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Summary

    Beginning
    What is meant by “Traditional African Art”

    “Art”, a concept
    The African art space
    The history of African art, a construction site

Objects and other forms of art

    Restitution

The artists

The styles

African cultures

Museums and foundations

The market

    The side

See as well

        Notes and references
        Bibliography and online references
        Filmography
        Related articles
        external links

Traditional African art

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This article is about traditional African art. For contemporary art, see Contemporary African art.
“White Lady” (around 4000 BCE) cave painting. Culture of “Round Heads”. Red ocher and white, 100 × 150 cm. Aouanrhet. Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria. Copy, Musée de l’Homme1
Statues of “bearded men” (?). Nagada culture, 3800-3100 BCE. Ancient Egypt. Schist and breccia, H. 50 and 31.4 cm. Confluences Museum
Figure resting his chin on his knee. Terracotta, H. 38 cm. Art Nok (500 BCE-500 CE). Nigeria. Sessions Pavilion, Louvre
Statuette of a woman. Archaeological culture of Djenné, Mali, between the 13th and 15th centuries. Terracotta, H. 37.5 cm. Quai Branly Museum
Portrait. Yoruba (people) art, 14th - early 15th century. Ife, Nigeria. Bronze, H. 35 cm. British Museum2.
Figure of Dogon ancestor (people). Master of Oblique Eyes. Wood, H. 59 cm. Mali 17th – 18th century. Sessions Pavilion, Louvre
Tshokwe (people) chief's chair. Nineteenth century. Weathered hardwood, leather, brass studs. H 68 cm. Brooklyn Museum
Scepter top, ivory. Yombé (people), 19th century. Central Kongo DRC. Sessions Pavilion, Louvre
Kuba rug, raffia velvet. Bushong (people) of Mushenge, Kasaï-Occidental, DRC. 19th century
Linden Museum, Stuttgart
Cattle head pulley. Baoulé (people). Drink. Late 19th - early 20th century. Brooklyn Museum
Nkisi power figure. Songye (people), early 20th century. Wood, skin, horn, metal, fiber, glass, beads. H. 89 cm. Lubao, DRC.
Birmingham Museum
Kwele (people) mask, early 20th century. Gabon. Pigments on wood, H. 63 cm3 no. 379. La Rochelle Museum.
Mask-costume egungun. Twentieth century. Nigeria, Oyo State. Yoruba population. Textile, wood, metal, plastic. H. 120 cm approx. Confluences Museum
Necklace. Songhai people. Straw, beeswax, cotton thread. Timbuktu, Mali, before 1951. Basel Museum of Culture4
Top: Mporro necklace. Twentieth century. Plant fibers, beads, buttons. Kenya, Rendille or Samburu population5. Bottom: Entente necklace, 20th century. Leather, metal, pearls. Kenya or Tanzania, Maasai population6. Confluences Museum

Traditional African art, or more precisely the art of Africa7 prior to modern and contemporary African art, manifests itself in a multitude of arts, often associated. Music and dance, the creation of numerous types of objects, sculpted, possibly coated, painted or produced by assembling numerous elements, as well as body arts (hairstyles, body adornments and paintings, scarifications, tattoos8) can present a artistic character in traditional Africa9. But “the appreciation of “African art” [sculpture, considered outside of any cultural context] is a 20th century phenomenon associated with European artists and collectors. [...] The notion of “African art” was more or less foreign to the societies of origin of the objects. »10 Also the cultural contextualization of African art in its precise historical framework of origin remains an objective in the 21st century.

The vast space of Africa has given rise, throughout its history11, to social practices and artistic creations generated most often by a certain population at a certain moment in its history. Some of these artistic creations could also be shared by several populations. Due to the movements of both, many cultural traits are not necessarily specific or immutable12. Recently, specific studies have been able to call into question the identity attributed to certain populations in the 19th century, with a specific artistic style attributed to the 20th century, such as that identified as senufo13. The distribution of these populations is however variable, some may be locally homogeneous, others will be separated by one or more other peoples, or sometimes dispersed over a very large territory. The concept of ethnicity has been the subject of critical studies. The term “tribal art”, proposed by the anthropologist William Fagg (en)14 in the 1950s, but is however still retained by Babacar Mbaye Diop in 201815, which allows him to study each tribal style constituted by the traits common to all artistic productions in the tribe in question.

Of the arts of ancient Africa, only objects remain to bear witness to them. The oldest ceramics in sub-Saharan Africa appear around 10,000 BCE16, in present-day Mali, on a site at Ounjougou receiving the first monsoons after the so-called Great Arid period, at the beginning of the Holocene. These ceramics have a printed decoration17. In 2012 the oldest forms of African paintings and engravings currently dated, the rock art of Tassili n'Ajjer, are approximately 9 to 10,000 years old BP18. Archaeological research, often difficult, continues to bring new forms of ancient art, in their context, which makes it possible to date them and situate them within their culture of origin for a better understanding of the history of the inhabitants of Africa.

