Surface Design in African Arts

Author(s): Judith Perani

Source: African Arts, Vol. 12, No. 3 (May, 1979), pp. 80-82
Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3335586
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 Especially appealing, in view of the wide
geographical area encompassed by the exhibi-
tion, is the principle of involving authorities
likely to be especially knowledgeable about
particular pieces. Usually, such exhibitions
are assigned to single curators familiar with
one or a small number of traditions, which
then receive a disproportionate amount of at-
tention (sometimes mitigated by information
obtained from friendly colleagues). In the
present instance, an intriguing (and full-
blown) diversity of focus is evident in the
catalogue entries; one might be tempted to
sort out emphases and approaches according
to the French and English/American origins of
the contributors, although overlappings and
convergences are evident.
In an issue of the Journal of the National
Gallery (no. 28, Sept. 14, 1978) devoted to
"Twenty-Five African Sculptures," Fry writes
of seeking to avoid folkloristic and ethnologi-
cal traps in conceiving the exhibition; in the
catalogue (p. 12) she notes that in ethnological
studies of sculpture, "the object or system of
objects is not the focus of attention; the mate-
riality and form of the object, the structure
and environment supporting and surround-
ing it, and about which the object conveys
information, are not closely studied. Instead,
the object or system of objects is used to
illustrate a given type of social activity. Curi-
ously, the classical art of the Western World
has received just the opposite treatment. For
in attributing specifically visual status to these
Western arts, we often ignored the political,
economic, sociological, and technological fac-
tors that had a part in shaping the creative
imagination that produced them."
NGULU RELIQUARY FIGURE. KOTA-OBAMBA, GABON.
WOOD, METAL, 53.3cm.
COLLECTION OF BARBARA AND MURRAY FRUM.
80
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That Fry invited others to participate in
realizing her conception of the exhibition
suggests awareness of the "egocentric trap"
as well, but her impulse toward collective
scholarship was only partially realized. The
fundamental decisions-delineation and de-
velopment of concept, and selection of objects
to be included-were hers alone. Her col-
laborators worked largely in isolation within a
framework that I suspect will remain frustrat-
ingly arbitrary and ambiguous, in the last
analysis, to them and to most visitors to the
exhibition and readers of the catalogue. In her
Journal statement, Fry disclaims any intention
of having selected "the best" works of African
sculpture in Canadian collections, or of pre-
senting a comprehensive survey: "my pri-
mary criterion for choice was the idea of
sculpture itself: concrete creations that estab-
lish themselves in space, and thus create
spaces." Limiting the number of pieces
shown would "preserve the integrity of their
sculptural presence," more easily to convey a
sense of their "African-ness."
The exhibition seemed to have been or-
ganized according to considerations of
sculptural form, but the principles involved
were never enunciated, no dialectic ever
emerged, and no guidelines were provided
for the synthesis that appeared to be the ob-
jective of the project. No order was discerni-
ble in the presentation of the objects in the
exhibition. The first and second rooms looked
small and crowded, the third large and
sparsely furnished; in both cases, works ob-
truded upon one another, interfering with the
undistracted scrutiny that seemed to be de-
sired. The catalogue first treats of masks, then
of "apparently autonomous figures," a term
intended to indicate that most figurative
sculptures in Africa were originally conceived
as parts of larger ensembles of some sort. Cat-
alogue entries proceed from northwest to
southeast for each category in succession, an
arrangement that seems arbitrary and to con-
tradict the formal considerations upon which
the exhibition was claimed to be based. No
justification is offered for including multiple
examples from some traditions while others
are not represented at all.
On balance, Fry's emphasis on sculptural
form becomes as abstract and schematic as the
folkloristic and ethnological approaches to
which she seeks an alternative. "Formal ex-
plorations" imply explorers, and terms like
"sculptural problems and solutions" suggest
a latitude for conscious experimentation and
concern with choices that seem, on the whole,
inappropriate to the African data. One sus-
pects that Fry's theoretical posture will be
familiar to students of Modern art, accus-
tomed to deferring to the insights and percep-
tions of critics as guides to the formal and
conceptual complexity of objects. For fairly
complicated reasons having to do with their
intellectual roots, however, most present-day
Africanists will probably find it uncomforta-
ble to read in the catalogue that a Pende mask
"does not resolutely fill out the space it oc-
cupies," or that a Cross River helmet mask
with three faces "fills its space in all directions
. . the thrice-renewed face allows a total
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conquest of the space" (pp. 14,15).
