Bogolanfini Mud Cloth (Schiffer Books)

!I am very interested in fabric design, especially geometric patterns, earth toneswith black lines separating the various shapes.

I found this book in the gift shop at the National Textile Museum in Washington, DC. It's really all pictures--150 pages of full-color clear pictures of nothing but mudcloth (cloth on white background, glossy pages), with a few pages of essays at the beginning to set the stage. The book comes with a CD containing all the images, and permission to use up to five of them for "personal use."About 1/4 of the patterns make me stop in my tracks. You may find a different quarter to be of interest. They're all compelling; my taste runs to bold graphics. Great source material.

This book contains an amazing number of full-color photos. The author, however, apparently, has nothing new to say, so refers to an article by Imperato in the journal African Arts, and to a book by Rovine.Those are the only references mentioned in the book. There is a brief exposition of the traditional process and a discussion of the profound changes to the art that have been induced by tourist trade. While the author mentions the use of bogolanfini by hunters and recently circumcised girls, there is no explanation of the rationale for these uses. It is mentioned that countries other than Mali produce mudcloth, but the Senufo mudcloths from Ivory Coast are not identified as such.For my purposes this is a very disappointing book. The art of Africa is much better understood by knowing about the context in which it is produced.

Great photos; book needs more text!Amazon book description should not say the "Bogolan" people of Mali, when in fact there is no such group...bogo is "mud" in the Bambara language; bogolan means mud-applied/decorated; bogolan fini is "mud-decorated cloth," made (usually but not always) by the Bambara people of Mali.The cloth is almost exclusively made nowadays for tourists, and has become a craft product to make money with. Thus many Malians who are not Bambara are painting cloth with mud (or dyeing cloth black and painting it with bleach to imitate mudcloth), with varying degrees of artistic merit. Some of it is well-done and exacting; some of it is crude and slap-dash.Bleach-painted "mudcloth" may be seen as an evolution of the art, valid in itself, but it might bother a purist!Tourists often don't know or care about the difference, which really doesn't matter, since if they like it and buy it, it helps someone in this very poor country. The book doesn't address these complex issues, but still it's a good intro to the subject.

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