The vivid art forms of Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and New Zealand are rooted in their religious cultures. This relationship is still apparent in the new and ever-evolving art forms of the modern Pacific world.

Two abundantly illustrated volumes offer a vibrant discussion of how the divine is and has been represented in art and architecture the world over. Beginning with the ancient worlds of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome and moving forward through time, Art and Architecture of the World's Religions explores the major faiths from countries and continents around the globe, helping readers better understand the creations their beliefs have inspired. After tracing the history and development of a religion, the book provides a general overview of its principal beliefs and key practices. It then offers specific examples of how works of art/architecture reflect that religion's values. The focus of each chapter is on the temples, churches, and religious buildings, statues, paintings, and other works of art and architecture created by believers. Each representative work of art or architecture is examined in terms of its history, materials, symbols, colors, and patterns, as its significance is explained to the reader. With extensive illustrations, these volumes are the definitive reference work on art and architecture of the world's religions.

In Religion and the Arts: History and Method, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona analyses the origins and methodological journey of this field though concerns with repatriation, museum exhibitions, and globalization, to offer an indispensable introduction to study of the field.

This introduction to the art of tribal peoples of North America, Africa, and the South Pacific does not briefly cover the hundreds of artistic traditions in these three vast areas but rather studies in depth thirty-six art styles within all three areas using the methods of art history, including stylistic analysis and iconographic interpretation. Emphasis is on the art in cultural context and as a system of visual communication within each tribal area. Where appropriate for a more complete understanding of the art, data from archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, religion, and other humanistic disciplines are included.Among the peoples and cultures whose art is studied are the Haida, Kwakiutl, and Tlingit; the Hohokam and Mongollon, the Anasazi and Hopi; the Dogon and Bamana of Mali; the Asante of Ghana; the Benin, Yoruba, and Ibo of Nigeria; the Fan, the Bamum, and the Kuba of Central Africa; Australian aboriginal and Island New Guinea art; Island Melanesia art; central and eastern Polynesia; Hawaii and the Maori in Marginal Polynesia.The format of the text and selected illustrations is based on seventeen years of teaching African, North American Indian, and South Pacific art to undergraduate and graduate students at Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY), New York University, and Columbia University. The book is intended for art history and anthropology students and the interested lay reader or collector. The detailed notes at the end of the book are for further study, research, and understanding of the tribal art style under discussion.

Pacific Encounters brings together for the first time many stunning Polynesian objects collected by voyagers and missionaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Illustrated are over 270 items gathered from the major regions of Polynesia. Many are from the British Museum, which houses fine and rare material from the expeditions of Captain Cook, Captain Vancouver, and members of the London Missionary Society. Ranging from massive images of gods to small fish hooks, they are discussed in the contexts of their local use and meanings, and their journeys to museums all over the world. These pieces have remarkable stories to tell of encounters between humans and their gods, between Polynesians and Europeans, their respective chiefs and priests, beliefs, and technologies. Pacific Encounters is a groundbreaking book that conveys the wonder and excitement not only of the objects themselves, but of the fascinating Polynesian cultures that produced them.

The Art of Clothing: A Pacific Experience is a collection of richly textured and tremendously engaging empirical studies of cloth and clothing in colonial and post-colonial Pacific contexts. By challenging readers to reconsider the very nature of the materiality of clothing, the editors productively situate this volume at the intersection of a number of ongoing interdisciplinary projects that are coalescing around an interest in cloth and clothing. The book as a whole speaks lucidly to issues of current concern in a wide range of academic fields - including cultural studies, material culture, Pacific history, art history, history of religions, and museum studies.

Contributors explore the complex relations among Pacific artists, patrons, collectors, and museums over time, as well as the different meanings given to art objects by each.