The Art of Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas

54 Pages·1981·7.886 MB·English

by  Lee Boltin

The Art of Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
The
Art
of Africa,
the Pacific Islands,
and
the Americas
Text by Douglas Newton
Photographs by Lee Boltin
Reprintedfrom TheMetropolitan urn<;/ArtBulletin(Fall1981), CopynghtbyTht-Mi-tropolitanMuseumofArt Di-signc-dbyAlvinCIrossmjn.
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paneldecoratingot\ecorru-rofamai radebytheHuariofPeru'ssouthcoastaboutAu 600-1000.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Philippe de Montebello
The opening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing this forehecouldseehisunrivaledcollectioninstalledinthe
winter consHtutes a landmark for The Metropolitan new wing.
Museum ofArt, which, with this addition, rounds out The complex project of the construction and instal-
the presentation of all areas of its encyclopedic collec- lationofthisnewwinghasfinallydrawntoaconclusion,
tions. The new wing makes available to the public the aidedbygenerousgrantsfromtheNationalEndowment
artistic achievements ofAfrica, the Pacific Islands, and for the Humanities, the Rockefeller family, and the
theAmericasandfulfillsthegoaloftheMuseum'sfoun- VincentAstorFoundation.
ders to exhibit "objects illustrahve of all the history of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, featuring a fifty-
artinallitsbranchesfromtheearliestbeginningstothe foot-high gallery with a glass facade looking out onto
present time." The great strength of the Metropolitan CentralPark,hasbeenorganizedaccordingtothreegeo-
Museum lies in its comprehensiveness; few museums graphicareas: Africa, thePacificIslands, andtheAmer-
can offer a complete cross section of art history in one icas. The display and installation of their arts will en-
architectural entity. courage further study of these objects on aesthetic
Only recently have the arts of Africa, the Pacific Is- grounds, and the works themselves^ranging from six
lands, and the Americas received the serious attention Bamana figures mounted before a carved Bamana door
that they deserve, although the Metropolitan acquired to huge Asmat "bisj," or ancestor, poles to beautifully
its first holdings in these fields, Aztec stone reliefs, in sculptedbronzesfromtheroyalaltarsofBenintoaPre-
the late nineteenth century. Despite the fact that the Columbian treasuryofornamentsfrom themajorgold-
—
Museum did not establish a separate department to working centers form bridges to many other areas of
study and exhibit this art until 1969, several generous the Museum'scollections.
gifts in the 1960s and 1970s greatly enriched the collec- TheRobertGoldwaterLibraryisinstalledonthemez-
tion: Nathan Cummings's groupofabout600 Peruvian zanineofthenewwing. Itsextensiveholdingsofbooks
ceramics;Mrs. AliceK. Bache'sPre-Columbiangoldob- andphotographsareaninvaluableresearchfacilitythat
jects,includingsomeofthemostimportantinthecoun- will serve thegeneral publicaswellas scholars.
try; and Lester Wunderman's outstanding collechon of TheMuseum'snewwingistheachievementofanum-
Dogon art. In 1969 Nelson A. Rockefeller pledged the beroftalentedanddedicatedindividuals. Thearchitec-
largeMichael C. RockefellerMemorialCollection. Con- turalschemematchingthebreadthandmagnificenceof
sisting ofthe Governor's personal objects and those of the wing for the Temple ofDenduris by Kevin Roche,
the Museum ofPrimitive Art (whichhe founded in as- John Dinkeloo and Associates. Working closely with
sociation withRene d'Harnoncourtin1957), thecollec- Douglas Newton, chairman of the department, in the
tionwasgiveninmemoryofhissonMichael, whowas realizationoftheinstallationwereStuartSilver, project
lostduringanexpeditionin1961whilegatheringAsmat director,andCliffordLaFontaine,designassociate.They
artinNewGuinea fortheMuseumofPrimitiveArt. In wereaidedbyJulieJones,curator,SusanVogel,associate
1969 the Metropolitan reached an agreement with that curator,andKateEzra,researchassistant.Specialthanks
museumtotransfertotheMetropolitanboththesmaller areduetoNobukoKajitani, conservatoroftextiles, and
institution'scollectionanditslibrary(nowrenamedThe to her staff, to Catherine Sease, associate conservator,
Robert Goldwater Library in honorofthe first director and to Kathleen Eilersten, senior installer. I also want
oftheMuseumofPrimitiveArt)andtoconstructaspe- tot—hankothermembersoftheDepartmentofPrimitive
cial wing at the Metropolitan to house these new ac- Art namely Robert W. Young, James Dowtin, Donald
quisiHons. Sadly, GovernorRockefellerdiedin1979be- Roberts, and Francesca Fleming.

