Social Science AFRICAN ARTS HOMEWORK

Chapter 1 Introducing Africa

1 A Peoples referred to in the text.

There already exists a considerable literature on African art, much of it more valuable for its illustrations than its text. The most significant studies are generally those of limited scope, dealing with the art ofa single society or area. Books and articles of this kind do not usually have wide distribution, and the gen­ eral reader sees only books (like this one!) which deal with the art of the whole continent. Most ofthese share the major character­

isticofmaking general statements about Africa as ifthis vast and

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18 Peoples and places in and near Nigeria.

varied continent were a homogeneous unit. Translated into sta­ tistica1 terms they have the effect of such assertions as that the average African family consists of one husband, one and a half wives and four and three-quarter children.' Many of the general­ izations that have been made about African art, artists or societies do not have comparable danger-signals built into them, so i t is advisable to view all such declar ations with scepticism.

The mere size of the African continent indicates the dangers

ofgeneralization. Its area ofalmost twelve million square miles (nearly thirty million square kilometres) is more than three times that of the United States, including Alaska. The 48 con­ tiguous United States could be superimposed on the Sahara desert and not touch the coast of Africa at any point. Its popula­ tion is about 750 millions, living mostly at densities below twenty- five to the square m ile; it is only in part because such vast areas are so thinly populated that it has more distinct peoples and cultures than any other continent. I ts coastal plains are rela­ tively narro"v so that although the great rivers are navigable for

immense distances in the interior, they often p lunge off the plateaux with cataracts and rapids (the Victoria Falls on the

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Zambesi are 104metres (S4S feet) high, twice as high as Niagara, and the flow ofwater over the Stanley Falls on the Congo, now Za'ire, is twice that of Niagara) and they end up in great deltas, rather than in navigable estuaries. Only the West \lfediterranean coast affords good harbours. In consequence, direct external influences, apart from the Cretan ones in the late second millen­ nium BC and those resultingfrom the Assyrian invasion ofEgypt in 666 BC (the latter of which seems to have had very little cul­ tural effect in any case) were for a long time limited to the coasts, though trade goods found their \>vay inland. Penetration of foreigners into the interior came only after the Industrial Revolution, when Europe was seeking sources of raw materials and markets for the finished goods. Today, with all kinds ofcom­ munication in operation, no part ofAfrica is entirely out of touch with the rest of the world, and the materialistic values of Western society, which are its easiest to export, are almost everywhere replacing the older spiritual ones. African societies are changing as they always have and so a.re their arts, which are reflecting increasingly, even though often unconsciously, the new values.

Some of the most persistent stereotyped misconceptions about Africa concer n the physical environment. The entire con­ tinent is commonly visualized as covered with jungle (a word which is never used in an African context) or with desert. In fact, there is a g r adation from one to the other. Desert is found, of course, in the Sahara, in the margin of the Horn (the eastern­ most point), and in the Kalahari to the south. Yet these are not areas of bare sand; nine- tenths of them are covered with scat­ tered scrub vegetation. The tropical rain forest (known as 'j ungle' in southern Asia and 'selvas' in South America) is quite limited in extent. It is found along the West African or Guinea Coast (with an important gap between Nigeria and Ghana), Cameroun, Gabon, Congo and the northern part ofZaYre. There is a separate patch offorest on the east coast ofMadagascar. On the east and south ofthe rain forest, which as its name implies is in the area ofheaviest rainfall (more than 152 cm, sixty inches, a year), we find the dry forest. The forest edges everywhere grade through a forest/savanna mosaic produced by cultivation, into a succession ofsavanna woodlands, which become savanna grass­ lands (known as the Sahel from Lake Chad westwards) as the desert areas a.re approached. The vast area of these grasslands supports fabulously rich resources of game in southern and east­ e rn Africa, and encourages pastoralism there and in the Sudan

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2. The Vegetation Zones of Africa.

Fore$t

Fore$t /Siiva nna Mosaic

Savanna W oodla nds

Savanna Gra sshrnds

Oeser·1 and Semi~dese rt

Mon ta ne

Mediterranean

belt.• At the extreme north and south where there are zones of Mediterranean climate, we find temperate woodlands, while the high mountain areas of both E ast and West Africa have their

own montane vegetation. This vegetation pattern, however, has not always prevailed.

Overcultivation leading to erosion has changed grasslands into deserts, while slash and burn agriculture is establishing pockets ofsavanna in the forest fringes (the forest/ savanna mosaic). In

addition, there have been long- term changes in the climate. In the Tenere, in eastern Niger, now an extremely dry desert, remains ofhippopotamus bone and shells oflacustrine bivalves have been racLiocarbon dated to 1400 BC ± 200 (Gif-76)• and I 2S0 BC± 200 (Gif-284) respectively, incLicating either the persistence

of large lakes from earlier times or their re-formation during a recession in the desiccation of the southern Sahara. At the time of moister concLitions before the beginning of the second millennium BCthe Saharawas open grassland, supporting, as the rock art shows, large herds ofcattle. Atall times theSahara was less ofan obstacle to

human movement than it has been thought to be; the trans­ Saharan trade has been important for at least thelasttwo millennia.

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Before desiccation produced the desert it is likely that the forests were more extensive than they are now, probably spread­ ing beyond the areas of forest/ savanna mosaic. The study ofthe history of the vegetation of Africa is unfortunately still at such an early stage that we are a long ·way from being able to draw maps ofthe continent to show the vegetation at different times in the past. The identification ofpollen grains left in the successive layers of soil exposed in archaeological and other excavations is of crucial importance for our understanding of the history of man in Africa. Plants are not nearly so adaptable to changes in their environment as animals are, so that pollen analysis is our primary source of evidence about changes in climate, for some plants die out and others replace them as the temperature or rainfall changes. Human history until the latest phases is very largely the story ofman's interaction with his environment. In many cases his art is used in ceremonies intended to control the environment, for example, in the Bambara dance head-dresses which represent the spirit chiwara who in the form ofan an telope introduced the knowledge ofagriculture; the dances, performed in pairs by young men at the time of planting, are to ensure germination and a good harvest.