The first theorist of African art, from Africa (West and Central) Carl Einstein, wrote in 191519 “Certain problems which arise in modern art20 have provoked a more scrupulous approach to the art of African peoples” [ ...] “[we have rarely] posed with such clarity precise problems of space and formulated a specific way of artistic creation”21.

Numerous studies continue to examine the Western reception of African arts. This is largely based on the initial work of ethnologists, then on the aesthetic questions debated between artists and theorists, as well as on the work of art dealers and the diffusion of these forms, finally with the passion of collectors. Ethno-aesthetics and the philosophy of art have taken up these questions in France since the work of Jacqueline Delange (1967)3 and Jean-Louis Paudrat (1988)22.

The conservation of works of African art in museums was previously unknown on this continent, the works having religious or political vocations, or a utilitarian function in daily life. Paradoxically, the fact that many of these works have been preserved on other continents, particularly in Europe, has enabled their preservation. The preliminary work to restore Africa's heritage is underway.
What is meant by “Traditional African Art”
“Art”, a concept

Several questions arise, in fact. Knowing that the concept of art appeared in the West, that it gave rise to the problematic creation of new words in Japan in 187323 and in China at the beginning of the 20th century24, associated with new concepts, because they were foreign to the Far Eastern thought, we are entitled to wonder if the word, applied in the 20th century in Africa, with the appreciation it requires, has its place here25. Lucien Stéphan indicates the most often religious character of African art26. From then on, as Jean-Louis Paudrat27 says, as soon as these objects are torn from their place of origin, from their rites, from the social, intellectual and spiritual configurations which justified their elaboration, “residual fragment of an absent totality, the can the African object still nourish a fair appreciation of what it was? » It seems necessary to know its place of origin and everything that determined its creation, as it appears to us today, and its initial functions. But by relying on the abundant data from anthropology, do we not risk losing sight of its “artistic” nature? The solution, following Jean-Louis Paudrat's project, would consist of seeing each object in its artistic context, within the objects and practices to which it is related and thus basing our appreciation in this work of the gaze.
The African art space

Following the traditional approach, the term "African art", implying sub-Saharan Africa, does not generally include the art (or arts) of the North African areas located along the Mediterranean coast, these areas long part of different traditions. For more than a millennium, the art of such regions has been, in large part, Islamic art, with many characteristics unique to it. Ethiopian art, with a long Christian and Islamic tradition,28 is also different from that of most sub-Saharan African countries, where traditional African religion was dominant until relatively recently. However, these different artistic productions were born on the African continent.

Furthermore, the reference to the Sahara does not include the essentially ideological distinction29,30, based on skin color, imposed by the notion of “black Africa”. But it authorizes the integration of East Africa, therefore Swahili culture and also the Horn of Africa.

For historians of Africa, in 2018, the question arises differently, if we consider the entire continent, as do the authors of Ancient Africa, under the direction of François-Xavier Fauvelle and published in 201831. Because this method makes it possible to indicate exchanges, routes, but also spaces with a changing climate: for example, populations with “pre-Berber” morphologies from the “Green Sahara”, practicing ceramics that appeared before 7000 BCE in the Niger valley32 . The “Green Sahara”, at least between 10,000 and 4000 BCE, indeed functioned as a real human “melting pot”. This history of the African continent integrates a Prehistory and an Antiquity where the arts of Africa are very present. Thus, pre-contemporary African arts33 do not ignore the arts of North and West Africa, the arts of East Africa as well as the arts of all other regions of Africa.
The history of African art, a construction site

Traditional or pre-contemporary: Rather than a reference to ancient "traditions", we may therefore prefer to consider what precedes the contemporary or pre-colonial era, provided that we agree on the limit between "ancient" and "contemporary" and "precolonial", limit which can be placed between the end of the 18th century and the current of the 20th century34. Such a periodization of the history of African art must be based on locally determining events. But this story is a work in progress which is progressing little by little35.

Furthermore, Claire Bosc-Tiessé and Peter Mark noted in 2019 that few works have truly undertaken research into the history of the art of objects in Africa, which plunges them into a confusing atmosphere of timelessness36. But the difficulties are indeed enormous on these questions of dating in a historical context. The researcher must demonstrate real methodological inventiveness, as Jan Vansina demonstrated in 198437. However, the absence of reference to history is mixed with the recurring practice of appealing to the “One Tribe, One Style” paradigm, that is to say “one tribe or one ethnicity, one style”. And yet this practice was clearly denounced in 1984 by Sidney Kasfir38. The ethnic categorization of styles, outside of any history, should be rejected as invalid, but this practice which is perpetuated is extremely harmful to the discourse held on objects, whether by the Théodore-Monod Museum of African Art, Museum of IFAN in Dakar, or within the framework of the art market39.
Objects and other forms of art