—
The Art of Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
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TheMichaelC. RockefellerMemorialCollectioniscom- A.D. 900 otherarttraditionswerebegun. Althoughwe
posedofworksofartfromnon-Westerncultures,works can take it for granted that most of this early material
thathaveoftenbeencollectivelycalledprimitiveart.This has disappeared, acertainamountthatishighlysignif-
is a compendious but somewhat misleading term; the icant remains. There is the Lapita ware, so called after
art is not crude or rough, nor were the social or intel- asiteinNewCaledoniawhereitwasexcavated, which,
lectualstructuresofthepeoplewhomadeit. Whatthen withitselegantandsophisticatedpatterning, waswide-
is primitive art? Properly it is the art of those peoples spread throughout Melanesia from about 1200 B.C. to
who have remained until recent times atan early tech- AD. 650. Evidence ofa complex social structure andof
nologicallevel, who havebeenorientedtoward theuse ritual beliefs is shown by the burial, at Retoka in the
oftoolsbutnotmachines. Immediatelywecan see that NewHebrides,ofRoymata,agreatchiefwhodiedabout
primitivecultureencompassesanenormousproportion A.D. 1200 and was accompanied to his grave by an en-
of the earth's surface and ofits past and present pop- tourage of forty richly ornamented human sacrifices.
ulations. MuchofAfrica, partsofAsia, thecontinentof Legendsrecallingtheeventguidedarchaeologiststothe
Australia, and all the islands of Melanesia, Polynesia, actualsitein1967.InNewZealand,elaboratewhalebone
andMicronesiamustbeincluded.ThewholeoftheNew and stoneornaments ofthe hunters ofthe moa, an os-
World, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, comes within trichlike bird now extinct, as well as fragments of tex-
itsprovince. "Primitive"culturehasbeenthemajorpart tiles, weapons, and wood carvings that date from per-
ofhuman experience. hapsthefourteenthcenturyandthathavebeenrecovered
Thetimespansinvolvedaregreat.Ifastumblingblock fromswamps,bearwitnesstoalongandchangingseries
tothe understandingofprimitive art hasbeentheidea ofartstyles. Perhaps the most famous, andamongthe
that it has no history, that notion has begun to be dis- latest, pre-EuropeanartinthePacificisthegroupofsix-
pelled.Recentarchaeologicaldiscoverieshavedisproved teenth-centurystone colossionEasterIsland.
the long-held belief that the history of Oceania began Africa'soldestsurvivingworksofartareprobablythe
a mere ten thousand years ago. Now we know that rock paintings at Tassili and other sites in the Sahara;
Australia was first inhabited at least forty to fifty thou- thedatesoftheseareobscure.Thepaintingsshowmasks
sandyearsago—, and theearliestworksofartso fardis- and details of costumes now found in West Africa far
covered there rock engravings in Koonalda Cave in to the south, suggesting that the present styles maybe
—
western Australia are about twenty thousand years ancient in origin. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Iron Age
old.ThesewerecontemporarywiththegreatPaleolithic culture of Nok in Nigeria, beginning around 900 B.C.,
cave paintingsofWestern Europebutareofanentirely left aquantityofterracotta sculpture. A traditionofce-
different order. Naturalistic depiction ofanimal figures ramicswasestablishedinwhatisnowGhanamuchlater,
is nowhere to be seen; instead, there are groupings of in the seventeenth century, and has remained an im-
abstract lines that seem tobe in strategically significant portantaspectofartinWestAfricadowntothepresent
areas ofthe cave. In northern Australia, petroglyphs day. Nigeriaisparticularly richin memorialsofAfrican
—
imagespeckedontorocksurfaces inastylenamedafter art of the past, partly because ofthe sophisricated use
a site called Panaramittee depictbirdandanimal tracks of enduring metals. Ninth-century bronzes of convo-
and eggs, and are about seven thousand yearsold. luted forms were excavated between 1958 and 1960 at
As the islandsofOceania became inhabited over pe- Igbo-Ukwu in the NigerRiverdelta; thebrass headsof
—
riods ofthousands of years from about 50,000 B.C. to the rulers of Ife made in subsequent centuries and ex-
cavated between 1938 and 1957are famous, as are the
The sixteenth-century saltcellarwas discovered in bronzeheads,figures,andplaquesofBenin,whichwere
Europebutcarved in Africa to Portuguese firstseenbyPortuguesevisitorsinthesixteenthcentury
specifications. The work reflects its origins, treating and looted from the city by the British in 1897. Many
European subjects in a style related to Benincourt works in these styles were recently shown at the Met-
ivories. Thevessel is double-chambered and made in ropolitanintheTreasuresfromAncientNigeria exhibition.