Modern Africa is populated by a great variety of peoples whose ultimate origins are still being sought by various tech­ niques. Perhaps the people who have been there longest are the Bushmen (or Khoisan) of the Kalahari desert, whose hunting culture appears to be very similar to that which characterized the Upper Old Stone Age. Indeed, the study ofmodern Bushmen has provided valuable ethnographic data for the interpretation ofmaterials found by archaeologists.• Yet it seems unlikely that they still live their ancient way oflife unchanged. For centuries they have been pushed by neighbouring peoples into inhos­ pitable areas, so that their present mode of living probably reflects some readjustment to a hostile environment, rather than the We ofthe Old StoneAge preserved in tact. The changes, ho\,v­ ever, are unlikely to have been fundamental. They never learned to work iron and have remained dependent on wood, bone and leather for the tools with which they gain their livelihood.

The Pygmies too, who occupy parts of the equatorial forest, seem to be survivors ofa StoneAge population. They too hunt in the forests, though many groups have developed a symbiotic existence, exchanging the results of their hunting for agricul­ tural produce as well as iron for their spear- and arrowheads ·with neighbouring Bantu farmers.

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3 Dance headdress, 1n the form ofan antelope with young, representing the spirit chi wara who introduced agriculture to the Bambara or Bamana. These headdresses, attached to a wickerwork cap, are worn in pairs by two young men of the flankuru or co-operaung group of farmers who at the time of planting and harvest dance in

imitation of a leaping antelope. British Museum, London. Ht 79 cm (31 ¼ in )

5. Face mask In the Segu substyle o(the Bambara (Bamana). Such masks are worn by uncircumcised boys, all of whom are members of the Ntomo society which prepares them for circumcision and membership of the Tyi wara society. British Museum, London. Ht 60 cm (231/2 in.)

4. Seated female figure in the Segu substy1e of the Bambara (Bamana). British Museum, London. Ht 60 cm (23¾ in.)

Both the Bushmen and the Pygmies are forced to migrate extensively in their pursuit ofgame.Their homes are, therefore, the simplest ofshelter s - a few branches or saplings, which the Pygmies in their moister environment thatch with leaves. This gives little scope for the development of architecture, or even

for decoration of their homes (in conb-ast to the Native Americans of the American plains who were also migratory

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6. Mask representing either a butterfly or a hawk used by a religious organization called Do in ceremonies asking for rain and for fertility of the fields at planting time and after the harvest. Butterflies appear in great swarms immediately after the first rains, at the beginning of the planting season, so they are an appropriate motif. Simi larly, birds of prey are attracted when vegetation is burned ready for p lanting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Width 130cm (5 !1/, in.)

hunters but whose ti.pz: made of buffalo skins, was carried round with them and became a support for drawings and paintings). Similarly the Bushm en and Pygmies have very few material possessions to hamper their movement from place to place, though these may well be decorated, as in the case ofostrich egg shells used by the Bushmen as water-containers.Becauseof their -..vay of life the plastic arts are not practised by these peoples, yet this does not mean that their life is devoid ofart. Music and dancing are highly developed in both societies.>

The Bushmen, however (like the hunting peoples of Australia), have practised glyptic art on natural features - engravings and paintings on natural outcrops of rock or on cave walls. The places where these arts were practised seem to have been the centres to which these hunters returned time after time, assembling in large groups for ceremonies such as the initiation of the young men and marriages between bands. This regular return to a centre for the performance ofceremonies on behalfof the community may well be the basic need which eventually led, when a regular supply of food could be assured by agriculture, to permanent settlement and ultimately to the growth of towns. While the ephemeral arts, music, dance, poetry and narration can be practised an)"vhere no matter how small.the g roup, the enduring arts of painting and sculpture depend largely on having permanent settlements, i.e. on an agriculturally based society, or at least on the possession of a ri tual focal point to which the migratory g roups can return from time to time.

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7 . Decorated ostrich egg shell drinking vessel used by Bushmen at Luderitz Bay, Na bib desert. Namibia. The engraved lines are filled with red and black pigmenL Ethnological Collection of the University of Zurich. Ht 15 cm (5'1s in.l

Many ofthe peoples ofAfrica lead a pastoral existence, herd­ ing cattle or sheep and goats. They too lead a largely migratory life, seeking fresh pastures or water for themselves and their herds. I n general their opportunity for expression in the endur­ ing arts is limited but they do frequently decorate their bodies and their milking vessels. Some have developed the art of basketwork to a high level, since baskets are easily transported being both light in weight and not easily broken. Nevertheless pastoralists too when the opportunity presents itself express themselves through painting. The Masai ofKenya and northern Tanzania not only paint their shields \-Vith decorations which indicate their group or section, but they occasionally paint these and other motifs on immobile surfaces such as rock shelters and even concrete cisterns.• One of the richest treasures ofAfrican art, the Saharan rock paintings, was bequeathed to us by pastoral peoples, who evidently returned time and time again to the same locations which provided temporary foci for their society, proba­ bly when their youths were initiated, for it is this regularly recun·ing ceremony which serves to give cohesion not only to

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migrant societies, but also to groups of agriculturists living in scattered settlements without to,vns or strongcentralized polit­ ical institutions. Among these latter groups initiation is often the main institution which expresses their unity and which also demands the supply of art objects such as masks and head­ dresses for use in the ceremonies.

In the main, however, it is the settled agriculturalists who have produced most of the well-known sculpture ofAfrica, espe­ cially those of the rain forest who grow predominantly root crops, and some of the cereal cultivators of the savanna wood­ lands which fringe the forests. Outside this area, among the mixed farmers and herdsmen of eastern and southern Africa, sculpture is usually small in scale and not highly developed.1 The people who occupy the core area ofAfrican sculpture are not all of one group - not only are there the so-called 'true-forest Negro', but also palaeonigritic peoples (of small stature, living in refuge areas where they seem to have been driven by later immigrants) and Bantu-speaking peoples.The predominance of this area is probably due to the coincidence of two important factors. One is the agricultural basis of the community, which permitted permanent settlements where major works of sculp­ ture could be safely preser ved and architecture developed which in turn called for sculptors to produce doors, shutters and house­ posts; the other factor is the availability of timber in varieties to suit all purposes - heavy durable woods like froko ( Chlorophora

excelsa) for houseposts, lighter ones like Cordia1Vlilleniifor drums and dance masks. Where sculpture occurs in the lighter wood­ landsofeastern and southern Africa, its scale is reduced and clay or beadwork constructions are often used. An examination ofthe wooden figures in Holy, 1967, shows that only the four tomb pillars from Ethiopia, which range from 120 to 133 centimetres, exceed a height ofninety- five centimetres, the median height for the whole group being fifty-three centimetres•, while the masks range from eight to seventy- five centimetres with a median of twenty-six centimetres. In contrast, the series taken from 122

different traditions across the whole continent in William Fagg, 1965, show a range in size of figures from 17.5 to 120 centi­ metres (with a single example 175 centimetres tall) and a median size of sixty-one centimetres, while the masks range from twenty-two to 105 centimetres (with a single outlier 172 cen­ timetres long) and a median size of forty centimetres. It appears then, and this hardly needs to be demonstrated, that the lack of generously sized timber had an inhibiting effect on large- scale

