The Kwoma, the subject of this book, are one of a number of peoples in the Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea who have created some of the most distinctive visual art in the Pacific. Through case studies of their painting, sculpture, architecture and ritual this book examines in detail how people in this society understand their art as a cultural phenomenon. This includes how they understand its origins in the spirit world, how they judge quality in art and how they understand artistic creativity. The book contrasts Kwoma beliefs with the radically different approach to art found in the modern West. The modern Western concept of art first emerged not in the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment, or even later, as anthropologists and art historians often assume, but several centuries earlier in the Renaissance. The book gives an account of radical changes that took place culturally in Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries in the way human intellectual creativity was understood, and how this gave rise to a new concept of art, one that remains unchanged in the modern West today.
Ross Bowden is an Australian cultural anthropologist whose main interests are in the art, history and social organization of societies in the Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea.
Ross Bowden presents a deeper cultural perspective on the role of the artist and creativity by challenging us to consider sources of inspiration that come from creation itself. Drawing on insights from the Kwoma, a society that has had the isolation, time, and introspection necessary to conceive of an alternate perspective on reality, this work allows us to appreciate and contrast diverse modes of consciousness.--Jerome Feldman, Hawai'i Pacific University Ross Bowden's long-term research on the cultural and ritual context of the paintings, sculptures and architecture of the Kwoma is presented in clear, non-technical language which argues that the Kwoma and similar societies 'locate the sources of creativity outside the individual in the supernatural world.' In a masterful survey of art history, Bowden contrasts this with 'those societies that attribute creativity in art to individuals.' This work has profound implications for the understanding and writing of cross-cultural research on art.--Barry Craig, formerly Senior Curator of Foreign Ethnology, South Australian Museum Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society: The Kwoma in Cross-Cultural Perspective is an exciting journey to the artistic world of the Kwoma in the Sepik River Region of Papua New Guinea. Drawing on thirty-five years of studying and communicating with the Kwoma, Ross Bowden introduces readers to lavishly painted Men's Houses and the rituals held there. His research serves as a starting point for a detailed and fascinating cross-cultural exploration of abstract and non-abstract approaches to art, and has resulted in an outstanding work on the material expression of Sepik creativity set against the background of international art.--Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin, University of Goettingen
