Anthropology and Beauty From Aesthetics to Creativity

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.

List of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgments 1 Anthropology and beauty: introduction STEPHANIE BUNN PART I Beauty and pattern 2 The problem with beauty: an anthropological perspective SUSANNE KÜCHLER 3 The material labour of artful mathematics ELIZABETH DE FREITAS PART II Beauty as grace 4 With beauty all around me, I walk JILL D’ALESSANDRO 5 The unexpected gift of beauty MARC HIGGIN 6 Beauty and captivation: Fuyuge gab and Gell’s anthropological theory of art ERIC HIRSCH 7 The continual changes: transforming art styles in Enlightenment Scotland and beyond PETER GOW PART III Perceiving beauty 8 Grace in moving and joy in sharing: the intrinsic Beauty of communicative musicality from birth COLWYN TREVARTHEN AND STEPHEN MALLOCH 9 The Favourite Sounds Project PETER CUSACK 10 Colour palettes and beauty DIANA. J. B. YOUNG 11 Aso iyi, aso eye: resplendence and the Yoruba prestige textile aso-oke ENI BANKOLE-RACE PART IV Beauty and skill 12 Beauty as a capacity: a study of hands-in-craft ANNA GUSTAFSSON 13 Cinematographers’ skilled vision and aesthetic praxis CATHY GREENHALGH 14 Beauty as skill and ‘common sensing’ CRISTINA GRASSENI PART V Beauty, the body and performance 15 Fleshly beauty: an anthropological perspective ALEXANDER EDMONDS 16 Beauty in motion: collective creativity in contemporary dance CAROLINE M. POTTER 17 Surprised by beauty: Imagining Autism MELISSA TRIMINGHAM PART VI Beauty in space and time 18 Threshold and temporality in architecture: practices of movement in Japanese architecture RAY LUCAS 19 Carbuncles, surfaces and beautiful built environments RACHEL J. HARKNESS 20 Paradigms of transmission: aesthetic affinities and intertextualities in the art of Will Maclean LINDSAY BLAIR 21 Beauty and belonging CARA KRMPOTICH PART VII Beauty, work and design 22 Beauty and economy STEPHEN GUDEMAN 23 Mysterious equations: formulating good design for Textiles U.S.A. T’AI SMITH 24 Engineering as a process of beauty IAN J. EWART 25 Collaborative forms WENDY GUNN PART VIII Beauty as synthesis 26 Appropriation, imitation and creation: glass beadwork among Panará people ELIZABETH EWART 27 The beauty of sand-drawing in Vanuatu: kinship and continuity on Paama Island CRAIG LIND 28 The beautiful and the blessed: brightness, balance and bones in Kyrgyz shyrdak felt STEPHANIE BUNN 29 From the North with my cello, or, five propositions on beauty TIM INGOLD Index

Stephanie Bunnis Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, UK.