Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis

By virtue of its unique method of presentation, this beautiful and distinguished book, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the founding of the New York Academy of Sciences, is both a source-book and a succinct interpretation of the culture of Bali. It presents over 700 candid photographs selected from 25,000 Leica negatives, in a highly organized and integrated illustration of certain major features of Balinese life. These are accompanied by explanatory comments, occasionally by excerpts from notes made parallel to the taking of the pictures, and by interpretative summaries pointing out the relationships between pictures grouped together. The record of “visual and kinaesthetic learning” illustrates the unique contribution of the photographic document at its best. Here the empathy-stimulating quality of the pictures, their vivid detail and generous sequences, carry the reader into a concrete experience of training-inthe-culture which verbal material could not give. The 200 pages of plates and commentary are preceded by an essay on Balinese character by Mead, in descriptive and interpretative form. This end-result of observation, organization, and analysis is thus brought into relation to the photographs.