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wood carvings, but t he effect is greater than that. The avail­ ability of materials, often coupled with elabor ate political institutions, seems to have encouraged artistic production in quantity, and in Africa, as elsewhere, quality seems to be in part

dependent on this. It is the most productive traditions which have given us some of the finest African sculpture for high pro­ ductivity indicates sufficient commissions not only to keep the gifted carver in practice but to enable him to develop his style.To be sure it also means that there will be work for less able carvers too. Father Carroll's r emarks on this are highly pertinen t, for he has had many years of close contact with carver s working in 'Nhatis probably the richest tradition, thatofthe Yoruba:

'Constantsuitable work is necessary for the fu ll development

of a carver's abilities. It was the g roup ofcarvers in a district - repeating the same themes and only gradually intr oducing new

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ones -which built up a cumulative genius capable of supporting the less gifted carvers. It was ... this evolution as a group, rather than the religious intensity or emotion of the carvers, which gave much of its artistic power to the old carving. If sufficient carvers could be similarly employed - and fully employed - in modern conditions, the artistic level of the whole group would rise and individual geniuses would emerge.'•

There seems to be a general coincidence of the distribution ofwood sculpture in Africa with the distribution ofthe forests and woodlands. It seems likely that the area where the earliest settled agricultural communities had generous supplies ofwood available

· to them was on the edges of the forest in West Africa. Precisely when and where is still obscure but the oldest sculpture we know so far from south of the Sahara comes from this very area - the terracotta sculptures of the Nok culture of iger ia which date from at least the second halfof the first millennium BC and have indications ofa wood--arrving tradition preceding them, for some of the sculptures are in a subtractive style characteristic ofwood carving, in which pieces are removed from the mass to produce the sculpture, whereas p lastic media like terracotta are normally in an additive style, being built up by applying more material.

8, 9. The production of figure sculpture does not. of course, oreclude an interest in decorative arts. The BaKuba excel in both fields. These are examples or t11eir raffia pile cloth. Hampton University, Hampton. Virginia.

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l 0. Many African peoples who do not produce figure sculpture carve and decorate their everyday objects most beautifully. This is a wooden stool, inlaid with copper and brass wire, used by elders among the AKamba. The AKamba are now known for their sculpture of small figures which often form the handles ofsalad servers. They began to make such pieces for tourists in the second quarter or the twentieth century. Manchester Museum. Diameter 23 cm (9 in.)

11. Similarly, the MaShona are best known for their decorative headrests, used like a pillow to protect their elaborate hair-styles. This one was collected at Umtali , Zimbabwe. Manchester Museum. Ht 11 cm {4% in.)

12. Plastic art among the Lozi (formerly better known as the BaRotse) is best represented in museum collections by

basketwork in their characteristic technique. They do, however, carve wooden bowls with animals on the lids. British Museum, London. L. 62 cm (24½ in.)

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13. Cleft) Figure sculptures outside lhe main area of distribution seem to have been produced by peoples who have migrated from the forests and woodlands. This piece Is thought to be a Zulu work, but nothi"g is known of its use. It may have been Intended for trade, not use. British Museum. London. Ht 63 cm (24¾ in.)

14. (above) The MaKonde, who produced this mask for use by their men's society, are a group who have migrated from the southern Congo Basin towards the east coast or the continent Artistically they are to be related to the BaLuba style complex (f/1s. 225-29). British Museum, London. Ht 25.5 cm (10 in.)

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These few remarks about the influence of the environment and the way of life upon the potential capacity of the people to produce sculpture or painting are about as much as can safely be said by way ofgeneralization. H o,vever, the art of the forest and the art of the savanna are often contrasted, and the d ifferences related to the characteristics of the societies in these varying environments. Tt has been claimed, for example, that the peoples ofthe forest do not form large social groups; that they live in iso­ lated communities, in fear ofthe forest and ofeach other; that the continuous fight to keep their clearings from being encroached upon by the forest absorbs all their energy and depresses their

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15, 16. Bowl in the form of a kneeling woman, carved in llesha, where it was captured by Ibadan soldiers during the 1880s after which time itwas kept in the Compound of the Olubadan, until he sold it in 1953. Formerly Coll. R. P. Armstrong. Ht 29. cm (l l '/2 in.)

spirits. In contrast, the peoples of the savanna built up empires (ancient Ghana, Songhay, the Northern Nigerian Emirates) with a state organization, a large and specialized administrative machinery, a governing class to patronize the artist, ,md public feasts and ceremonies to utilize his products. '0 This is very much a theoretical picture expressing how a European might expect an African to react to his environment, rather than one based on observed facts. (It reflects too the admiration felt by some administrators of the former Colonial powers for the peoples and cultures ofMuslim Africa, who were felt to be already civi­ lized, and the relative contempt for those who retained their own

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17. Demba mask of the Baga representing a woman w ho has born children. These magnificent sculptures of imposing size are wom over the head and resting on the shoulders of the dancer who usually sees out through a slot between the breasts of the figure. British Museum, London. Ht (w ithout the fibre costume) 122 cm (48 in.)

18. Drum from the Baga, in a style rather different from that seen in the demba mask, in Ill. 17. This type of drum has been said to be used in funeral ceremonies but this is unlikely to be its only use. British Museum, London. Ht 112 cm (44 in.)

religious beliefs and way oflife, who were regarded as barbarians if not as savages.) Anthropologists and other social scientists who have approached African peoples with more open minds have shown how mistaken this logical model is. Colin Turnbull has most e loquently described the life ofthe Pygmies ofthe I turi Forest in Zaire, showing that they are among the most happily disposed people in the world, who look upon the forest as a friendly provider of their food." Moreover, some of the most powerful states ofAfrica arose in the forests: Benin, Ijebu and Ife for example. In any case the Sudanese states were not as central­ ized as European scholars have imagined. There was no fixed capital city for example, and administration operated through family and village heads whose authority came from their role in the ancestor cult and from their connection with. the land. Many of these empires \.vere based on Islam, which, officially at least, discouraged rather than encouraged representational art, though this did in fact continue as a means ofserving the ances­ tors rather than the court.