three parts. Thehemisphericallid ismissing. For each relic that has survived the long procession
through the millennia, countless thousands were de- between 1768 and 1779, that European presence in the
stroyed.Therecordismoreofhiatusthanofhistory,but Pacificbecamea reality. Knowledge, ratherthanaquest
enough fragments remain to show evidence of some forwealth, wasCook'sostensiblegoal. Itistruethathis
continuous stylistic traditions. We must abandon the secretordersfromtheBritishAdmiraltyenjoinedonhim
idea, accepteduntilthelatenineteenthcentury, thatthe the duty of raising the British flag wherever it seemed
primitive arts existed in a limbo outside ofchange, de- feasible, but the chiefaim ofthe voyage was scientific.
velopment, or decline. They were not static. No one The members ofthe Cook expeditions collected arti-
today can think, as some nineteenth-century art histo- factsin theislandsofthe South Pacific, storingthemin
rians seriously stated, that ancient Egyptian, Chinese, every cranny of their small ships, and the draftsmen
or Japanese art remained unchanged throughout their drew the peoples they encountered as often as they
long histories.The same must be saidofprimitivearts. sketchedlandscapesorkangaroos. Cookascommander
For example, the history of Mexico, before Cortez keptvoluminous diacies, and othersonboard recorded
landed in Veracruz in 1519, extended over nearly 3,300 their experiences. In these documents we find, for the
years. Itslandarea is the equivalentofmostofEurope. first time in the annals of European explorers, detailed
Withmonumentsofstone,ceramic,andwoodsurviving commentsonnativecarvingandcraftsmanship. Onthe
from innumerable cultures, not tomention the massive whole, theartoftheMaoriarousedthegreatestinterest.
architectureofthereligiouscenters, thestudentofMex- Cook writes of the canoes that they were "adorned in
ican art is faced with a task equivalent to a survey of asgoodatasteasany."ButitwasJosephBanks,ayoung
European art from Stonehenge to the present, and a naturalistandtheleadingscientificlightofthefirstvoy-
comparable wealth ofartisticstyles. age, who was the most perceptive and enthusiastic.
As far as the record shows, few cultures of the past Banks was impressed by the "beauty of [the canoes']
haveshownanyverylivelyappreciationof,orevenmild carvingingeneral,"and, remarkably, distinguishedtwo
interest in, the art of foreign peoples. The Portuguese, styles that the Maori habitually used. UnlikeCookand
in the earlv years of contact with the Africans around the others, he thought the execution ofthecanoecarv-
their trading posts on Sherbro Island and in Nigeria, ings "rough," so that "the beauty of all their carvings
—
commissioned ivory objects from them spoons, forks, depended entirely on the design."
huntinghorns,andthoseastonishingliddedandfooted The word in these statements that must engage our
containers that may be saltcellars. The Europeans did attention, even more than "beauty," is "taste," for it
not attempt to trade for the cast-brass sculptures they indicatesthatthesemen, someofthemhighlyeducated
saw in the palace oftheObas, the rulers ofBenin; they andamongthebestintellectsoftheirtime,wereapplying
appreciated theAfrican'scraftsmanshipbutnothisart. in the remoteness of Polynesia pretty much the same
Theivories show Portuguesegrandees, horsemen, car- standards they would have backhome in London. This
avels, and coats ofarms butonly an occasional African lies beyond Cook's ceaseless wonder that so much fine
face, serpent, or crocodile. Nor do foreigners figure craftsmanshipcouldbeaccomplishedwithmeagerNeo-
largely in the African arts of the time. When they do, lithictools. Herewasagenuineappreciationofaesthetic
it is in the context of their equipment and its uses, a qualities,anditwassomethingnew.Infact,itwasbefore
point made all the more explicit because of the strictly its time and was to have little effect in conserving the
representational mode of Benin art. The interest ofthe objects of its admiration.