But this is not, in the end, an exercise in
cookbook Formalism. Fry's Introduction pro-
ceeds from analyses of form to discussions of
the relationships between form, function, and
meaning. A brief but elegant comparison of
the positions taken by Biebuyck, Zahan, and
Dieterlen on this issue is somewhat offset by a
long and rather fruitless detour into the
multi-functional character of many of the
works exhibited. There are, however, enough
fresh and original ideas to counterbalance the
reservations expressed here. African
sculpture is approached and discussed as if it
really matters. The intensity of Fry's critique of
previous practice and the straightforward
manner in which she states her case tend to
throw deficiencies in her concept and ar-
gumentation into especially high relief. This
review can usefully and fairly end with Fry's
reply, in the issue of the National Gallery's
Journal cited above, to the question of how her
exhibition was intended to enhance the pre-
vailing level of awareness of the value and
significance of "Art in General": "We cannot
achieve our goal if this exhibition serves only
to add to our visual baggage. We must go
beyond mere acquisition of novel images and
fugitive emotions. The sculptures, as we
examine them, should themselves provoke
some questions: the very fact that these ques-
tions are asked proves that the physical im-
pact of the images, their presence, creates a
desire to have some understanding of their
real meaning and purpose. Without becom-
ing too deeply involved in philosophical dis-
cussion, let us say that it is our very relation
with the world that is at issue .. ."
The 192-page catalogue, with 109 b/w
photos, is available from: National Museums
of Canada, Mail Order, Ottawa, Canada KlA
OM8. $19.95.
Arnold Rubin
University of California, Los Angeles
SURFACE DESIGN IN AFRICAN ARTS
Louisville School of Art
Anchorage, Kentucky
November 10-December 1, 1978
This exhibition was part of "Surface Design:
Approaches 78," a program sponsored by the
Louisville School of Art and coordinated by
Nancy Comstock; the program also included
lectures, workshops and a contemporary fib-
ers exhibit. "Surface Design in African Arts,"
drawn from the collection of Roy and Sophia
Sieber, was organized by Lida Gordon and
funded by the Kentucky Arts Commission
and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Ms. Gordon must be commended for her
display. The large, impersonal square space
was subdivided by partitions and suspended
textiles to create more intimate viewing mod-
ules. The material was arranged so that the
viewer could concentrate on one object with-
out visual interference from surrounding ob-
jects. Another important aspect of the show
was that viewers had access to the textiles,
which enabled them to closely observe
techniques. They could also view the works
from more distant vantage points, so that a
variety of perceptual experiences was offered.
Although the exhibit included examples of
jewelry and household furniture, it was
primarily the textiles that carried the theme of
the show, revealing the innovative ways in
which African artists have resolved formal
problems of surface design. Textiles, more
than painting (which is usually confined to
the body or the wall), are the major two-
dimensional art form of sub-Saharan Africa.
The examples included in "Surface Design in
African Arts" represented different tech-
niques and traditions from the western, cen-
tral, eastern and southern regions of Africa;
an implicit theme of the exhibit was to visually
convey something of the aesthetic con-
tinuities that characterize African textiles in
particular and African art in general.
Some of the aesthetic principles that oper-
ate in African art were well illustrated by the
textiles in this exhibit. For example, several of
the pieces showed a symmetrical arrange-
ment of the design elements over the surface.
The visual impact of the embroidered Bamun
robe from Cameroon and the Senufo man's
tunic made of dyed mud cloth were depen-
dent on a predictable, ordered treatment of
the surface. Both of these examples illustrated
the proclivity of the African artist to subdivide
the surface into a type of grid; the Bamun
gown had embroidered motifs arranged in a
modular fashion, whereas the surface of the
Senufo tunic owed its linear character to the
method by which it was constructed-the
edge-sewing of alternately designed strips of
men's weaving.
Even more common is the African love for
surface discontinuities illustrated by the ran-
dom, sometimes playful way in which design
elements are offset against the ground. Monni
Adams has summarized this approach:
"within any entity, the Africans show a taste
for interrupting the expected line; they com-
pose through juxtapositions of sharply differ-
ing units, through abrupt shifts of forms
("Kuba Embroidered Cloth," African Arts XII,
1, 1978, p. 24.). The Bandi man's robe in this
exhibit was made by edge-sewing individual
strips, patterned with symmetrical longitudi-
nal stripes, to form one large piece of cloth.
The predictability of the stripes was, however,
suddenly broken by the diagonally placed
striped pocket, a small but significant detail.