On the other hand Griaule points out that 'the Bambara, the 3-5

Kurumba and the Baga' - all savanna peoples - 'have certainly 11. 18

not founded s tates. But they have created certain institutions, like that of initiation which can develop. .. an accumulation of material; in the lifeofart they play the role ofa state by establish- ing rules which extend beyond narrowing horizons and remain applicable with some variations, to the larger districts.'" This is a much more valuable idea and one thinks immediately of the Poro society, well documented from Liberia,. but influential also in Sierra Leone (from where indeed the name Poro comes), Guinea and the Ivory Coast. Masks used in its rites abound in 181. 182

museum collections.

Chapter 2 The Development of the Study of African Art

19. Three figures, called bateba, from the Lobi. They serve as a means of communication with the spirits (thifa) to obtain protection from witches and other harm. Such figures are more commonly made from mud. British Museum, London. Hts 44.5 cm ( l 7½ in,), 72 cm (28½ in.) and 37.5 cm 04¾ in.)

The greatest contribution Africa has made so far to the cultural heritage of mankind is its richly varied sculpture. African sculp­ ture was scarcely known outside its own continent until late in the nineteenth century, but during the twentieth century its liberating and refreshing effect on Western art has been immeasurable. African sculpture is a highly developed and

e:?-tremely sophisticated art form with thousands ofyears of his­ tory behind it, yet it is still sometimes discussed as a subdivision of'primitive art' , a concept which derives from Darwinian evolu­ tion. There was a theory, derived from Leonardo da Vinci, that painting was the highest form of art and the latest to evolve_ It followed that societies which possessed only sculpture were

backward. The discovery ofOld Stone Age cave paintings in the late nineteenth century destroyed this as a theory, but the idea of backward, unevolved, 'primitive' art continued.

The word 'primitive' ofcourse is Protean in its meanings. Its basic sense is 'primary in time', and by extension undeveloped, simple, cr ude, unsophisticated. But so-called 'primitive' art is none ofthese th ings, and indeed the oldest art we know, the most primitive in its strictest time sense - the Old Stone Age rock art of Europe and South Africa - is highly sophisticated. All art is sophisticated; ifit were not sophisticated it would not be art, but merely a felicitous accident.

An attempt is sometimes made among art historians to jus­ tify the use of the term 'pr imitive art' on t he grounds that 'we kno·w what we mean by it' and that the various traditions share in common a disrespect for naturalism in the proportions of the human body. Art historians may think that they know what they mean by the term, though they have failed to produce a working definition; 'ifwe accept the disrespect for naturalistic p roportions as symptomatic, then a great deal oftwentieth-century Western art should be embraced under the term 'primitive art', while the rest of the art of the Western world could with equal justice be lumped together as 'the artofsocial realism'. Moreover, art histo­ rians also speak of the 'Italian primitives' who are in a certain

sense 'primary in time', and of the primitivism ofcertain modern painters when they refer to the naivety of their vision. Even as

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used by art his tor ians the term has several d istinct meanings. It is unfortunate, too, that the Louv re, in Par is, after finally recogniz­ ing African, Oceanic and Native American art at the tur n of the m illennium, s hould refer to them as artspremiers ( fi rst arts).

The term 'primitive art' is a legacy from the anthropologists of the nineteenth centur y who saw the Europe oftheir day as the apex ofsocial evolution. As it is current ly used it is a negative, not a positive concept- i t has to be defined as the ar t of the areas o ut­ side the W estern and Oriental tr aditions. (If there had not been wr itten sources about Oriental art, i t too m ight have been consid­ ered 'pr imitive'.) Sur ely this is an e thnocentric definition. T he only sensible way to approach foreign ar t tradi tions is on their o wn terms, and so as not to prejudge them we should speak of them by their regions oforigin as trad itional African, Oceanic or American art. \1/e must say 'traditional' for in all these areas of the world the old art forms are changing o r have changed and the artists are being drawn into the cosmopolitan world of modern art, as we shall see in the concluding chapter.••

African art is usually considered to consist exclusively of scul pture and to have no r ecover able history. In fact, the earliest a rt we know from Africa is g lyptic, not plastic - paintings and engravings on surfaces of smoot h stone - and although by the

beginningofthe twentieth cenn try paintingseems to have become much less impor tan t t han sculpture, the most exciting develop­ ments in cont emporary African art are in painting and grap hics rather than sculpture. M oreover, archaeological investigations are being cond ucted in many parts ofAfrica, and we are learning more and more about the histor y of African sculpture, so far chiefly in West Africa. Discover ies in other areas have usually been ofsing le sites. I t is still too soon to write a conventional his­ tory ofAfrican ar t, but we shall look at some of the sources which

w ill contribute to such a h istor y when eventually it comes to be written. "

In order to understand how ideas on the subjectofAfrican art have changed with time and with increased knowledge, we must refer to a number of st udies wh ich did not draw exclusively on African material, and even to some which did not discuss it at al l.

Serio us study ofAfrican, American, and Oceanic ar t began in the second halfof the nineteent h century, a per iod when the idea of evolut ion was per meating all scientific thought. In conse­ q uence, t he study of the arts of these little-known areas was

dir ected towards seek ing out the u ltimate origin of ar t, through studies ofdecoration of surfaces r ather than through sculpture.

