A beautiful and informative guide to Celtic woodwork., 05 Jun 2002
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this excellent guide to Celtic woodcraft. It is aimed at all levels of woodworkers - from the novice to the experienced carver - and it fills a gap in the Celtic arts repertoire. The text is extremely informative and well-written, and each chapter is prefaced by a brief history of a particular aspect of Celtic art. The author is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about her subject, which serves to give readers a greater understanding when undertaking each project.
There are 20 projects in all, including a basic Celtic knotwork border, a Claddagh lovespoon and mirror, a Dragon trinket box, a stained glass uplighter and a bathroom set. The designs are original, varied and highly creative, and each step is clearly explained with accompanying photographs. The beautiful illustrations throughout the book were also by the author.
This book will no doubt inspire woodworkers of all levels to try their hand at Celtic woodcarving, but the book looks equally at home on the coffee table. If you only buy one book on Celtic artwork, this should be it.

A beautiful and informative guide to Celtic woodwork., 05 Jun 2002
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this excellent guide to Celtic woodcraft. It is aimed at all levels of woodworkers - from the novice to the experienced carver - and it fills a gap in the Celtic arts repertoire. The text is extremely informative and well-written, and each chapter is prefaced by a brief history of a particular aspect of Celtic art. The author is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about her subject, which serves to give readers a greater understanding when undertaking each project.
There are 20 projects in all, including a basic Celtic knotwork border, a Claddagh lovespoon and mirror, a Dragon trinket box, a stained glass uplighter and a bathroom set. The designs are original, varied and highly creative, and each step is clearly explained with accompanying photographs. The beautiful illustrations throughout the book were also by the author.
This book will no doubt inspire woodworkers of all levels to try their hand at Celtic woodcarving, but the book looks equally at home on the coffee table. If you only buy one book on Celtic artwork, this should be it.

Sinew transforming, 15 Dec 2002
Although the exercises are different from the traditional and original Shaolin Yi jin jing (sinew transforming exercises) the book loses very little in the content of exercise benefit. I have purchased 'expensive' books in the past on Chi Kung and was left very dissappointed, so it was a pleasent surprise to purchase a 'cheap' book and found it rich in information. This is an excellent book for anyone seeking better health but for the most part a great benefit for martial artists who are seeking a good 'all round stretching and strengthening' exercise routine, as it can be done as whole set or one can draw on individual exercises to 'infill' an incomplete personal programme.

In the light of recent debates about the status of the term "Tribal Art" in relation to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, Jean-Baptiste Bacquart's The Tribal Arts of Africa is a remarkably bold and ambitious book, which sets out to offer a geographical and artistic synthesis of more than a hundred years of Western studies of the art of Africa.

According to Bacquart, "tribes, not countries, shape the artistic geography of Africa". As a result, the book is broken down into 49 sections, each dealing with a particular region and its tribal art, beginning with the west coast of Africa and ending with east and South Africa. A particular tribe's masks, statues, utensils, furniture and jewellery are then surveyed for their ritual and aesthetic significance. The results are striking and varied, from the remarkable Sapi and Benin sculptures which emerged from Portuguese contact with west Africa in the 15th century, to the mysterious and forbidding figures of the Nyamezi of Tanzania, all of which are beautifully reproduced in full colour.

While the book is a fascinating testimony to the variety and difference of African Tribal Art, its ambitious scope begs more questions than the book can answer. The brief descriptions of the ritual use of these objects requires more explanation. It would also be fascinating to explain the similarities and cross-fertilisations between different tribes which often seem to have occurred. Perhaps the strength of The Tribal Arts of Africa is the extent to which it unwittingly begins to unravel the usefulness of a term like "African Tribal Art" itself; but for those intrigued by these objects, this is undoubtedly the book to explore an art about which we still know very little. --Jerry Brotton

A beautiful and informative guide to Celtic woodwork., 05 Jun 2002
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this excellent guide to Celtic woodcraft. It is aimed at all levels of woodworkers - from the novice to the experienced carver - and it fills a gap in the Celtic arts repertoire. The text is extremely informative and well-written, and each chapter is prefaced by a brief history of a particular aspect of Celtic art. The author is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about her subject, which serves to give readers a greater understanding when undertaking each project.
There are 20 projects in all, including a basic Celtic knotwork border, a Claddagh lovespoon and mirror, a Dragon trinket box, a stained glass uplighter and a bathroom set. The designs are original, varied and highly creative, and each step is clearly explained with accompanying photographs. The beautiful illustrations throughout the book were also by the author.
This book will no doubt inspire woodworkers of all levels to try their hand at Celtic woodcarving, but the book looks equally at home on the coffee table. If you only buy one book on Celtic artwork, this should be it.

