Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis

Description

By virtue of its unique method of presentation, this beautiful and distinguishedbook, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the founding of the New York Academyof Sciences, is both a source-book and a succinct interpretation of the culture of Bali.It presents over 700 candid photographs selected from 25,000 Leica negatives, in ahighly organized and integrated illustration of certain major features of Balinese life.These are accompanied by explanatory comments, occasionally by excerpts from notesmade parallel to the taking of the pictures, and by interpretative summaries pointingout the relationships between pictures grouped together. The record of “visual andkinaesthetic learning” illustrates the unique contribution of the photographic documentat its best. Here the empathy-stimulating quality of the pictures, their vivid detailand generous sequences, carry the reader into a concrete experience of training-inthe-culturewhich verbal material could not give. The 200 pages of plates and commentaryare preceded by an essay on Balinese character by Mead, in descriptive and interpretativeform. This end-result of observation, organization, and analysis is thusbrought into relation to the photographs.