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Many of those involved saw themselves as anthropologists, rather than as art historians, and saw the art they studied as a reflection of progress in the material culture of mankind as a

whole. The first discovery of the Stone Age cave paintings of Europe was made at Altamira in 1878 but it was not until the first decade of the twentieth century that their antiquity was gener­ ally accepted. Before these discoveries, would-be students of the origins and evolution of art had to proceed by inference and deduction from modern examples. One of the first writers was Gottfried Semper, whose book Style in the technical and tectonic Arts, orpractical Aesthetics appeared in the early 1860s.•• Semper, an architect, was primarily concerned with the study ofarchitec­ tural forms. His argument was that since man's first need was for protection for himself and his fire, he plaited grass mats to keep out the wind and rain. The technique of plaiting produced a pat­ tern which led to the development ofweaving techniques and the deliberate seeking after pattern. Later, when the making of po ttery began , basketwork designs wer e copied on to i t, the difference of material leading to modifications in the patterns. This line ofargument ...vas built up by his followers into a deter­ ministic, materialistic system for the explanation of all non­ Western art fo rms. The real weakness, of course, is that Semper had no facts to support h is hypothesis, which was con­ structed by extrapolation from his own thoughts. H owever, it stimulated other workers to look for the appropriate data and V,.~ H. Holmes wrote a numberofarticles between I 883 and I 90S contributing to t he theory." Then Max Schmidt published his Indian Studies in Central Brazil in 1905.•• He showed how motifs developed from plaiting techniques were applied in potter y deco­ ration but he clearly selected his data to fit the hypothesis, r ather t han constructing the hypothesis to fit the data. He ignored, for

example, such motifs as spirals and wavy lines which although geometric are difficult to derive from straight-line plaiting. MoreO\·er, as Adrian Gerbrands points out, Schmidt ignored the fact that the Austr alian aborigines have rectilinea1· and curvilin­ ear designs but not basketwork of the type from which such designs are supposed to be exclusivelyder ived..,

Realism in art was explained in accordance with this theory by the assumption that a geometric design reminded someone of a natural object , which led to a deliberate attempt to increase the realism of the representation. This entire theory, of cour se, is

strong ly evolutionary in character and it was opposed by a school of thought which was no less evolutionary in its thinking, but

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20. Wooden figure representing a member of the Lilwa society who was hanged for revealing its secrets, and intended to remind initiates of the importance of secrecy. BaMbole. Musee Royale de f'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren. Ht 92 cm (36¼ in.)

which had the merit of beginning with the data and building its hypothesis round them. The hypothesis is known as the 'degeneration theory', for its proponents demonstrated that

slavish copying of a naturalistic represen tation without under­ standing led to purely geometric forms. The principal contributions to the studies came from Hjalmar Stolpe"", A. C. Haddon" , A . H. Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers.. and Henry Balfour~; the last was later the curator of the museum which Oxford University built to house the Pitt-Rivers Collection of artefacts from all over the world, and intended to demonstrate evolution in aJl classes of man-made objects, not just in art. The material studied was all contemporary, an objection which the degeneration school was quick to recognize so the 'older' types were called 'sur vivals'. On the whole their work was quite self­ critical and still makes interesting reading, but their data had to be collected from whatever sources were available, and were often ofdubious value. The whole argument rested on inferences made from modern objects about man's earliest artistic efforts. The unproductiveness of this methodology is evident co us today, and in any case the revelation ofOld Stone Age art, at about the same time these men were writing, provided direct evidenceof prehis­ toric art and its development, and superseded this hypothetical art history.

These early studies had been exclusively concerned with decoration and sought its origin only in the crafts. One, a philosophical-theoretical study by W il~elm Worringer written in 1908.., rejected this technological basis for the o rigin ofart. He saw all art as basically the expression of volition, though this might be modified by purpose, raw material and other technical considerations. He affords valuable insights: 'what appears from our standpoint the greatestdistortion must have been at the time, for its creator, the highest beauty and the fulfilment of his artistic

volition'!' Indeed, his insights into the nature of abstraction in art made his study one of the most durable influences in the grad­ ual acceptance ofmodern art in Europe, as is reflected by the fact that it was still considered worth translating into English as late as in 1953. Yet Worringer was a thoroughgoing evolutionist, who believed the earliest forms of art to have been geometric abstractions which led logically and ine\>;tably to naturalism so that he rejected the representational cave paintings ofsouthern France as not being art at all, because his theory could not

embrace them. Similarly he repudiated ' the «artistic achieve­ ments" of African natives' and of 'the majority of primitive

so

2!. This figure was collected by orthcote Thomas at Sabongida,

:orty-five miles north-east of Benin in Afenmai Division, Nigeria. Its cubistic qualities reflect the artistic cradition of the Edo-speaking oeoples of the Benin Empire which contrasts w ith the better­ ,mown art of the Benin court. U/1s. 86-90 , 99, 176-78, 262.) cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Ht 62 cm (24½ in.}

peoples'"", excepting only those who have exercised their artistic

gifts in a purely ornamental field. Thestudy ofornament went in a new djrection under the lead

of Franz Boas, who was to become one of the most influential teachers in America in the field of anthropology. His first major work was a study of 'The Decorative Art of the Indians of the Nor th Pacific Coast ofAmerica·, published in 189707 and revised and repr inted in his Primitive .Art ( 1927), which is still kept in print; it has had a remarkably long life for a single paper. The rest of this later book draws on work carried out under his direction by his pupils Dixon, Kroeber, Lowie and Wissler in surveying the meaning ofornamental designs among North American Indians.

In this book, Boas demolished the degeneration theory though, since the American Indian art dealt with by the survey was largely ornamental, his ideas refer more to ornament than to sculpture. Boas considered that art could not exist until the artist had developed sufficient skill to dominate his material; this is true enough but does not have much practical application. He also pointed out that although form, symmetry and rhythm together have an aesthetic effect in themselves, form can also convey meaning, which adds an emotional value to the form, increasing its effect. Boas divides art into two categories - representative

(nowadays more commonly known as 'representational') art and symbolism (which had previously been known as 'geometric' art). In the former category form and content are about equally important, but in symbolic art the content is much more impor­ tant than the for m. Having made this useful distinction Boas went on to concentrate on symbolic art and its meaning, almost as if it were the whole of art. Nevertheless, one conclusion to which these studies led him is vital for all kinds of art - that the same form can convey different meanings in different societies. It follows ofcourse that form and con tent cannot be considered sep­ arately in studies of development through time, of distribution in space, or in the combination of both these aspects, which we call 'diffusion'.

Another classic, of broader scope than those already men­ tioned, for it puts the problems ofar t and decoration in the wider setting ofmaterial culture as a whole, is R. U. Sayce's Primitive.Arts andCrafts,"' which draws extensively and criticallyon earlierstudies and is especially valuable for its cautionary examples, particu­ larly ofthe convergence ofdesigns from totally different sources.

