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In the end, however, it seems that Vogel herself does not believe rhetoric. Having tried to establish the strangeness of Baule art, she turns around at the conclusion of her book to assure readers of its familiarity: Nothing described in this book is completely unique to the Baule. In fact, the greatest interest of a tightly focused art study like this one may lie precisely in how much light it can shed on the place of art in other, distant cultures.”

V

How much different from a familiar practice in our culture must an alien practice, x, be in order to support the claim, “They have a different concept of x from ours”? There is one extreme answer to this question, earnestly and systematically to my knowledge by no anthropologist, though it is often hinted at or suggested informally: it is that version cultural relativism that claims that since the meaning of any concept constituted by the other concepts and cultural forms in which it is concepts can never be intelligibly compared cross-culturally. This called incommensurability thesis—stressing cultural uniqueness— attractive to some ethnographers who have specialized in specific it affords them a privileged standpoint, as they alone possess superior knowledge of the conceptual world of “their” tribe. The cultural interpretations of an ethnographer who knows the local language tribe, and has a grasp of the tribe’s web of rarefied or esoteric meanings, cannot easily be challenged by outsiders. And since concepts in this view noninterchangeable among cultures, it follows that the translation only poetic language but any language—along with comparison litical forms or social structures, judicial procedures, cooking and practices, warfare, and especially works of art—would therefore impossible.

In the daily work of the ethnographer, where comparison and cross-cultural use of concepts are constantly practiced, such incommensurability is never actually regarded as fact. Nevertheless, ethnographers occasionally claim that a tribe “does not have our concept” of some practice or other. It is my contention that the notion of “a different concept” is stretched beyond intelligibility in almost all such contexts, have yet to see it used validly in connection with art. In the first place, claim that a cultural form is unique, or that the concept that denotes in our culture is useless or inapplicable in another culture, requires the person making the claim has a firm command of the potentially any ethnographer claiming cultural uniqueness for an alien meaning needs to be asked, Are you confident you know enough about your own culture to make an incomparability claim? This problem is at the core of the by Hart: she fails to find the proper comparison for jyonti painting, which is not Europe an gallery painting but traditional religious folk painting practiced in the context of trousseau arts. Broadly speaking, is a frequent deficiency in the anthropology of art. The anthropologist who is very good at mapping out a kinship system might still be insensitive oaf when it comes to appreciating an indigenous local art.

With the Baule examples presented by Vogel, the issue is different. The magical powers built into these arts do not find a close analogue in Western art practice (though they recall weeping or healing religious statues that periodically appear even today in Europe and the Americas, or in outposts of Christianity such as the Philippines). Nevertheless, we have trouble appreciating the skill and aesthetic characteristics of Baule spirit-spouse sculptures; we can also comprehend, thanks to Vogel’s insights, psychological utility of the notion of the spirit spouse for the Baule. Combining our general ideas of art with these other aspects of a foreign artistic/magical/religious practice is hardly an insurmountable task Western intellectual imagination. Vogel in particular paints a lucidly coherent picture of the world of Baule art and belief. Understanding her does not require any stretching or adjustment