Result of the research : 'hunters'
The Authenticity of African Sculptures
by Henri Kamer
The issue of authenticity of African art has been central to collectors for decades. Henri Kamer, who was president of the International Arts Experts Association at the time, published an outstanding account of the state of the matter in Artes d'Afrique Noire, No. 12 (1974). The text that follows is extracted from an English translation of that article, and has been edited further. The original includes a number of illustrations. They are not included here because I believe the text suffices without them.
The original version, including the illustrations, in French and with the English translation, is
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BIEBUYCK P. Daniel
Statuary from the pre-Bembe Hunters. Issues in the interpretation of ancestral figurines ascribed to the Basikasingo-Bembe-Boyo.
Descrizione libro:
EDITOR: The Royal Museum of Central Africa - Tervuren - Belgium 1981.
Statuary in the collections of the Royal Museum of Central Africa.
Langue: Anglais - Soft cover, 164 pp, 6 color and 145 b/w illus, 32 line drgs,
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Full text, digitalised by Lies Strijker and presented by the .Centre Aequatoria
Notes on the digitalisation and presentation
[Cover]
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[2]
IMPRIMI POTEST
Kanzenze, 12-2-1952
P. Simeon, o.m.f.
Sup. Reg.
IMPRIMATUR
Luabo-Kamina, 30-5-1952
+VICTOR PETRUS KEUPPENS
Vic. Ap. de Lulua
[3]
BANTU PHILOSOPHY
by
The Revd. Father PLACIDE TEMPELS
(Translated into English from "La Philosophie Bantoue" the French Version by Dr. A. Rubbens of Fr. Tempels' original work. The Revd. Colin King, M.A. Translator.)
With a Foreword to the English Edition by Dr Margaret Read, C.B.E.Ph. D.,M.A., formerly Professor of Education and Head of the Department Of Education in Tropical Areas, The
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The Nok civilization
The Nok civilization was discovered recently, in 1943 a fragment of a terracotta statue was unearthed in a tin mine near Nok on the Jos Plateau in central Nigeria. Following the discovery of other pieces of statues of high artistic quality were found near the city of Sokoto and creates lots of reactions when they appeared on the market of Western art. Since that date the statues from the city of Katsina still in northern Nigeria have been discovered, but like most of these magnificent statues excavated from unregulated very little information has reached us about their functions.
Several styles of terracotta statues were identified all dated between 400 BC and 200 AD there is currently very difficult to know if these styles correspond to different traditions or they are just regional variations.
More statues of styles, differences were found in the same regions, such as a number of terracotta-called classical style have been discovered in the region of Katsina to three hundred kilometers from their cultural center: the town of Nok.
It is likely that future research will give us more information on what is currently one of the great mysteries of African art.
The classical style known as Nok terracotta, includes statues of real size, with large elongated heads , hair forms developed and we identified them especially thanks to the eyes of an eyebrow and upper linear lower curve of an eyebrow, Their body is usually decorated with many jewels in terracotta, reminiscent of beads stones otherwise similar to those that were found during excavations.
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Arts of Africa first Black Arts Spring 1981 No. 77
When we examine the significance of an African mask, we do not seek to know what the "message" it provides, by virtue of some essential notion of disguise and by his presence, but rather what kind of continuum it belongs. The masks are at the confluence of pictorial traditions, oral and functional none appears (under secular unable to recognize the subjects and even less discernible. The understanding of pictorial code used requires not only a review but a review of developed components as needed through the original context. Let us offer an example of the image with respect to the buffalo in the region of Zaire Kwango-Kwilu South West (1).
Synceros caffer, the largest of African cattle is a massive animal, black, cropped hair, measuring 1.50 m at the shoulder and weighing nearly a ton (900 kg.) (Fig. 1). Its heavy horns have a spacing of one meter, are curved downward and inward and form large lumps to their bases. This animal, originally occupied the central, eastern and southern Africa, frequenting the open plains, open woods and river beds and marshes bordered by reeds. Commonly preview herds of a dozen to a hundred heads, he used to graze and graze the early morning and again at dusk, seeking shade during the hottest hours but sometimes moving at night . Females do not carry a calf for about eleven months.
