
clearly thought carefully about the purpose of the exercise and
clearly communicated your ideas. You include a thought
provoking response and ideas reveal deep thought and analysis
that demonstrates a good amount of time, thought and reflection
went into this assignment. Your powerpoint is not only
thoughtful and impressively well organized, but indicates a
further degree of intellectual engagement with your evaluation
of your chosen object than what is facilitated by class alone.
B= This powerpoint is generally good, but not spectacular. You
did everything required with competence and with successful
results. Your powerpoint is thoughtful and clearly-articulated,
but there may be some minor issues with content and citation
55. that prevent it from achieving an even higher grade. Overall,
your work is good but does not demonstrate the highest degree
of intellectual analysis.
C= This powerpoint is average. While your powerpoint
accomplishes almost everything required, the material presented
(content) does not demonstrate much thoughtful analysis. There
may be issues regarding citation. The clarity of organization
might be problematic. Or your ideas/strategies to better
contextualize your selection object are not well developed or
thought out.
D= This powerpoint does not meet the standards of thought,
clarity, and analysis expected. Either your overall presentation
is flawed, poorly thought out, incomprehensible, sloppily
presented or a combination thereof. There might also be serious
problems fulfilling the requirements of the assignment.
Powerpoibts that do not properly engage the assignment but still
demonstrate some effort will receive this grade.
F= This powerpoint is unacceptable. Either you did not meet the
requirements, or did not follow instructions or did not meet the
minimum standards of quality.