One lesson from these early studies is still important; it is per­ fectly true that \veaving techniques, whether in matting, basketry

31

22. Mask made by the Fang, given in 1905 or 1906 to Maurice Vlaminck who sold it to Andre Derain. It was seen also by Picasso and Matisse. This was not the first African sculpture to attract Vlaminck, but ii appears to be the only one from this time which is still certainly identifiable. Musee National d'Art Modeme, Paris. Ht 48 cm (181/s in.)

or cloth, tend by their very nature to produce a series ofmotifs of essen tially geometric character, which we might call 'tech­ nomorphs' since their form arises from the technique. Any society possessing any of these weaving techniques is likely also to have the corresponding technomorphs which may be copied in other media, e.g. plaitwork designs are found on Benin pottery

and wood and ivory carvings. Since there is a strong possibility that these motifs had an independent origin within the society they are unsuitable for use as indicators of the inAuence of one society upon another.

Two-dimensional design has been rather neglected oflate in

favour ofsculpt ure, but one book on African Design. by Margare t Trowell, 1960, deserves to be mentioned. T his is a far more sophisticated and much less pretentious study than its forerun­ ners. It describes the materials and the varieties of designs

employed throughout Africa. The author freely admits that it is but a sampling of the inunensely rich material which is available,

Sfl

and the only flaw is that the selection is so heavily weighted with East African material that some of the judgments made do not

always apply to West Africa. The study of sculpture, as opposed to ornament, began in the

last years ofthe nineteenth century and most ofthe literature fol­ lows one or the other of two approaches: the ethnological one, which is essentially similar to Boas' in considering a knowledge ofthe content of a work ofart to be essential to its understanding and even for its appreciation; and the aesthetic one, which consid­ ers that such knowledge is unnecessary for its appreciation. In the extreme form of this second approach, exemplified by Carl E instein's Negerplastik,"" such knowledge was indeed held to

interfere with the aesthetic enjoyment of the work of art. These two schools ofthought have gradually approached each other, for anthropologists are paying increasing attention to aesthetics and art history, and art critics are paying increasing attention to the cultural background of African art - for, after all, form and con­ tent are scarcely separable in societies in ,vhich the artist is an integral member ofthe community, not an individual struggling

to express a purely private vision. At first anthropologists treated sculpture simply as an aspect

of religion, but soon took note of the divergence from natural

proportions shown in the sculptures. This was commonly regarded as a childlike trait - a shift ofemphasis resulting only from over-attention to details at the expense of the overall form. Field studies ofartists at work even tually showed that great care is taken in blocking out the form of the sculpture, so the propor­ tions are set from the beginning and the detailed work left to

theend.00

One of the first anthropologists to make Africa his special field ofstudy was Leo F robenius. As early as 1896 he was writing

about theart ofnon-European peoples, suggesting that they have an impulse to copy natural forms and that these copies convey ideas and meaning - i.e. the content gives significance to the form. Faithful copying from nature thus becomes, after a while, less necessary, provided that the form evokes sufficient associa­ tions to convey the meaning. Such reactions are, of course, culturally determined, so the form has this meaning only for the society to which it belongs." Frobenius unfortunately did not pursue this valuable idea, but went on later to theorize that sculp­ ture with large heads had originated from a practice of placing

the skull on a stick over the grave - a quite unprovable hypothe­ sis. Similarly, he saw the mask as originating in the practice -

ss

common in the Pacific-ofpreserving the skull ofan ancestor in a little grass hut, but this is too broad and comprehensive a theory to carryconviction.""

Before Frobenius began to write Gauguin had gone to Tahiti, the most extravagant individual act of turning to a non­ European culture in the decades immediately before and after 1900, when European artists were avid for new artistic experi­ ences, but it was only about 1904 to 1905 that African art began to make its distinctive impact. One piece is still identifiable; it is a mask that had been given to Maurice Vlaminck in l 905 or 1906. 22

He records that Derain was 'speechless' and 'stunned' when he saw it, bought it from Vlaminck and in turn showed it to Picasso and Matisse, who were also greatly affected by it. Ambroise

Vollard then borrowed it and had it cast in bronze by Maillol's bronzesmith. The revolution of twentieth-century art was

underway. Many artists have recorded their reactions on first encoun­

tering African art. Georges Braque recalled that 'les masques negres ...m'ont ouvert un horizon nouveau' ('negro masks ... opened a new horizon for me'). Juan Gris even made a cardboard 190

copy of a funerary figure from Gabon to decorate his apartment in 1922. This is an avenue ofgreat interest, which unfortunately

cannot be pursued here. The reader is recommended to read Michel Leiris's account (1968) for he knew many of these artists personally, and that ofJean Laude ( 1968); to see the works which European artists collected illustrated in the Musee de l'Homme catalogue: Arts Primitifs dans les Ateliers d'Artistes (Paris, 1967);

and to read \Villiam Rubin' s 'Primitivism' in 20th Century Art (New York and London, 1984).''

The first works which these artists saw were of no more than average quality but their interest led others, not only practising artists, to a heightened sensitivity to African sculpture. This

increasing interest, however, encouraged a flow ofwritings char­ acterized in general more by enthusiasm than by understanding. An essentially subjective approach - that which asks no more than 'what does this sculpture mean to me?' - is valid enough in j udging any artist's work, but, of course, does not lead to the fullest possible understanding. For this some knowledge of the ideas oft he society in which the artist practised is vital.

