Few art forms come close to ‘primitive’ or tribal art in sheer expressiveness. This isn’t too surprising. In every tribal society, art is never simply for art’s sake, but is a direct and uncensored dialogue with the spirit world in which tribal peoples move and have their being. This spiritual “dialogue” shows up most powerfully in the faces of ancestors and spirits carved in wood and stone or appearing textiles, weaponry and ornaments. Because these beings are depended upon to frighten enemies, subdue maleficent spirits and bring fecundity and prosperity to the community, they have to be expressively potent. Their potency wasn’t lost on modern Western artists. In the early 20th century, Picasso, Braque, Giacometti among others were so moved by the presence of the ‘tribal face’ that they incorporated elements of tribal expression into their own works, to transcend surface appearance and to enter the realm of the soul. By so doing, they changed the course of art history.
This post shines a spotlight on Africa, the world’s second largest continent and home to a rich tradition of art from virtually every tribe. The expressive works featured here testify to the genius of peoples who have long been dismissed by the modern world as being artistically naïve and unsophisticated.
The clay anthropomorphic heads of the medieval Bura culture in Niger in west Africa are known for their distinctive abstraction and simplicity. This example is one of the most beautiful Bura sculpture in existence. Its rounded forehead and minimalistic features bear a striking resemblance to the cycladic heads from Anatolia which are more a thousand years older.
The Chokwe of Angola use a beautiful mask called Mwana pwo in their initiation ceremonies. Although they are exclusively worn by men, these masks represent female ancestors and emphasize the features that are most admired in young women. They are worn over the hips in a dance that mimics the graceful gestures of women and transmits fertility to the male spectators. Here are two examples.
The Kota reliquary figures of Gabon have become icons of world art and now instantly familiar to Western viewers with their striking affinity to modern abstract sculptures. The basic elements of this tradition are distinctive and found nowhere else in either Africa or the rest of the world. Carved in wood, the human head is rendered with graphic geometrical shapes in a flattened, mostly two-dimensional shape, rising vertically on an integrally carved cylindrical neck above an open lozenge. The front of the sculpture and sometimes also the back is covered with an arrangement of flattened metal attachments, often in varying colours and with chased geometric motifs.
This particular kota has a distinguished provenance. Helena Rubinstein owned it up to the early 1930s, when it acquired by David and Carmen Kreeger, eminent American collectors of Modernist and Impressionist art. The next owner was the famed art scholar and curator William Rubin who exhibited it in the seminal 1984 exhibition at MoMA, ‘Primitivism’ in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern to demonstrate how African art influenced the evolution of modern art, particularly in the work of avant-garde artists such as Alberto Giacometti whose standing figures recall the Kota’s striking profile. The kota was sold to a private collector by Christie’s France in 2015 for US$6.13 million dollars!
Playing on the repetition of the lines, whose alternating registers and hues rhythm movement, this rare shield is accentuated by a central face projected in high relief. In all likelihood, such shields were emblems of power, functioning as visible marks of the territorial expansion of the kingdom. Here are two close-up images of these remarkable shields.
Hemba art like this So’o mask was little known to Westerners until the second half of the 20th century. What seems to us as a wide grin is actually a grimacing open mouth that in no way suggest friendliness or good humor. Such masks were used in funerary celebrations where it is interpreted as an allegorical figure of death.