Biniwasinthearquebusandthemercenary, bothuseful The reports of the explorers were grist for the mills
addihons to their technology, and went no further. ofeighteenth-centuryfreethought.The"Indians"ofthe
TheSpanish adventures inthe New World, although South Seas became the rage of London and Paris, the
short-livedandviolent, werearevelation. WhenCortez subjects for sentimental operettas. At the same time,
and hisentouragemarchedintoTenochtitlan, theywere theyseemedtobetheembodimentsofthe"naturalman"
fascinatedbythema—rkets, thearchitecture, and thecos- proposed by Rousseau, a—nd thus springboards for the
tumesoftheAztecs andtheyweredazzledbythegold. liberalfantasiesofDiderot aswellasforthe nightmare
When Pizarro'smen, in theIncacapital atCuzco, stood sexuality of de Sade. This surge ofinterest was part of
before the field of gold and silver maize with the life- therebellionagainstauthorityculminatingintheFrench
size golden llamas and herdsmen in the Temple of the Revolution of 1789.
Sun, they thought only of their own opulent futures. Another manifestation of that rebellion was the rise
Nothing in the conquistadors' training or backgrounds offundamentalistChristianmovementswith theirpow-
had prepared them for appreciation of Aztec and Inca erful drive toward missionary work. Their energy took
art. In Mexico, Cortezand his men saw thegreatstone them to the South Seas, and they found there not the
gods in the temples only as images of horror, reeking bright world described by the aristocratic intellectual
with blood from human sacrifices. explorers but a dark morass of the most hopeless pa-
Bytheendofthesixt'-enthcentury,theSpanishdream ganism. Their duty, as they saw it, was to enlighten
ofempire wasover. Sf n sentexpeditionsintothe Pa- pagan cultures, not understand them. The pagan gods,
cific in search ofrich nt lands, but these travelscame and theartsthatserved them, weretodisappear Wher-
to nothing. It was not u il a century and a half later, ever they could, the missionaries had the islanders'
whenCaptainJamesCool' idehisthreegreatvoyages. sculptured idols publicly burned.
—
Thelureofwealthandthe needtocontrolitssources an assessmentofthe area's economic potenhal.
with increasing efficiency led to the establishment of The thoroughness of the German museums was a
colonialpower. In Mexicoand Peru, the Spanish incur- causeofenvytoothers.TheBritishgovernmentshowed
sion destroyed the ruling hierarchies with catastrophic a singular indifference to the well-being and progress
abruptness, but in Africa and Oceania, the earliest Eu- ofthe British Museum's EthnographicDepartmentand
ropean expeditions were restricted to coastal areas for eventoBritishanthropology.SirCharlesHerculesRead,
centuries. InAfrica, the Portuguese, Dutch, and British in his presidential addresses to the Royal Anthropo-
remainedquietlyintheirfortsandlettradeflowtothem logical Society, pointed out on more than one occasion
from the interior for nearly three centuries. Ironically, that anthropology had much to offer the government
itwasanattemptbytheBritishtosuppressslavetrading and the commercial world, which would share in the
that,beginningin1807,ledtotheestablishmentofsecure rewards. Attheveryleast, theinsightsofanthropology
and permanent settlements on the West Coast. Explo- and its allied studies would be of greatest help in rec-
ration of the interior had taken place before then but onciling natives in the colonies to British law. This ar-
had been unofficial, sporadic, and hazardous. As it in- gumentseemstohavegoneunheeded,butSirCharles's
creased, thewealthofrawmaterialsthatfedtherapidly pleasreflectedacommonattitudeofthetime: thatcolo-
accelerating industrial revolution caused a scramble for nialdominationwouldlastforever,whilenativecultures
Africancolonial possessions. Thiswas finally regulated would inevitably die out.
