Art and Exoticism: An Anthropology of the Yearning for Authenticity

This book is about the yearning for authenticity via art and exoticism. Exoticism related to art cannot be reduced to primitivism alone and also encompasses a search in ones own unconsciousness among other things. The yearning for authenticity through exoticism is explored in a cultural anthropological perspective in the realms of Western philosophy (capita selecta) and colonial literature, currents of art, and in the appreciation of Western art conceptions in non-Western societies.