Mason, Peter
Infelicities

Representations of the Exotic.

Mason explores the texts, paintings, drawings, photographs and museum displays in which the exotic has been represented from the early modern period to the present. He describes the unique iconography that Europeans developed to represent the exotic and the means they employed to display it once artefacts were brought to Europe. In both instances, the exotic object is taken out of its original context and given a meaning and significance it never had. To differentiate the 'exotic' from the 'other', Mason says that in understanding the 'other' there is engagment and interchange; in encountering the 'exotic' it is a one-sided effort at understanding: the exotic object never gives up its meaning. XIII,255 Seiten mit 11 Textabb. und 16 Farbtafeln, gebunden (Johns Hopkins University Press 1998) textsauberes Exemplar mit leichten Gebrauchsspuren, leicht berieben/clean text pages, minor traces of use, slightly rubbed