Objects, sculptures on wood, but also in metal or with metal and other materials, as well as ceramics and basketry, textiles or leather and pearls constitute only a part of the arts as they are or have been traditionally practiced in Africa. It would, of course, also be necessary to take into account traditional African music and dances. Furthermore, photographic documents tell us about the decoration of the body as art, which extends to objects used to adorn the body (jewelry, pearls) and which can be considered as art, just as much40; thus body painting, as among the Nouba, could have been the occasion for intense artistic creativity41. Head ornaments and hairstyles, also documented by photography, are often associated with headgear whose aesthetic qualities have allowed their conservation42. These hairstyles could have been modified following new fashions, as was the case, on the scale of a group, that of the Mangbetu at the beginning of the 20th century, when the "basket" hairstyle went out of fashion, after having passed from a brand reserved for the elite to a more widely shared practice43. In this regard, dated photographic documents are essential. On the other hand, in general, scarifications are more of a code than an art, while demonstrating great creativity from one population to another. Clothing, if it is, like everywhere, a system of communication which can signify sex, age and belonging to a group, it also offers the opportunity for ever-renewed creativity, the manifestation of a personality. Finally, textile art manifests itself masterfully in certain masks, with sumptuous embroidery and appliqués. To this first group we can also add architecture, in the broad sense, but also rock arts. As for the arts “for tourists”, they relate to modern and contemporary practices while often referring to traditional practices or forms44.
This section does not sufficiently cite its sources (February 2020).

The plastic diversity of traditional African Art shows a prodigious imagination and a magical intensity, revealing the omnipresence of the sacred - which fascinated many Western artists and collectors in the 20th century including André Breton - and complex rites: ceremonies where the definition of pure and impure, the perpetuation of the lineage, the legitimization of alliances, the strength and cohesion of the clan.

Among the everyday African objects we can also find artisanal objects such as pulleys, attic locks, ladders, pyrographed calabashes and weapons, personal objects (maternity doll, fetish), but also objects like statues decorative sculptures carved for white people's villas in the 1950s and 1960s, or as naive shop signs. These objects are "fake" for the purists and the "ethnos" who despise them, but these pieces, now weathered by time, often reveal what is very beautiful and very touching in a truly popular art, witness to a time now gone. For example, the so-called “settler” statues represent the “settler”, the white man seen by the black man, and are often statues full of humor and drollery (colonial helmet, pistol in his belt, hands in his pockets ).

However, today's fakes are wreaking havoc, because in many African villages artisans have become masters in the art of patinating new objects, especially since according to experts it is becoming impossible to find a work of art today. major on the continent. Everything is already in Europe, among collectors (like the Brussels resident Willy Mestach), in the families of former colonists or in America in museums. Finding a ritual object having become extremely rare, there are numerous thefts concerning these objects, linked to the discovery of this primitive art. On the other hand, many “touts” scour the most remote bush villages to encourage villagers to sell them their everyday objects such as statuettes, masks or dolls. During the fashion for Dogon attic ladders at the end of the 1980s, African antique dealers snatched up all the village ladders and saturated the Parisian market; they did the same thing for Bambara locks. In the 1990s, traffickers stole hundreds of waka, funerary steles of carved wood, placed on the tombs of Konso clan chiefs.

African governments for their part let it happen because they do not show much interest in the African art market and even shun it, while a resolution taken by UNESCO has prohibited, since the beginning of the 1990s, from bring masks and statues out of the African continent. But in reality, neither UNESCO nor African governments have the means to stem the bleeding and protect this heritage. In addition, some critics have been raised against such a measure with the argument: “Nothing prohibits Europeans, Americans or Japanese from selling their works abroad or buying them. Why should this right be prohibited to Africans? ".

Africa, however, remains a natural artistic source of major importance, because from one end of this vast continent to the other there are thousands of thousand-year-old tombs still containing tens of thousands of objects to be discovered. Some African museums, whose States do not have the means or the will to undertake excavations, are trying to organize themselves and offer mixed or joint excavations to dealers with the aim of conserving the most exceptional pieces and at least to be able to be interested in the sales of the objects collected, in order to have the means to implement a real acquisition policy.

Today African art is an inexhaustible mine of inspiration for creators who reinterpret it but “outside its environment, removed from its context, not only geographical but also social, the object loses its cultural identity. (...) From the panoply of the "colonial" to the wall of the "collector" associated today with contemporary art, we tend to forget the relationship of the African object with its original environment, ignoring the 'obvious ethnological implication'.
Restitution
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Regarding the "return" of 26 works of art claimed by Benin and currently at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques-Chirac, on July 4, 2019, the Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, declared that "The return of the works (Beninese, editor's note) will be included in the law. The timetable still remains to be specified given the large number of texts under discussion in Parliament (...) In the meantime, these 26 works must be able to be seen, admired and studied in Benin."45 The report on the restitution requested from these two researchers, Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, were presented in November 2018 to the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron46.

