Decorated Skin: A World Survey of Body Art

Skin, according to Elizabeth Reichel‐Dolmatoff’s foreword to this spectacular book, is “the final, slender layer that separates the self from the outside world”. The book first appeared in Germany under the title Gesmückte Haut and aims to provide a “panorama” of the ways that human beings have adorned this slender layer “throughout the ages” on “all five continents”. Commentary on the 418 illustrations has been supplied by 14 contributors, who are described as “art historians, ethnologists and archaeologists”.

The first of 11 chapters is entitled “In the beginning: the magic of colours”. The first illustration in the main body of...