‘The language of beauty in African art’. Review of: The Language of Beauty in African Art, Edited by Constantine Petridis. Contributions by Yaelle Biro, Herbert M Cole, Kassim Kone, Babatunde Lawal, Constantine Petridis, Wilfried van Damme and Susan Vogel. New Haven and London: Yale UP 2022, 356 Pages, 9.00 x 12.70 in, 315 color + 30 b-w illus. ISBN 9780300260045 (hbk); 9780300269918 (ebook). $65.00.

Abstract

This book comprises two primary objectives. First, it seeks to curate an extensive exhibition showcasing diverse African art forms sourced from public museums and private collections in the United States and Europe. The exhibition, featuring about 300 works of art from different countries in Sub-saharan Africa, focuses mainly on the sculptural tradition of Africa. However, a few other works, such as textiles, were featured in the publication supporting the landmark exhibition. Divided into eight thematic sections, the essays by seven authors advocate for an aesthetic appreciation of the arts of Africa based on concepts, criteria and vocabularies of the cultures who made them. The book adopted a contextual or anthropological approach to present cultural case studies and analyse thematic examples from sub-Saharan Africa. The final pages of the book acknowledged pioneers, the ‘fieldwork generations’ who paved the way for the scholarly study of African arts and laid the foundation for analyses of African aesthetics from African perspectives from the 1930s to the present.