Considered peaceful, was injured when he can become, for hunters, the most dangerous animal of any big game on the continent (Fig. 2). He is known for his
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AFRICAN SCULPTURE
Introduction
Context of African sculpture
Places of traditional African sculpture
Canons of African sculpture
Techniques and creative
Aesthetic
Role of African sculpture in the middle
Universal impact of African sculpture
Bibliographic
Introduction
Never has been written about as much ink as traditional African sculpture. Ever, despite all attempts, the man has managed to evacuate his mental field, much less its history, that is to say of his encounter with the other. It has been a cornerstone to measure the "civilization" of the black man and his ability to create capacity variously appreciated throughout history until early this century, cubism helping, the unanimously begins to make the exceptional nature of African sculpture that was always confused with African art which it is a party, probably the most important, if one were to judge solely by the number Parts created that we have reached.
Context of African sculpture
We can talk about African sculpture in isolation from the rest of the arts of Africa south of Sahara. Every word in this area is responsible not only meaningless but history, and if we chose the term "African art" is to fully assume all we have inherited from the past in
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Culture
Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate")[1] is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:
* excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
* an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
* the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.
When the concept first emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it connoted a process of cultivation or improvement, as in agriculture or horticulture. In the nineteenth century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. In the mid-nineteenth century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity.
In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics.
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African art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African Diasporas, such as the art of African Americans. Despite this diversity, there are some unifying artistic themes when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.
* Emphasis on the human figure: The human figure has always been a the primary subject matter for most African art, and this emphasis even influenced certain European traditions. For example in the fifteenth century Portugal traded with the Sapi culture near the Ivory Coast in West Africa, who created elaborate ivory saltcellars that were hybrids of African and European designs, most notably in the addition of the human figure (the human figure typically did not appear in Portuguese saltcellars). The human figure may symbolize the living or the dead, may reference chiefs, dancers, or various trades such as drummers or hunters, or even may be an anthropomorphic representation of a god or have other votive function. Another common theme is the inter-morphosis of human and animal.
Yoruba bronze head sculpture, Ife, Nigeria c. 12th century A.D.
* Visual abstraction: African artworks tend to favor visual abstraction over naturalistic representation. This is because many African artworks generalize stylistic norms. Ancient Egyptian art, also usually thought of as naturalistically depictive, makes use of highly abstracted and regimented visual canons, especially in painting, as well as the use of different colors to represent the qualities and characteristics of an individual being depicted.
* Emphasis on sculpture: African artists
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African traditional religion
African traditional religions, also referred to as African indigenous religions or African tribal religions, is a term referring to a variety of religions indigenous to the continent of Africa. Like tribal religions from other parts of the world, African religious traditions are defined largely along community lines.
Traditional African religions involve teachings, practices, and rituals that lend structure to indigenous African societies. These traditional African religions also play a large part in the cultural understanding and awareness of the people of their communities.
African Traditional Religion and Language
Most traditional African religions have, for most of their existence, been orally/spiritually (rather than scripturally) transmitted. Thus, linguistic experts such as Christopher Ehret and Placide Tempels have applied their knowledge of languages towards reconstructing the original core beliefs of the followers of these traditions. The four linguistic phylums spoken in Africa are: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoi-San.