to some extent by the Conference ofBerlin in 1884-85, Nonetheless, the ver\'existence ofethn—ographic mu-
duringwhichthemajorpartofthecontinentwascarved seumshad,everywhere,aprofoundeffect notperhaps
up among the European powers. on the general public, but on the scientists who found
Competition for colonies was not as fierce in the confronting them a mass of raw data that posed innu-
Pacific. The Polynesian islands adapted quickly to Eu- merableproblems. Fewsciendstshadtheleastdesireto
ropean influences. Hawaii, Fiji, and Tonga submitted encounter in real life the makers of all these foreign
voluntarily tothe missionsandtoGerman, British, and objects. Typical was the response of Sir James Frazer,
American governors. In Melanesia, the history ofWest the authorofTheGolden Bough, uponbeingasked ifhe
Africa repeated itselfwhen the governmentofQueens- would like to meet a "savage": "But God forbid!" The
landclaimedPapuaaspartofaneffortin1883tocontrol treasures arranged in glass cases were another matter.
"blackbirding," theviolenttradeinindenturedslavela- Thequestionstheyposedabouthistory,psychology,and
bor. The great trading companies such as Godeffroy of religion were inseparable. Did primitive man represent
Hamburg and Burns, Philp of Sydney had been active the childhood of the human race? Were the roots of
in the Western Pacific much longer, almost as colonial religious belief to be traced somewhere among these
forces in theirown right. extraordinary images? These and other questions were
Fromthebeginningofcolonialexpansion, Europeans endlessly debated.
collectednativeartwork.Inthesixteenthcentury,objects
that had been presented to the conquistadors by the The studyofprimitive artbeganin the mid-nineteenth
Aztec and Inca rulers were sent to Europe and found centur\',withtheworkofGottfriedSemper.Atthattime,
theirwayintothe curiositycabinetsofthenoblesofthe the theories of Semper, as weU as those of the British
Holy Roman Empire. AlbrechtDiirer, in 1520, wrotein art historian Owen Jones, were very much influenced
his diary of these "wondrous artful things." However, by the then contemporary' attitude that the true aim of
no effort was made to accumulate more ofthem. After thevisualartsisliteralrepresentation. Forthenextfifty
CaptainCook'svoyages,quantitiesofSouthSeasobjects years, art historians and archaeologists debated the
were acquired privately; in London, Sir Ashton Lever origins of primitive art, going little further than pro-
devo—ted an ultimately di—sastrous amount of his for- posing that one kind of design preceded another. It
tune heendedbankrupt tothecreationofamuseum seemed that as far as they were concerned, art meant
thatwasopenfrom1774to1786. Muchofthecollection littlemorethanpatternmaking, applieddecoration. But
eventuallywas—acquiredforBerlin'sKoniglichPreussiche for the great American ethnologist and teacher Franz
Kunstkammer a descendant of the sixteenth-centur}' Boas(1858-1942),artwasproducedbytheliving,bythe
—
curiositvcabinets which laterbecame theMuseumfiir Eskimos and the tribesmen on the NorthwestCoastof
Volkerkunde. Other objects from the collection found BritishColumbiaandAlaska,whoseliveshehimselfhad
homes in the museums ofVienna and Dresden. shared, and whose cultures were still largely viable
Concurrentwiththeriseofcolonialismwasthegrowth neither in decline, like many in Africa and the Pacific,
of the ethnographic museum, especially in Germany. nortotallydead, likethosethearchaeologistshadstud-
The years from 1850 to 1875 saw the foundation ofthe ied. Boas tried to look behind the surface of a culture
greatmuseumsofHamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, and Dres- to the thought that animated it, and he discovered in
den. Systematiccollectingbecametheoccupation, even Northwest Coastarta complex systemofsymbolism.
theduty,ofgovernmentofficialsandscientists.Thegreat Symbolism as Boas described it is a practice of ex-
Berlin Expedition of1912-13, forinstance, notonlycol- plaining a stylized design or pattern in terms of the
lected and mapped in what is now the Sepik Province natura—listic meaning applied to it b—y native artists,
of Papua New Guinea, but also included in its reports often but not by any means always with some ref-
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