Sinew transforming, 15 Dec 2002
Although the exercises are different from the traditional and original Shaolin Yi jin jing (sinew transforming exercises) the book loses very little in the content of exercise benefit. I have purchased 'expensive' books in the past on Chi Kung and was left very dissappointed, so it was a pleasent surprise to purchase a 'cheap' book and found it rich in information. This is an excellent book for anyone seeking better health but for the most part a great benefit for martial artists who are seeking a good 'all round stretching and strengthening' exercise routine, as it can be done as whole set or one can draw on individual exercises to 'infill' an incomplete personal programme.

african tribal arts , 24 Oct 2008
On the face of it this book looks quite good but when you realise that tribal art means that the art work must have been used during tribal ceremonies thus excluding modern artefacts the whole exercise becomes pointless and meaningless.
Works from 49 tribal areas are recorded mainly from Gabon, Zaire,Nigeria and Cameroon.This work is good but far to many representations are in black and white.The art of Ethiopia is virtually ignored
Not a book to be recommended.

Impressive guide and catalogue, 15 May 2004
This beautiful book on the art of Africa south of the Sahara explores 49 cultural areas as regards their artistic production and their political and social structures. The 49 areas are broadly divided under sections for the coast of West Africa; inland West Africa; Nigeria and Cameroon; Gabon and Zaire; and Eastern and Southern Africa.

Each section has its own bibliography. The book includes 865 illustrations of which a least 195 are full color photographs. There are also many maps of the areas under study. The reference section at the end encompasses a further bibliography, lists of major museums and major dealers in African art, a glossary and an index.

The book is a masterpiece that makes accessible the entire panoply of black African tribal arts from the first millennium to the end of the nineteenth century. It is an indispensable reference source for the serious collector and a beautiful encyclopaedia for any art lover.

A beautiful and informative guide to Celtic woodwork., 05 Jun 2002
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this excellent guide to Celtic woodcraft. It is aimed at all levels of woodworkers - from the novice to the experienced carver - and it fills a gap in the Celtic arts repertoire. The text is extremely informative and well-written, and each chapter is prefaced by a brief history of a particular aspect of Celtic art. The author is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about her subject, which serves to give readers a greater understanding when undertaking each project.
There are 20 projects in all, including a basic Celtic knotwork border, a Claddagh lovespoon and mirror, a Dragon trinket box, a stained glass uplighter and a bathroom set. The designs are original, varied and highly creative, and each step is clearly explained with accompanying photographs. The beautiful illustrations throughout the book were also by the author.
This book will no doubt inspire woodworkers of all levels to try their hand at Celtic woodcarving, but the book looks equally at home on the coffee table. If you only buy one book on Celtic artwork, this should be it.

Sinew transforming, 15 Dec 2002
Although the exercises are different from the traditional and original Shaolin Yi jin jing (sinew transforming exercises) the book loses very little in the content of exercise benefit. I have purchased 'expensive' books in the past on Chi Kung and was left very dissappointed, so it was a pleasent surprise to purchase a 'cheap' book and found it rich in information. This is an excellent book for anyone seeking better health but for the most part a great benefit for martial artists who are seeking a good 'all round stretching and strengthening' exercise routine, as it can be done as whole set or one can draw on individual exercises to 'infill' an incomplete personal programme.

african tribal arts , 24 Oct 2008
On the face of it this book looks quite good but when you realise that tribal art means that the art work must have been used during tribal ceremonies thus excluding modern artefacts the whole exercise becomes pointless and meaningless.
Works from 49 tribal areas are recorded mainly from Gabon, Zaire,Nigeria and Cameroon.This work is good but far to many representations are in black and white.The art of Ethiopia is virtually ignored
Not a book to be recommended.

Impressive guide and catalogue, 15 May 2004
This beautiful book on the art of Africa south of the Sahara explores 49 cultural areas as regards their artistic production and their political and social structures. The 49 areas are broadly divided under sections for the coast of West Africa; inland West Africa; Nigeria and Cameroon; Gabon and Zaire; and Eastern and Southern Africa.

Each section has its own bibliography. The book includes 865 illustrations of which a least 195 are full color photographs. There are also many maps of the areas under study. The reference section at the end encompasses a further bibliography, lists of major museums and major dealers in African art, a glossary and an index.

The book is a masterpiece that makes accessible the entire panoply of black African tribal arts from the first millennium to the end of the nineteenth century. It is an indispensable reference source for the serious collector and a beautiful encyclopaedia for any art lover.

Beautiful art, not so good reproduction, 28 Apr 2006
It's hard to find books of Yoshitoshi's work at a reasonable price, so I had high hopes for this volume. Unfortunately I was dissapointed. The images are approximatly a quarter of A4 size and so the impact is limited. In addition the colour and detail reproduction is not as high as could be. Not worth £25 I would say.