Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy - Paperback

by Robert Farris Thompson (Author)

This landmark book shows how five African civilizations--Yoruba, Kongo, Ejagham, Mande and Cross River--have informed and are reflected in the aesthetic, social and metaphysical traditions (music, sculpture, textiles, architecture, religion, idiogrammatic writing) of black people in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Mexico, Brazil and other places in the New World.

Front Jacket

This book reveals how five distinct African civilizations have shaped the specific cultures of their New World descendants.

Back Jacket

This landmark book shows how five African civilization have informed and are reflected in the aesthetic, social and metaphysical traditions of black people in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Mexico, Brazil, and other places in the New World.

Author Biography

Robert Farris Thompson is the author of, among other works, Black Gods and Kings, African Art in Motion, and Flash of the Spirit. He has been a Ford Foundation Fellow and has mounted major exhibitions of African art at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. He is Col. John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, where he is also Master of Timothy Dwight College. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.