African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia

Ethiopian art is some of the most impressive and least well-known of the African continent and this book is the first comprehensive introduction to it available in any language. It is the catalogue to an exhibition that will tour the United States from October 1993 to January 1996 and in it a group of leading American British and Ethiopian scholars in Ethiopian art and culture introduce and discuss a fascinating collection of work. The art ranges from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries and includes panel paintings illuminated manuscripts coins and metal and wooden processional crosses: most of the art is religious in origin and it all shows a strong Byzantine influence. Many of these objects have never been reproduced before and indeed many were rediscovered only within the last 20 years. Others are kept in inaccessible monasteries and churches in Ethiopia and have never been seen before outside of these locations. The book also includes in addition to the reproductions of the art objects a series of essays on differing aspects of Ethiopian culture and society covering topics as diverse as the nature of the medieval Western legacy in Ethiopian culture; the political social and economic history of the country; and the significance of style iconography and patronage in Ethiopian art. It is a gripping and illuminating study of a little-known type of art which is only now achieving its true status.