O ne of the first to attempt to set the art in its social and cul­ tural background was E. Vatter, Religiose Plastik der Naturvolker

(Religious Sculpture ofPrimitive Peoples) (Frankfurt, 1926). He pointed out that the artist's role is not, as it has generally been in

34•

modern Europe, to express his own personality, but rather to serve the community. He goes on to assert that the African artist is anonymous, an idea which was unquestioningly accepted, and

probably responsible for the fact that for a long time no one both­ ered to ask the names of artists. As will become clear later, not only is the individual artist known in a great many African soci­

eties, but the better the artist, the more widespread is his fame. In the 1920s another German, Eckar t von Sydow, was at

work, and produced five books which approached theartofAfrica and Oceania from a number ofdifferent points of view, including that of psychoanalysis, though he began as an art historian. In 1930 there appeared his Hand.buck der Afrikanischen Plastik, I Die Westafrikanisclu Plastik (Ha.m;lbook of African sculpture, West African sculpture) (Berlin) which incorporated documentation from museums and from the literature. This is a monument of thorough compilation and is oflasting value as a source. The sec­ ond part, Afrikanische Plastik (African sculpture) was published posthumously in 1954 (ed. G. Kutscher, Berlin). In the course of th is work von Sydow came to realize that only field- work could produce adequate documentation, so in J9S6 he visited Nigeria, but his book about this trip, Im Reiche der Gottahnlidier Herrscher (In the Kingdoms of the Divine Ruler s) (Brunswick), entertain­

ing as it is, is no more than a travelogue. At the same time, others were working on museum collec­

tions, and this led to the still classic studies of C. Kjersmeier, Centres de Style de la Sculpture Negre Africaine (Centres ofStyle of African Negro Sculpture), in four volumes (Paris and Copenhagen, 19S5-S8); F. M. Olbrechts, Plastiek van Kongo (Antwerp, 1946);.. and P. S. Wingert, The SculptureefNegroAfrica

(New York, 1950). Yet a different approach was being made by two of Boas' s

pupils, Melville Herskovits and F. M. Olbrechts. Herskovits had

worked in D ahomey (now Benin) in 19S 1 investigating all aspects of Fon culture. He encouraged his students to do field­ work, and three of them have contributed to our knowledge of art and artists in Africa: W R. Bascom, Justine Cordwell and James Fernandez. Similarly, Olbrechts encouraged his pupils A. Maesen, P. J. L. Vandenhoute and D. Biebuyck to work in the field. Marcel Griaule led expeditions from the Sorbonne to the Dogon in 19S 1, 1935, 1936 and 1938 to 1939 returning repeat­ edly after the war for short visits. His pupils who accompanied him dispersed to work elsewhere in Africa - Germaine Dieterlen, Solange de Ganay, J. P. Lebeufand Denise Paulme among others.

ss

Independently F. H. Lem did field- work in the western Sudan." This book owes a great deal to the studies carried out by these observers, and also by Hans Himmelheber (working in t he field

in 1933 and later) and his son E. Fischer, as will be apparent later. Yet the work of Griaule and his team needs to be used with

caution. Anne Docquet, 1999, demonstrat es that at the timeofhis first encounter with the Dogon people in 193 I African art (l'art negre) had reached new heights of popularity in Paris as had African-American jazz music. Griaule was thus pre-conditioned to expect exciting things in Africa. He was not disappointed. His study of the Dogon masks, 1938, is exemplary in its thorough­

ness and detail. Griaule fell in love with the Dogon and decided to return for

repeated short spells with his students. He did a great deal for the Dogon - he arranged the construction of a dam to improve their water supply and lobbied the French government for the benefit ofAfricans as a whole. His method, however, was his undoing as he paid for a limited number of informants, all from the same small town ofSanga, to spend time with him at his house answer­ ing his questions. T he Second World War came and fieldwork had to stop. The Dogon missed the additional income he had pro­ vided so on his return in 1946 they looked forward to its renewal.

In his earlier work he had become interested in the mythology that lay behind the masks and he came back to pursue the myths to the exclusion ofall other lines ofenquiry. He made the further mistake ofasking leading questions. The Dogon are no less polite than other Africans and for them he represented the colonial

power, so they supplied the answers he was seeking. In the preface to the English translation ofhis 'Conversations

with Ogotemmeli', Germaine Dieterlen wrote, 'From 193 1 the Dogon had answered questions and commented on observations made during previous field trips on the basis ofthe interpretation

of facts which they call "la parole de face"; this is the simple knowledge which they give in the first instance to all enquir­ ers.... But the Dogon came to recognise the great perseverance of Marcel Griaule and his team in their enquiries, and that it was becoming increasingly difficult to answer the multiplicity of questions without moving on to a different level. They appreci­ ated our eagerness for an understanding which earlier explanations had certainly not satisfied, and which was clearly more important to us than anything else.... The elders ofthe lin­

eages ... and the most important totemic priests ...met together and decided that the more esoteric aspects of their religion

36

should be fully r evealed to Professor Griaule.... Although we knew nothing ofit at the time, the progress ofthis instruction by Ogotemmeli was being reported on daily to the council of elders and priests' (pp. xv-xvi). Subsequent enquirers such as Walter van Beek, 1991, have failed to find any confirmation of this eso­ teric information. Van Beek reports that the Dogon know no proper creation myth, neither in the version given by Ogotemmeli nor that published by Dieterlen after Griaule's death in theirj oint work, L e Renard pale, I 965. Many ofGriaule's revelations have been taken up by others, in particular, the remarkable knowledge that Sirius is a double star, which can only be seen with the aid of a telescope. However, van Beek reports

that astronomy is ofvery little importance in D ogon religion and that they are unaware that Sir ius is a double star. He also states that the water spiri t Nommo is not a central figure in Dogon thought as Griaule told us, nor is body symbolism the basis of house plans. T hese are not all the points that Griaule emphasized of which van Beek was unable to find p roof. So what happened? Recognizing that Griaule offered a seasonal but regular income, Ogotemmeli appears to have been primed each night with new information just as the Rev. G. P Bargery ,vas supplied with non-existent ·words for his Hausa-English Dictionary, 1934,

because he was paying for words he had not previously collected. Griaule organized the information he had been given into a coherent form that led my late colleague Ronald Cohen to describe him in conversation with me as ' the Saint Thomas Aquinas ofthe D ogon'.

D ieterlen herselfconfirmed that Griaule asked leading q ues­ tions at a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland addressed by Dr R. E . Bradbury, who had already been living in Benin City for several year s. She asked

him whether the people of Benin associated the right hand with good and the left with evil. Bradbury said that he had not come across any evidence ofit. She replied, 'Ah! but it is deep knowl­ edge. They won't volunteer the information. You have to press them!' Griaule thought that he was finding the deepest layers of African culture and encouraged his students to look for evidence ofthe same beliefs among other African peoples apparently using similar methods. It is not surprising then that, for example, Lebeuf, 1961, found that the Fali in Northern Cameroun laid out their houses on a plan based on the human body. Nor did his stu­ dents collect among the Dogon any information that conflicted with Griaule's as they all used the same half-dozen inform ants.

