The Arts of Black Africa PDF
Preview The Arts of Black Africa
The Arts of BLACK AFRICA by Jean Laude Translated by Jean Decock 6. 8. Photos by Edouard Berne, from the film "L'Art negre," Caravelle Films 1. Man's mask, Senufo, Ivory Coast. H. Kamer Collection. 2. Sculpture commemorating legendary event. Dogon, Mali. Private collection, Cleveland. 3. Two ivory leopards. Benin, Nigeria. British Museum. 4. Musicians. Bronze plaque. Benin, Nigeria. British Museum. 5. Dance mask. Dan, Ivory Coast. P. Langlois Collection. 6. Detail from royal tapestry. Fon, Dahomey. Dakar Museum. 7. Commemorative head. Ife, Nigeria. British Museum. 8. Small ceramic head. Sao. Chad. Iff* n^ u ^ sfr*" i^- h* •4- IV* The Arts if BLACK AFRICA The Arts if BLACK AFRICA by Jean Laude Translated by Jean Decock University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England . © Librairie Generale Francaise, 1966 © This translation 1971 by The Regents of the University of California First Paperback Edition 1973 ISBN: 0-520-02358-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 71-125165 Designed by Sandy Greenberg and Dave Comstock Printed in the United States of America Translator's PREFACE Jean Laude's work is not just another broad, generalized, vulgar- ized survey of the artistic and cultural heritage of black Africa, not just another civilized look at exotic and mysterious art in museums and private collections. African art objects had been mere data, documents, and curiosities when, a little more than half a century ago, we "discovered" African art; that is, we re- acted aesthetically to it and exhaustively studied the African heritage in our museums in order to classify and record our im- pressions. We later realized that all we could possibly record was the history of our reaction to an art that we could apprehend only from the outside and will never be able to understand otherwise. The well-known poet, Jean Laude, was aware of this fact from the start. vi Translator's Preface Thus, Laude began to study specific relations between French painting and Negro art, which began early in the twentieth centu- ry. He has recently published a two-volume thesis on the subject. His work stems from Western experience, echoing and reflecting the newfound interest in so-called primitive arts and civilizations and their subsequent influence on Western art. He denounces as preposterous the idea of "discovering" art and civilizations that were in existence when Europe was still a battlefield of savage tribal rivalries (see the comparative survey of world history and art at the end of the text). An opening of perspective, or possibly a return to the origins, would be an appropriate description of the century's new awareness, since people's attention was directed not only toward "primitive" civilizations but also toward Ro- manesque art in the West and the painting of early Italian and Flemish artists. The first exhibit of primitive Flemish painters, for instance, was held in Bruges in 1902. In the first stage of reaction to black art, after the "dark ages" of the realistic, naturalistic, and positivistic decades of the late nineteenth century, artists such as Picasso, Braque, and the German expressionists first saw in African masks what they wanted to see: pure force and intensity. They stressed primitivism in its favorable meaning of both the vital and the essential; there it was, this black art, ex nihilo, almost abstract, cut from any frame of reference. Only later, after Modigliani or Brancusi, did the West become aware of the diversity of Negro art, which grew more explicit when the experience of discovery gave way to more technical concerns, such as the relationship between the artist and his material, whether wood or metal. As appreciation and knowledge followed a purely aesthetic view of African arts, Westerners learned to discern the mark of the artist and to identify the individual creator. They began to classify, label, and study art objects. African art was exhibited in museum showcases or piled up in European museum vaults and warehouses. Art was once more in the hands of scholars, stifled to death, assigned to geographical, historical, or national categories, placed in grammars and alphabets of symbols, de- Translator's Preface vii signs, and decoration. Fortunately, with the emergence of the new social sciences (sciences humaines) shortly after World War II, anthropology and ethnic studies encouraged a new field-trip approach to art which meant the studying of objects in their vital and live context, setting the trend pursued in the more recent approach to African arts. Michel Leiris, who traveled extensively in Africa, substantiated his careful, honest evaluation by his ex- perience of reality. The old sweeping generalities on the unity of black art have given way to the regional gathering of elements for a future history by art historians turned into travelers, who live and learn on the premises where the art is born. The public knows little about these societies without history (to use Levi-Strauss's terminology). When people speak of Ren- aissance or even Mexican art, there is little danger that they will confuse Brueghel and Michelangelo, Durer and El Greco, or Aztec and Spanish elements. Yet in dealing with African arts they are still tempted by generalizations, as Andre Breton was in the logo's. Those who ask whether African art is sacred or merely functional, and whether it allows the notion of beauty, should — — always be aware and Jean Laude never lets them forget it that their changing point of view reflects the evolution of their own concept of art. Laude's work is valuable because, far from ignoring the ambiguities of a particular approach, the paralyzing absence of criteria, and the limitations of the data, he takes them all into account and integrates them into a synthesis which is thereby the best possible introduction to African arts. His triple pre- occupation is to describe the diversified expression of creative artists, to define their specificity by relating it to societies and cultural environment, and to evaluate the personal techniques of the artist. Laude's work grows toward a totalization because it relates metaphysical implications, spatial dimension, and his- torical perspective. When Africa called the first World Festival of Black Arts, held in Dakar in 1966, with the purpose of defining the "function and significance of black art in the life of a people and for the viii Translator's Preface people/' specialists and Africanists of all races and nationalities were included among the guests. Africa wanted, perhaps for the last time, to look at its reflection in Western eyes. Outsiders were thus made aware that, unless they take heed, they run the risk of confusing reflection for reality, Western impression for African meaning. Africa is already speaking authoritatively on its own art, and will soon speak more emphatically. If art is like a book that tells the story of the creative genius of a people, it is also much more than a book or an imaginary museum; it is a key to the African peoples. Jean Decock
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