Lavish photography and groundbreaking new texts unlock the magic of the island cultures of Indonesia, Malaysia and East Timor. Eyes of the Ancestors takes an in-depth look at the Dallas Museum of Art's world-renowned collection of artworks from Island Southeast Asia. Beautiful photography and essays by distinguished international scholars unlock the magic of the island cultures of this region. Leading cultural anthropologist Dr. Reimar Schefold introduces these texts, which investigate various indigenous art forms from a fresh art-historical perspective. They describe the contexts, purposes, and aesthetic influences of a range of objects, from intricately woven sacred and ceremonial textiles to carved ancestor figures. Also featured are gold and metalwork designs as well as weaponry and jewelry, most dating back more than a hundred years. A 19th-century mouth mask in the collection, from the Leti Islands, is one of the only four known to be in existence. This wooden mask, carved in the shape of a rooster's head, was used in ritual dances. Other spectacular examples from the collection likewise reflect the beliefs and practices of these island peoples.

Drawing on the famous collections of the Musee Barbier-Mueller this unusual and beautifully illustrated book brings together these cultures to demonstrate the astonishing aesthetic similarities between civilizations located far apart in both space and time. While the arts of the Easter Islands and Maori civilizations have been well known for some years the creativity of the inhabitants of Borneo, Sulawei, and Sumatra is less familiar, and is scarcely represented in the major public collections. On the basis of the linguistic consonance between the thousand or more modern languages spoken in Oceania, anthropologists and archaeologists have begun to trace the cultural links throughout this area, in particular through the rituals and beliefs which are often the inspiration for the forms and functions of the artifacts. Masks in human or animal form, made of tortoiseshell, wood, dried leaves or clay; drums, shields, and batons; multicolored clothing for war and peace; intricate jewelry; as well as a wide variety of everyday containers and implements -- all the treasures in this collection display a sophistication of ornament and technical expertise which rival the products of ancient European civilizations. Scholarly essays by over thirty international experts focus on each island or civilization and form a fascinating study which will certainly become the standard work in this field, of interest to both students and the general reader.

The arts of the Indian subcontinent and of those surrounding lands ("Greater India") that fell under its artistic influence are here given an unrivaled pictorial treatment. The splendid illustrations and informative text of this book carry the story from the earliest evidence of civilization at such sites as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the third millennium B.C. to the exquisite products of the Rajput and Pahari schools of miniature painting. Professor Munsterberg explains how, after the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization, the visual arts languished for over a thousand years until there occurred an astonishing revival of art in the service of Buddhism. We then witness the emergence of Hinduy art in the seventh century A.D. The great temples of this so-called Hindu Medieval period, which lasted until the Moslem conquest of northern India in the thirteenth century, surpass anything that was being produced in the West at the time. This volume embraces a vast area that includes approximately one-third of the world's population and covers a period of some five thousand years. -- From publisher's description.

Presents works of art selected from the South and Southeast Asian and Islamic collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, lessons plans, and classroom activities.

This book reveals the mysterious world of the kris—the hilts of the traditional weapons of Indonesia and Malaysia, which have long been collector's items. Kris are objects of great beauty—daggers carved, chiseled, or incised by artist-craftsmen with deep knowledge of the symbolism and traditions of their lands. Java, Sumatra, Bali, Madura, Sulawesi, and Malaysia—each island has its own type of hilt, with its own symbolism and magic. Their images range from geometric abstractions to human, divine, plant and animal, and demon figures. They are made from wood, fossil, ivory, gold, and whalebone and serve as a gateway between the visible and invisible worlds.

There exist numerous free-standing figurative sculptures produced in Java between the eighth and fifteenth centuries whose dress display detailed textile patterns. This surviving body of sculpture, carved in stone and cast in metal, varying in both size and condition, remains in archaeological sites and museums in Indonesia and worldwide. The equatorial climate of Java has precluded any textiles from this period surviving. Therefore this book argues the textiles represented on these sculptures offer a unique insight into the patterned splendour of the textiles in circulation during this period. This volume contributes to our knowledge of the textiles in circulation at that time by including the first comprehensive record of this body of sculpture, together with the textile patterns classified into a typology of styles within each chapter.