If the question of objects is thus posed, it nonetheless remains necessarily linked to that of resources, to all the stories which have been collected or reconstructed about the societies which produced said objects, in order to give scientific objectives to these restitutions. And these resources should also be considered in the context of restitutions47.

On November 4, 2020, the French Senate unanimously adopted the bill for the restitution of works of art in Benin and Senegal. senators changed the title of the bill, replacing the term "restitution" with the word "return." Which gives “draft law relating to the return of cultural property to the Republic of Benin and the Republic of Senegal48.

The 26 Beninese works will not be returned before 2021, because the Abomey museum which will house them is still under construction49. Since 2019, six countries on the African continent have made requests for the return of traditional works held in France. Senegal, Ivory Coast and Mali are demanding several objects. Chad asked to recover 10,000 coins. Ethiopia listed 3,000 exhibited at Quai Branly in February 201950.

Information Some works of art whose restitution to Benin is suggested by the Savoy-Sarr report, which establishes lists of the same nature for Senegal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali and Cameroon.

    Statues of the kings of Abomey in the 19th century. Quai Branly Museum[51]

    Statues of the kings of Abomey in the 19th century. Quai Branly Museum51
    One of the four doors of the royal palace of Abomey. Sossa Dede workshop, circa 1889. Polychrome wood, pigments, metal

    One of the four doors of the royal palace of Abomey. Sossa Dede workshop, circa 1889. Polychrome wood, pigments, metal
    Royal seat of Cana. Before 1893. Wood, pigment, H. 1 m.

    Royal seat of Cana. Before 1893. Wood, pigment, H. 1 m.
    Throne which belonged to King Ghézo. Art of Dahomey, Fon culture. 1818-1848. Wood, metal, 199 x 122 × 88 cm, 130 kg. Paris, Quai Branly Museum[52]

    Throne which belonged to King Ghézo. Art of Dahomey, Fon culture. 1818-1848. Wood, metal, 199 x 122 × 88 cm, 130 kg. Paris, Quai Branly Museum52
    Statue dedicated to Gou, divinity of iron and war. Fon sculpture attributed to Akati Ekplekendo. Republic of Benin. Before 1858. Hammered iron, wood, 178.5 x 53 × 60 cm. Between 100 and 150 kg.

    Statue dedicated to Gou, divinity of iron and war. Fon sculpture attributed to Akati Ekplekendo. Republic of Benin. Before 1858. Hammered iron, wood, 178.5 x 53 × 60 cm. Between 100 and 150 kg.

This question is not specific to France. And the problematic relationship of African art with museums, African and Western like the Humboldt Forum and the AfricaMuseum, has been the subject of debate since the 1990s and until 202053.
The artists

For a long time, it was admitted without discussion that African art was an anonymous art, an art whose productions, governed by ethnic, religious and ritual concerns, completely dominated creative individuality. It was accepted as obvious that the objects all related to ritual or mystical concerns and hardly concerned aesthetics54. If it is true that art objects had no market value in traditional African societies and that the works were of course not signed in the context of societies without writing, it is no less true that artists sometimes marked their works with distinctive signs that Europeans did not recognize and ignored55. The ideology of anonymity therefore contributed to a general depreciation of Europeans towards African art55. However, research in the ethnology of art is beginning to deconstruct these prejudices. According to ethnologist Patrick Bouju, “the ethnology of art, as it develops, discovers individual creation and abandons the ideology of anonymity”56. The aesthetic qualities of the objects are not only underlined, it is now accepted that the African artist learns his trade, sometimes in workshops whose operation has been compared with medieval or Renaissance workshops, according to precise rules on the plan. aesthetic and social, and that he most often works to order57. This process creates emulation between artists who are distinguished within their respective societies. Thus, alone, the Yoruba of Nigeria distinguish at least thirty master sculptors enjoying particular consideration58. The Fân du Woleu-Ntem recognize around forty artists whose names are passed down from generation to generation59. The transmission of knowledge from father to son sometimes produces families of sculptors. From now on, works are more and more often attributed to workshops or artists60. It therefore appears that the persistence of anonymity results largely from the way in which works were collected, without regard for their creator, particularly during the colonial period, thus demonstrating the disinterest of colonial officials at the time they carried out these samples61,62.

Furthermore, it seems necessary to evoke the context of the astonishing creativity of traditional African artists, producing works clearly distinct from each other, even made by the same artist. Louis Perrois points out that “the sculptor is free to create within the framework of his traditional style”63. But he specifies, in 2017, that “any motivation of fanciful and individual inspiration from the artists was highly improbable insofar as the result f