Painted bodies : African body painting, tattoos & scarification / Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher ; text with Mary Anne Fitzgerald.

Author: Beckwith, Carol, 1945-

Edition: Original limited ed.

Publisher: New York : Rizzoli, c2012.

ISBN: 9780847834051 (hbk.)
0847834050 (hbk.)

Description: 288 p. : chiefly col. ill., maps (some col.) ; 41 cm.

Subject: Body painting Africa Pictorial works.
Tattooing Africa Pictorial works.
Scarification (Body marking) Africa Pictorial works.

Contents: Painting with chalk -- Chalk & ocher -- Colors of the earth -- Ocher bodies -- Red ocher -- Ocher & oil -- Powdered with ash -- Patterns of beauty -- Spirit paint -- Painting for seduction.

Summary: "The seminal volume on body painting and adornment by the world's preeminent photographers of African culture. Following the international masterpiece 'Africa Adorned', Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher have focused on the traditions of body painting spanning the vastly unique cultures of the African continent. In a contemporary world so fascinated with tattoos and piercings, Beckwith and Fisher document the origins of these fashionable adornments as passed down through African tribal culture. Featured are portraits of the richly colored, detailed, and exquisite body paintings of the Surma, Karo, Maasai, Himba, and Hamar peoples, among others. Drawing from expeditions in the field and firsthand experiences with African peoples and cultures over the past thirty years and with more than 250 spectacular photographs, this is the definitive work on the expressiveness and imagination of African cultural painting of the human body."--Provided by publisher.