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First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
List of contents
List of figures. Acknowledgments. Abbreviations. Map. Introduction: Part I 'The Carvings on the Houseposts Winked Their Eyes...' - Indigenous Northwest Coast Aesthetics. Part II 'Remember the Sacred Room and its Paintings...' - Indigenous Northwest Coast Art History: Histories of Artistic Innovation. Art History and Politics. Using Art to Remember Words. Mnemonic systems, Sculpture, Architecture, Landscape and Movement. Part II 'How Pregnant With Meaning is Every Carving...' - Collecting Objects and Ascribing Meanings: The Great Collection of Northwest Coast Culture. Culture- and City-building in the Northeastern USA. 'The Desirability of Obtaining Carvings That Have Explanations...' Scientists Collecting the Beautiful. Decoration and Meaning as Commodities. A Short History of Non-meanings. A Raven-rattle That Was Never Collected. Salvage Ethnography and the Collection of 'Meanings'. Finding Meaning Everywhere. The Sort of Meaning That Places House. Part IV 'It Is Deep to Where Most of It Has Sunk...' - Art on the Coast in the 20th Century. Appendix I - Sources, Texts and Literal Translations. Sources for Chapter I, Sources for Chapter II. Diacritics and Lineation. Appendix II - The Cliff Painting of Legaix. Appendix III - Horn Spoons. Bibliography. Index. ex
About the author
Jonatahan Meuli combines both a scholarly and a creative career in his chosen field. he is a lecturer on the history of art at the University of East Anglia, UK, and is also a successful freelance painter, exhibiting and lecturing in England, Europe and Canada. He has been a Henry Moore fellow, and has worked extensively for the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Charitable Trust, owners of the Sainsbury Collection. Jonathan Meuli has also worked for several galleries, and has published a number of acclaimed articles in the fields of art history and anthropology.
Summary
In this fascinating study of Northwest Coast art, Jonathan Meuli has not only outlined a history of ideas associated with Northwest Coast art objects from pre-Contact time to the present day, but has also examined the ways in which the physical location and contexts in which the objects are produced has helped to determine their meanings. Locating his linear historical narrative within a wider exploration of ethnographic art ideas, which emphasizes links across cultures, Meuli examines the differing attitudes towards Northwest Coast material culture, particularly as these are embodied in oral mythic narratives, collection methods and architectural constructions.
