Dogon: Africa's People of the Cliffs. (eye).

Dogon: Africa's People of the Cliffs by Walter E.A. van Beek, photographs by Stephanie Hollyman Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $49.50, May 2001, ISBN 0-810-94373-5

Two new books on African art, Dogon: Africa's People of the Cliffs by cultural anthropologist Walter E. A. van Beek and African Rock Art: Paintings and Engravings on Stone by rock art specialist Alec Campbell, contribute luminous contextual photographs to the long-standing discourse on Africa's visual impact on the Western eye. Both books look at African traditions, origins and continuance.

Anthropologist van Beek has been collecting data about the daily and ceremonial lives of Dogon for 25 years. The Dogon people, who for hundreds of years have resided atop a 200-kilometer cliff face in Mali (West Africa), have enjoyed a least "explored" status among Africa's cultures. In van Beek's attempts to convert scholarly evidence into popular language he tends to oversimplify. For example, there is the vaguely insulting image of Dogon people as ritual beer drinkers. For young readers, to whom the book is otherwise well-suited, the importance of such rituals outside of their own culture's mores may need further explanation.

Dogon's photographer, Stephanie Hollyman, best captures the spectacular summits and landscapes of the Dogon, giving the entire book a transcendent quality. The red clay dwellings with thatched domes that dot the orange cliff sides under the vibrant gleam of a burnished sunset are simply breathtaking.

African Rock Art combines the expertise of Alec Campbell, a South African environmentalist and the director of the National Museum and Art Gallery of Botswana, with the photographic eye of David Coulson, the founder of the Trust for African Rock Art. Unbelievable in its comprehensive scope, the vast material supports a view of Africa as the archetypal artistic environment. The astounding educational value of these photographs of rarely seen geographical sites is unsurpassed in this genre. Furthermore, the authors relate the significance of rock art, which Mary Leaky called "Africa's greatest and least known art form," as evidence of early written and artistic expression from 12,000 year-old civilizations."

When all is said and done, the roaming eye of the West still functions as a primary source of highly criticized orientations to Africa. Nevertheless, these new texts embrace and share the enduring gifts that Africa unremittingly gives to the world.

Stacey Williams is working toward her doctorate in art history.