Humor and Violence: Seeing Europeans in Central African Art by Z.S. Strother is a study of representations of Europeans in Central African visual culture spanning more than 150 years. Through these artworks, the book sheds fresh light on salient aspects of longstanding, complicated relationships among neighboring Central African peoples and various categories of their visitors, including non-Europeans. Rich, bold, and absorbing, the study explores several dimensions of such representations in a variety of artistic media, from the time of initial contact, through slavery and colonialism, to the contemporary period.
As indicated in the title, it is a book on “seeing,” and it lives up to that claim. It is an authoritative work of careful scholarship that reflects vast experience and exemplary skills in critical looking and analysis of visual images supported by rich contextual, historical, psychological, and cultural insights. Lucidly written, it is readily accessible to experts and nonexperts alike....