Non-Western Art

1. I picked the Legacy of Oppression video because I am very politically active, and I enjoy learning about the history of ideologies like racism.  It helps me understand better how important/destructive imperialism is, and helps me understand the emotions behind modern activism.  I believe in learning from history to better understand modernity.  The other video I chose was the one on Buddhism because I am a fan of old kung-fu movies and many of the monk characters are Buddhist.  It is a religion that has always fascinated me and I enjoy learning about it.

2. There were two key concepts from the Legacy of Oppression video.  The first concept/theme was about the different pieces of art - what they meant/represented, the history of the culture that made it.  The second theme/concept was about the colonization of the Congo by the Germans, which is how many of the art pieces came to the exhibit talked about in the first theme.  The video really went in depth with the atrocities committed against the Central Africans.  The video on Buddhism was partly about the history of the religion & how it came up, but it was also a history of the art - the subject matter, the representations, & the depictions of important events.

3.  The Legacy of Oppression video was a very specific look at the colonization of Africa, which is something that the book doesn't go into.  While the book does look overall at the different civilizations of Africa and the art that came from them, the book heavily focuses on the artwork, breaking it down and analyzing it.  The video gave me environmental historical context the book only glosses over.  The same thing kind of goes with the Buddhism video.  The book looks at ancient India/China as a whole, and is particularly focused on the kinds of art that came from those cultures.  The book does have one section on how the Buddha is portrayed but it's only one page, it doesn't really go into what Buddhism is and how the art is connected to it.  This video is really in-depth; it goes into the foundations of Buddhism and how the art came out of Buddhism in general.

4. The Legacy of Oppression video was very very good.  I really enjoyed the woman who was talking about the pieces of artwork; she was very knowledgeable.  I also really enjoyed that they didn't try to sugarcoat or otherwise tone down the level of violence/atrocities that were committed in the course of German conquest.  I appreciated the willingness to show me, openly, how terrible the treatment was.  The Buddhism video was very good; it was very respectful and quiet, allowing you to hear some of the beauty of Buddhist chants/prayers.  The narrator was very good in this one; he had the right tone of voice and it worked very well with the beautiful depictions of Buddhism.