Anthropology and Beauty

Anthropology and Beauty

Anthropology and Beauty Organised around the theme of beauty, this innovative collection offers insight into the development of anthropological thinking on art, aesthetics and creativity in recent years. The volume incorporates current work on perception and generative processes, and seeks to move beyond a purely aesthetic and relativist stance. The chapters invite readers to consider how people sense and seek out beauty, whether through acts of human creativity and production; through sensory experience of sound, light or touch, or experiencing architecture; visiting heritage sites or ancient buildings; experiencing the environment through ‘places of outstanding natural beauty’; or through cooperative action, machine-engineering or designing for the future. Stephanie Bunn is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, UK. Anthropology and Beauty From Aesthetics to Creativity Edited by Stephanie Bunn First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Stephanie Bunn; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Stephanie Bunn to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-92879-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-68156-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of illustrations ix Notes on contributors xiii Acknowledgements xviii 1 Anthropology and beauty: introduction 1 STEPHANIE BUNN PART I Beauty and pattern 21 2 The problem with beauty: an anthropological perspective 23 SUSANNE KÜCHLER 3 The material labour of artful mathematics 36 ELIZABETH DE FREITAS PART II Beauty as grace 51 4 With beauty all around me, I walk 53 JILL D’ALESSANDRO 5 The unexpected gift of beauty 67 MARC HIGGIN 6 Beauty and captivation: Fuyuge gab and Gell’s anthropological theory of art 82 ERIC HIRSCH vi Contents 7 The continual changes: transforming art styles in Enlightenment Scotland and beyond 98 PETER GOW PART III Perceiving beauty 113 8 Grace in moving and joy in sharing: the intrinsic Beauty of communicative musicality from birth 115 COLWYN TREVARTHEN AND STEPHEN MALLOCH 9 The Favourite Sounds Project 131 PETER CUSACK 10 Colour palettes and beauty 148 DIANA. J. B. YOUNG 11 Aso iyi, aso eye: resplendence and the Yoruba prestige textile aso-oke 166 ENI BANKOLE-RACE PART IV Beauty and skill 187 12 Beauty as a capacity: a study of hands-in-craft 189 ANNA GUSTAFSSON 13 Cinematographers’ skilled vision and aesthetic praxis 204 CATHY GREENHALGH 14 Beauty as skill and ‘common sensing’ 217 CRISTINA GRASSENI PART V Beauty, the body and performance 231 15 Fleshly beauty: an anthropological perspective 233 ALEXANDER EDMONDS Contents vii 16 Beauty in motion: collective creativity in contemporary dance 248 CAROLINE M. POTTER 17 Surprised by beauty: Imagining Autism 262 MELISSA TRIMINGHAM PART VI Beauty in space and time 277 18 Threshold and temporality in architecture: practices of movement in Japanese architecture 279 RAY LUCAS 19 Carbuncles, surfaces and beautiful built environments 292 RACHEL J. HARKNESS 20 Paradigms of transmission: aesthetic affi nities and intertextualities in the art of Will Maclean 306 LINDSAY BLAIR 21 Beauty and belonging 324 CARA KRMPOTICH PART VII Beauty, work and design 339 22 Beauty and economy 341 STEPHEN GUDEMAN 23 Mysterious equations: formulating good design for Textiles U.S.A. 353 T’AI SMITH 24 Engineering as a process of beauty 371 IAN J. EWART 25 Collaborative forms 385 WENDY GUNN viii Contents PART VIII Beauty as synthesis 401 26 Appropriation, imitation and creation: glass beadwork among Panará people 403 ELIZABETH EWART 27 The beauty of sand-drawing in Vanuatu: kinship and continuity on Paama Island 418 CRAIG LIND 28 The beautiful and the blessed: brightness, balance and bones in Kyrgyz shyrdak felt 434 STEPHANIE BUNN 29 From the North with my cello, or, fi ve propositions on beauty 449 TIM INGOLD Index 465 Illustrations 3.1 Douady mating rabbits 43 3.2 Rössler attractor 44 4.1 Wearing blanket (fi rst-phase chief blanket, Ute style), ca. 1840 55 4.2 Serape , ca. 1850 59 4.3 Serape , ca. 1860 61 5.1 The vandalised recycling bins outside the housing estate in South London the night they were found by White 69 5.2 Counsel , 2005; vandalised recycling bins in the New Contemporaries exhibition at Liverpool Biennial 2006 75 6.1 Assembling fade 9 1 6.2 Arranging the sacrifi ced pigs in a line 92 6.3 Lines of money displayed before being transacted 93 8.1 Spectrograph and pitch-plot of Laura, a 6-week-old girl, and her mother