OCEANIA : ART OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Description

Quality, importance and aesthetic scope, the Metropolitan Museum and the oceanic Pacific Islands Collection is one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world. This lavishly illustrated volume includes some 200 masterpieces from over 2600 items currently in the collection, and was released to coincide with the opening of new galleries of the Museum of Oceanic Art. An overview of Oceanic art and history of the Metropolitan Collection is followed by detailed chapters on each of the five Pacific cultural regions: New Guinea, Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the islands of Southeast Asia. Among the outstanding works we find a figure covered cloth monumental Baining bark, a spectacular shield from the Solomon Islands, a renowned mask Museum Torres Strait and wooden male figure revered Mangarevan a weather charm of Caroline Islands and textile parts of Lampung in Sumatra and Sumba. A glossary and a selected bibliography conclude this essential guide.

– Oceania, which includes the arts and cultures of the Pacific islands, covers a third of the land, an area larger than all combined continents. The dense rainforest of New Guinea to the rich spice islands of Indonesia, tropical islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, and deserts of Australia, Oceania peoples have developed hundreds of different artistic traditions that encompass an amazing variety of shapes and supports, created to represent the countless gods, ancestors and the spirits of various religions in the heart of the region, to enhance the beauty of the human body, and to decorate objects and the integral architecture of daily and religious activities, art Oceania permeates almost every aspect of life.

– The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the most prestigious collections in the world of Oceanic art. Published on the occasion of the opening of new redesigned galleries of the Metropolitan Arts of Oceania, this generously illustrated volume provides an introduction to the rich artistic heritage of the region through more than two hundred masterpieces the Museum’s collection.

– An overview of Oceanic art and history of the collection of the Metropolitan followed by information introductory essays on the major Pacific cultural regions: New Guinea, Australia, Melanesia Island, the island South Asia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Detailed discussions on the various objects placed these exceptional ocean works in their historical and context. Highlights include choices sculpture of acquisitions Metropolitan areas of Polynesia and New Guinea Sepik, religious images Island Melanesia, and textiles of Southeast Asia Islands.

– For more than a century, the remarkable imaging Oceanic art – still new and unfamiliar to some observers – has had a direct influence on many artists, the most important of the Western canon, Paul Gauguin and Picasso and the Surrealists German Expressionists.

The publication of this volume, the first to investigate the extent of the collection of the Oceanic Museum celebrates the artistic and cultural traditions of the peoples of Oceania.