A Yoruba asoke cloth and a Baule cloth
suggested the infinite number of ways that
patterned strip units can be combined to form
larger cloths. In both examples the individual
strips were sewn so that the horizontal de-
corative bands were intentionally mis-
aligned--a technique that imparts a dynamic
tension to the surface of the cloths, resulting
in a vibrating optical effect. The surface ten-
sion of the Yoruba cloth was further enhanced
by the random play of the vertical warp ikat
stripes (produced by tie-dyeing clusters of
warp threads) against the asymmetrical ar-
rangement of brocaded weft design units.
Sometimes irregularities in surface design
are not planned but instead result from the
spontaneous response of the artist to specific
limiting conditions. Twentieth-century West-
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::
ern artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, have
made self-conscious efforts to incorporate the
element of chance into the art-making pro-
cess, but chance has always been an intrinsic
part of the African creative sensibility. A close
look at the brocaded motifs on the Nupe
women's cloth shows color changes within a
single brocaded unit, indicating that the
weaver either changed her mind about the
color or that she ran out of the first color and
completed the design with a second color.
Rather than diminishing the visual impact of
the cloth, such color shifts add a sumptuous
quality to the surface. The random placement
of abstract shapes on the Kuba women's raffia
wrapper is another case in point; these shapes
were not planned but instead were embroi-
dered onto the surface as patches in order to
conceal structural weaknesses that resulted
from pounding the mat to soften it.
The textiles in this exhibit functioned in a
variety of traditional contexts, ranging from
merely covering the body to distinguishing
the wearer on significant ceremonial occa-
sions. The group of Yoruba blankets in the
exhibit that were used to tie babies to their
mothers' backs had surfaces decorated with
colorful longitudinal stripes and looped weft
floats, which added a flourish to the overall
costume of the mothers. The surface embel-
lishments on several other textiles, such as the
Kuba raffia men's wrapper that was decorated
with patterns of cut pile and embroidery, or
the abovementioned brocaded Nupe wom-
en's cloth, expressed their wearers' prestige.
Also included in the exhibit were textiles that
functioned in more restricted ceremonial con-
texts. Suspended in the center of the room
was an imposing tie-dyed doma cloth. Such
cloths are used as wall hangings in the throne
room of the Bamenda king's palace or as cos-
tumes for dance masqueraders controlled by
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?.O.
the king. Because there is no indigo dyeing
tradition in Cameroon, doma cloths are im-
ported from the Jukun people of Nigeria. Sur-
face designs on ceremonial textiles can also
function as a symbolic language. The stamped
patterns on the Ashantiadinkra cloth are more
than decorative; they also communicate re-
ligious and social values.
The source of surface design is occasionally
found in the everyday physical environment
of a people. The embossed leather designs on
the man's shoulder bag from East Africa,
which restate the curved form of the bag, re-
semble the keloid scarification marks made on
human skin. Likewise, the textured brocaded
design on the Yoruba head tie from Owo is
called Olifon, after a disease that causes the
skin to break out in small black blisters (Robin
Poynor, Nigerian Handcrafted Textiles, Duluth,
1975).
Sometimes a form's surface is directly as-
sociated with the function of protection. The
most obvious example in the exhibit was the
woven hunter's shirt from the Western Su-
dan, which was covered with implements of
protective power. The leather-encased Islamic
script and the animal skulls attached to the
shirt are believed to transfer the power of
Islam and the strength of animals to the body
of the hunter and, in so doing, avert danger.
The stamped patterns on the adinkra cloth and
the embroidered motifs on the Hausa man's
gown may also have derived from Arabic
script and therefore may owe their original
source of inspiration to the protective func-
tion of Arabic script. The same might be true
for the Yoruba saddle blanket from Oyo,
which is stylistically related to the saddle
blanket traditions of their northern Islamized
neighbors, the Nupe and the Hausa. It is pos-
sible that the beautiful designs of appliqued
green leather and red satin secured to the
81
leather surface with embroidered stitches and
brass studs may have derived from a tradition
of covering a surface with protective Islamic
leather amulets.
"Surface Design in African Arts" success-
fully demonstrated the rich variety of textile
techniques and styles from a wide geograph-
ical area of Africa and revealed the numerous
ways in which African artists have ap-
proached surface composition. Individual
textiles in the show represented a range of
social and religious contexts. These functional
contexts would have been made more explicit
had illustrative photographs accompanied
the display. Nevertheless, the exhibit was an
educational and visually pleasing experience.
Judith Perani
Ohio University, Athens
ETHIOPIA
The Christian Art of an African Nation
Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts
December 14, 1978-April 27, 1979.
