African Masks [antikvár]

IntroductionThe impact of African art was first felt in the Western world towards the end of the fifteenth century. Richly carved ivory salt-cellars from the Benin and Sherbro tribes in the region of present-day Nigeria and Sierra Leone were brought to Europe as highly-prized items of trade by Portuguese travellers. It was not, however, until the latter years of the nineteenth century that artifacts from the African continent became readily available to the European collector, and at this time they were considered as nothing more than the handiwork of almost sub-human savages.European collectors amassed vast collections of tribal artifacts, giving little or no consideration to the aesthetic content of the material; the method of collecting was often thorough almost to the point of obsession. In much the same way as the Impressionists, in particular van Gogh, had been influenced by Japanese wood-block prints brought to Europe as wrapping material and then discarded, many of the most prominent artists of the early twentieth century, particularly Cubists and Expressionists, drew inspiration from tribal art, especially African masks, which passed through the private collections and flea-markets of Europe.Amongst the artists in whom this influence is readily apparent are Picasso, Matisse, Vlaminck and Derain in Paris, and Nolde and Kirchner in Dresden and Berlin. The utilization of forms and motifs derived from African art by the Cubist/Expressionist artists should not, however, be viewed as an adoption of symbols and forms expressing a sentiment entirely alien to their own. It would be more true to say that the European artists of the period derived inspiration from a sympathetic art which echoed their own developing consciousness.Although the acceptance of the values of tribal art may appear to be a rapid embracing of a new form of expression, the way had in fact been paved over the preceding fifteen years. For some time artists had been looking back to earlier civilizations and societies, such as those of Egypt, Japan, the Middle East and the early Renaissance, to what they saw as an honesty inherent in the artistic expression of these societies. An attempt was made to cut through the ephemeral extravagances of the late nineteenth century in favour of what was seen as the rejection of irrelevant sophistication by the societies which they flatteringly termed 'primitive'. This movement was, however, in no way similar to the way in which painters several decades earlier had looked back to the Golden Ages of Ancient Greece and the Renaissance. The mood was rather one of optimistic growth, whereas that of the earlier artists was often nihilistic as they viewed all work subsequent to the Golden Ages as being indicative of a process of gradual decline.African art was especially appealing to the Cubist/Expressionist school of artists in that it differed utterly from the imitation of nature prevalent in Western art since the Renaissance. The African artist created an object which, rather than attempting to mirror nature, was an analogy of natural images. In his carvings, the African artist embodied the vital forces of nature integral to the mystery of the Universe as experienced by man within a tribal context.