Afro-Asiatic Spirituality
According to linguist Christopher Ehret, traditional religion among Afro-Asiatic-speaking (Afrasan) peoples was originally henotheistic in nature. In this sense, each clan gave
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Mali EmpireThe Mali Empire or Manding Empire or Manden Kurufa was a West African civilization of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I. The Mali Empire had many profound cultural influences on West Africa allowing the spread of its language, laws and customs along the Niger River. The Mali empire extended over an area larger than western Europe and consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces.Manden1235-1600's. The Mali Empire grew out of an area referred to by its contemporary inhabitants as Manden. Manden, named for its inhabitants the Mandinka (initially Manden’ka with “ka” meaning people of), comprised most of present-day northern Guinea and southern Mali. The empire was originally established as a federation of Mandinka tribes called the Manden Kurufa (literally Manden Federation), but it later became an empire ruling millions of people from nearly every ethnic group in West Africa.EtymologyThe naming origins of the Mali Empire are complex and still debated in scholarly circles around the world. While the meaning of “Mali” is still contested, the process of how it entered the regional lexicon is not. As mentioned earlier, the Mandinka of the Middle Ages referred to their ethnic homeland as “Manden”.
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Black African Literature
Modern literature of Black Africa lies at the confluence of various trends: its
own traditions and diverse, the impact of Islamic and Arab worlds;
the pervasive influence of European colonialism and Christianity. Africans
have been particularly prolific since the Second World War;
using French, English, Portuguese and more than forty African languages, they
made up of poetry, fiction, drama, and invented forms of writing
for which there is no description in the European literary world. Their
works portray the modern political and social reality, and focus on
value systems, whether or not African. At the same time, their writings
are based on indigenous traditions and world views typically
Africa.
Long before Europeans arrived, even before the development of writing,
peoples of sub-Saharan Africa have expressed their thoughts in an artistic manner,
their feelings and concerns the deepest in the form of myths,
legends, allegories, parables and stories, songs and chants from
poems, proverbs, riddles and theater. Some traditional forms of
oral literature have survived until today, while new forms do
cease to
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, and has a much smaller second location in Upper Manhattan, at "The Cloisters," which features medieval art.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. It opened on February 20, 1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
As of 2007, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet.
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Sculpture dedicated to Gou divinity of wrought iron and war
Work iron 168cm in height made before 1858 by Akati Ekplékendo
Current Republic of Benin
Lauren Papet, Ecole du Louvre
Arrival in French collections and identification problems
This statue has been reported in France in 1894 by Captain Eugene Fonssagrives following the conquest of Dahomey. It belonged to the spoils of war found in the palaces of Abomey, abandoned by the fleeing King Behanzin, who himself had perhaps made on the side in preparation for the French attack in the hope that the god help protect the kingdom on its most vulnerable border. She was then given directly to the Trocadero Museum of Ethnography, the current Museum of Man (recorded April 30, 1894).
First Fonssagrives was presented as was a representation of Ebo, patron god of Ouidah thesis refuted by Maurice Delafosse in 1894, indicating that the divinity of Ouidah is not the serpent but Ebo Dan. The name "Ebo" would have probably been given Fonssagrives response when he asked what the object (Bo meaning receptacle of supernatural forces). She was named Gou, its present name after World War II, his resemblance to the voodoo (god) of iron and protector of the forge, metal and war have been considered fairly obvious.
Technical Achievement
Government also has a variety of techniques to work with iron: forged, rolled, hammered, nailed and riveted.
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The Museum Dapper is a private Parisian museum created in 1986 which defines itself as a «space of arts and of cultures for Africa, the Caribbean and their diasporas».
His name pays tribute to a Dutch humanist of the XVIIth century, Olfert Dapper.
History
Olfert Dapper foundation is born in Amsterdam in 1983, in initiative of polytechnicien Michel Leveau, industrialist, to recommend Africain governments [2] and soon possessor of «one of the most abundant collections of African art in Europe».
Asserting his will to help in knowledge and in preservation of the heritages of sub-Saharan Africa, foundation allocates grants of studies and of research in the domains of history and of ethnology, as well as help to publications. A non-profitmaking organisation is created in 1984 by the president and his wife. Christiane Falgayrettes-Leveau, native to Guyana and alumna of Maryse Cop, is then journalist specialised in the literature of the black world.
In May, 1986 she takes the direction of the museum which becomes established first in a private residence of the avenue Victor-Hugo, constructs by Charles Plumet in 1901, a modest space (500 m ²) which they achieve by a small court planted of bamboos and brackens.
Three
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