making melody together 118 8.2 Laura in dialogue with her mother 120 8.3 Nasira exchanges short ‘coo’ sounds with her father 121 8.4 Sharing a traditional nursery rhyme story with a 4-month-old baby 122 9.1 Favouritesounds.org sound map, Handsworth, Birmingham 138 9.2 London favourite sounds word cloud, 2002–3 139 9.3 London favourite sounds word cloud, 2013–15 140 9.4 Southend-on-Sea favourite sounds word cloud, 2010 141 9.5 Manchester favourite sounds word cloud, 2006–9 143 9.6 Berlin favourite sounds word cloud, 2012–13 145 11.1 Obatala ceremonies 169 11.2 Vintage Sanyan 170 11.3 Vintage and modern Alaari 171 11.4 A man of prestige 175 11.5 Aso asiko – modern Sanyan 181 12.1 Production of a child’s baptismal-gáppte by its grandmother 192 12.2 Hands at work, låhtåt the vuoddaga 197 12.3 Hands at work, untangling the warp for weaving the avve 197 x Illustrations 16.1 High-energy opening duet from Pave Up Paradise , performed in 2011 by Phoenix Dance Theatre 256 16.2 Tender closing duet from Pave Up Paradise , performed in 2011 by Phoenix Dance Theatre 257 17.1 Chloe’s ‘picnic on the moon’ 269 18.1 A range of paving stones from the strolling path highlighting a shift of ground conditions which has an impact upon the body of the visitor 282 18.2 The Shokatei pavilion, lifted off the ground and with incremental thresholds described by the various fl oor treatments 283 18.3 One of the thresholds of the Old Shoin with a transition from smooth and untreated materials towards the carefully planed and orderly modularity of the building 283 20.1 A Catechism of the Laws of Storms: Vision of the Hydromancer , 2014 309 20.2 Nomad Trace , 2001 313 20.3 Method Net , 1978 317 21.1 Wool dance apron made from a ship captain’s coat and decorated with weaving and puffi n mandible fringe 327 21.2 Button blanket belonging to an unnamed female chief, who was the third chief in her clan 328 21.3 Carved wooden fi gure of a dog sled with thread and wool or felted fabric and metal tacks, 1979 334 23.1 Installation view of the exhibition Textiles U.S.A. ; August 29, 1956 through November 4, 1956; the Museum of Modern Art, New York 356 23.2 Page spread from American Fabrics 38: Special Issue: Textiles U.S.A. (Fall 1956), 58–59 361 23.3 Installation view of the exhibition Textiles U.S.A. ; August 29, 1956 through November 4, 1956; the Museum of Modern Art, New York 365 24.1 6023 in the workshop during renovation 379 24.2 Part of the 6023 lubrication system 381 25.1 Designing Environments for Life Workshop 2, Provotypes Workshop, October 2009 391 25.2 Løgstrup and company employees working with the research tool 392 25.3 Generating fl exible categories involving dialogic products 394 26.1 The evolution of decorative art 408 27.1 Harris Kamen draws. Lulep Netan Village, Paama Island, Vanuatu 421 27.2 Lumali Timi – the two siblings/twins, pencil on paper, by Mansen Kenet, Etout āmal, Luli Village, north-east Paama Island 425 Illustrations xi 27.3 Ah – Black Crab , pen on paper, by Morrison Hungahari (deceased), Etout āmal, Luli Village, north-east Paama Island 426 28.1 Kyrgyz shyrdak , wedding felt, featuring pattern of the heart 439 28.2 Kyrgyz shyrdak illustrating bone imagery, early 20th century, Bishkek region 444 28.3 Wedding felt made for Kenje Toktosunova’s marriage, including hearts quilted in and diamond-shaped tabak forms, Issyk-kul region 445 29.1 My cello 452 29.2 My lasso 453 Colour plates 1 Poncho serape , ca. 1830 60 2 Kere dancers 90 3 Chuck Close, Self-Portrait I, 2009 153 4 Ngupulya Pumani 2015, Maku Dreaming 155 5 Uluru just before dark on a cold July day 158 6 Uluru materialising at dawn on a cold July day 158 7 Uluru an hour after materialising at dawn 158 8 Sydney Town Hall illuminated by sequences of coloured light, December 2015 161 9 Sydney Town Hall illuminated by sequences of coloured light, December 2015 161 10 Aso olona 174 11 Musician Juwon Ogungbe in Sanyan 177 12 Women in aso-ebi ‘completes’ 180 13 Modern resplendence 182 14 Anna Gustafsson with a child who has just been baptised 191 15 Matthew ‘underwater’ 270 16 The Gate of Honour, demonstrating the use of rustic detailing and timber step marking the actual threshold 280 17 Portrait of Angus Mackenzie , 1982 311 18 Leviathan Elegy , 1982 315 19 An Sùileachan, 2013 319 20 Birch bark basket decorated with dyed porcupine quills, sweetgrass, and black thread 330 21 Page spread from American Fabrics 38: Special Issue: Textiles U.S.A.

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