This exhibition of sacred Ethiopian artifacts
from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles R.
Langmuir revealed the remarkable continuity
of tradition in an empire and an orthodox
religion that originated in the early centuries
of the Christian era. While many of the pieces,
such as processional and hand crosses,
crowns and incense burners, were part of
ceremonial regalia familiar to the general wor-
shipper, the icons and manuscripts were for
PROCESSIONAL CROSS 17th CENTURY STYLE, WOOD.
DOUBLE PENDANT TRIPTYCH.
17th CENTURY. TEMPERA ON WOOD.
82
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centuries primarily the sacred province of
priests. In most instances the icons now in the
Langmuir collection probably came from re-
mote monasteries and churches, the domain
of an elite who created and venerated them.
The exhibition and the catalogue text, writ-
ten by Elizabeth Cross Langmuir, Stanislaw
Chojnacki and Peter Fetchko, refer to major
historical phases. Islamic dominance of
Ethiopia occurred in the tenth century and
briefly in the second quarter of the sixteenth
century. With these exceptions Ethiopia re-
mained predominantly Christian for sixteen
centuries following the introduction of the re-
ligion to the then Aksumite Empire by Syrians
in the fourth century. (The problematical
thesis of contact by Ethiopian Christians with
northern Europeans was again raised by the
Celtic art appearing in the traveling exhibition
"Treasures of Early Irish Art.")
Prior to the twentieth century, there were a
few periods of documented European contact
with Ethiopia. The Portuguese arrived in the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
The Jesuits, bringing with them Latin iconog-
raphy, prevailed for a short time later in the
sixteenth century. During the nineteenth cen-
tury, limited political contact with the West
again occurred. It was not until 1960, how-
ever, when tourism was encouraged by the
late Emperor Haile Selassie, that large num-
bers of sacred works of antiquity came to the
attention of the West. The only other works of
the Ethiopian Orthodox Church known to
emerge were wall paintings and manuscripts;
many of the latter are now in the British Mu-
seum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
The exhibition and the Langmuir collection
as a whole should be regarded in this context.
The collection's formation was directly related
to acquisition and study of historical works of
art initiated in 1966 by the Institute of Ethio-
pian Studies, Haile Selassie I University,
Addis Ababa. As cited in the catalogue, the
institute's Journal is a major reference source.
The curator of the institute's museum at the
time, Professor Stanislaw Chojnacki, directed
the research and cataloguing of the sacred
objects, which had long been secluded in
monasteries and churches. Elizabeth
Langmuir attributes her knowledge of the
icons' history to his guidance in their re-
search. She also emphasizes the contributions
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of the museum's director, Dr. Richard K.P.
Pankhurst, and of Eine Moore, whose exten-
sive work in dating and analysis was so valu-
able.
Cataloguing of panel paintings-such as
triptychs and pendant diptychs-guided by
Professor Chojnacki was unprecedented.
Similarly, research and dating of other objects
such as crosses involved the formulation of
chronologies. With her colleagues, Mrs.
Langmuir developed a dating and classifica-
tion framework that was reflected in the
exhibition at the Peabody Museum of Salem.
Primary stylistic and iconographic sources in
the art of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in-
clude, but are not confined to, Byzantium, the
Egyptian Coptic Church, and Western Re-
naissance art. Principal phases correspond to
dynastic periods such as the Zague Dynasty
based at Lalibela, and the Gondarene, as well
as to those periods in which European con-
tacts are more direct. The question of whether
wall paintings can be classified along lines
comparable with those for icons and manu-
scripts remains unanswered. Monastic seclu-
sion and the inaccessibility of many church
interiors until very recently has made study
difficult.
The dating of crosses is more elusive.
Grouped in the exhibition as processional,
hand, and pendant (neck) crosses, they can
also be classified to some extent by style as
well as by technique and fabrication. For
example, brass processional crosses were
probably common in the sixteenth century.
Early copper, bronze, and iron examples also
survive, although few gold and silver ones are
extant. Hand crosses, with their elaborate or-
namental, interlacing forms, were frequently
carved with small square or oblong sections at
their base, providing a space for incised,
stamped designs or inscriptions. As noted in
the catalogue, the inclusion of this device
raises questions about whether it represents
the "consecrated slab identified with the Ark
of the Convenant," which is "one of many
Judaic elements found in the Ethiopian
church." Hand crosses were commonly
fashioned in iron, brass, silver and wood.
The exhibition included over 65 objects
ranging from icons, wood and metal crosses,
and parchment painting, to body ornament
and ceremonial paraphernalia. The material