37

In the English-speaking world, however, the principal con­ tributor to the studyofAfrican art was William Fagg, who began by studying the well-documented collections of the British Museum in London before making visi ts to Africa for study in the field in 1949 to 1950, 195S, and 1958 to 1959, as well as frequent shorter visits after that. H e worked especially in Nigeria where his brother, Bernard Fagg, Government archaeologist and later Director of Antiquities, discovered the prehistoric sculptures of the Nok culture, the oldest African sculpture we know outside Egypt. William Fagg's books The Sculpture efAfrica (w ith Eliot Elisofon) (London, 1958); Nigerian Im.ages (London, 196S); and Tribes and Forms in African Art (Par is, 1966) as well as numerous

exhibition catalogues and, after his retirement, sales catalogues for Christies are character ized by the accuracy of their documen­ tation ofindividual pieces.3•

Fagg's work in Nigeria owed a debt to that of Kenneth Murray, the first head of the D epartment of Antiquities, the results of whose researches are mostly to be found in the docu­ mentation of the National Museum in Lagos. An artist and art teacher himself, Murray worked closely with practising artists and cult groups long before he was asked to undertake in 194S

a survey ofNigerian antiquities, which not only led to the estab­

lishment of the D epartment but revealed that Niger ia was even richer in sculptural traditions than the Congo Basin.

vVork in the field in Africa is now almost a sine qua non, and very few writers' views on African ar t are taken seriously unless they are rooted in a field study. Increasingly, the really valuable writings on African art consist of detailed studies of limited areas. Some books do, however, draw carefully and critically on the literatur e based on field-work. The outstanding example of this is Adrian Gerbrands's Artas anElement ifCulture, especially in

Negro Africa(Leiden, 1957), which utilizes unpublished as well as published field- work by others, and to which this book is heavily indebted." Also based on a critical study of the literature and of

23. (left andright) Houseposts 24. (far right) Like the carved by a Yoruba sculptor in Ketu, houseposts, carved doors may Benin (Dahomey) and sent as be used in shrines or simply a present from the Alaketu to the to decorate the house of an Ooni of lfe in 1938. The interlace important man. This one designs and the choice of colours was collected in Modakeke, lfe. are characteristic of Yoruba sculp­ National Museum, lfe. 128 cm ture in Benin (Dahomey). National (50½ in.) x58.5 cm (23 in.) Museum, lfe. Ht Left: 147 cm (58 in.) Right: 152.5 cm (60 in.)

SB

39

museum collections is the book by Michel Leiris (who worked with Griaule among the Dogon) and Jacqueline D elange, Afiican Art(London, 1968}, which has an excellent introductory survey,

though unfort unately the middle section of the book is o rganized round Marcel M auss's tripartite division of arts of the body, arts of the surroundings and autonomous figurative ar ts. The attempt to discuss the whole ofAfrican art under these headings reduces the value of this section. The third part provides a very able b ut all too brief regional survey of art styles. The author of this section (Jacqueline D elange) has, however, published a foller scholarly sur vey of the various art styles of the continent in her book Arts et Peuples de l'4frique Noire (Arts and Peoples ofBlack

Africa.) (Paris, 1967). Both these books are careful to avoid those misleading generalizations about African art which I have men­ tioned earlier.

Margaret Trowell, ho,,vever, has made generalizations about African art which are of an unusual kind ."" She distinguishes three types ofart which she calls 'spirit-regarding', 'man- regard­ ing' and the 'art of ritual display'. This, of course, is a classi­ ficatory device for dealing with the material; it has the great merit ofemphasizing the function of the art in the society which produced it, though an y one society may produce sculpture which belongs in more than one category. T he sculptures of the Dogon,.. both ancestor figures and masks, are clearly directed towards influencing the world ofspirits, whether ofthe ancestors or of the animals and trees round them; similarly the sculpture of the Kalahari Ijo«> addresses i tself to the sp ir it s rather than to man. Yet the Yoruba have masked dances, the egzmgun, which are directed both at ensuring that the ancestors will rest in peace and at en tertaining the living; on the otherhand their houseposts and sculptured doors on palaces and houses are in tended for the glo­ rification of their owner s, wher eas similar carvings i__n shrines a.re for the honour of the spirits worshipped there. \ Vithout informa­ tion collected in the fi eld it would, therefore, be impossible to

dis tinguish the secular from the r eligious, the man-regarding from the spirit- regarding.

Yet social scien tists have to seek generalizations and anthro­ pologists are attempting to p rovide a statistical basis for general statements o n African art, using the t echniques of the data bank. Unfortunately, the individual studies from which the initial data are drawn areof uneven quality and are often silent about certain

aspects of the societies. In principle, correlations are sought between artistic characteristics and other phenomena of society

40

whether they appear to have a direct connection or not. For example, it is obvious that one might expect to find royal ances­ tor figures only in societies which had a king (for these are not

entirely independent variables). Alvin Wolfe's statistical exami­ nation of the 'Social Structural Bases of Art'" confirms the apriori argument on pp. 14-15 by showing ' that both nucleation and fixity [of settlement] are somehow related to the develop­ ment of art'; the cor relation of art production with sodalities is only a little lo,ver - we kno·w the initiation societies, which often

overlap traditional political boundar ies are among the principal patrons ofart in Africa. T his approach is in its infancy and so far relatively elementaryquestions are beingasked- Wolfe's study is

concerned principally with the amount ofart produced, based on the estimates ofeighteen other scholars - but it points the way to further investigation-♦2

Progress is, however, handicapped by the relatively small numbers ofdetailed studies of African sculpture in the field and this is a matter ofgreat urgency, for the traditional cultural bases of the art are being supplanted daily. Fortunately, anthropolo­ gists already orientated towards field-work by their discipline

are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of art in African societies, while art historians are not only turning more

and more to Africa as a field ofstudy but also undertaking studies in the fi eld which, superficially at least, are difficult to distinguish from those of anthropologists. One of the most senior figures in the study of African art once complained to me that one of his younger colleagues was encouraging his students to be anthropologists rather than art historians. Surely if we are to understand African art we need to draw on both these disciplines. The success so far of this approach may be judged from A H istory of Art in Africa published in 2000 by a team of art historians

(Visona et al., 2000}. It provides an exce11ent survey of the art of the whole continent g iving considerable attention to the social context ofeach work, yet despite its title, it can only offer a historyof the artofa limited n umber ofsocieties.

41