The Faces of Africa celebrates the tradition of ritual and ceremony in this mystical view of tribal heritage. For more than 3,500 years, the mask is a sacred and revered object, honored and beloved in addition to being a feared and dangerous entity. For the people of Africa, tribal masks and sculpture represent the invisible force assigned to it, which may be the spirit of a wise ancestor, a tutelary deity or any embodiment of supernatural power from the animal kingdom. Whoever wears a mask combines and unites their strength to the spirit associated with it, enhancing value and heightening power, creating a mystical empyreal bond between the past and present, the sacred living and the honored dead.
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Kifwebe Mask,
Basonga Tribe, Congo
The Basonga are related to a larger tribe known as the Luba and live in the savannah and forest land on the River Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kifwebe masks are distinguished by gender, social status and age of the masquerader by the size and height of the sagittal comb/crest. Male Kifwebe crests are more pronounced than females while junior masks have a smaller, diminutive crest to indicate their lesser degree of social power. This mask is worn by an adult female.
The individual who acquires a Kifwebe mask has potent, mystical powers that are said to derive from spirits of the dead. For males of the tribe, these spirits assist in rituals to provide means of controlling social behavior, neutralizing disruptive elements within the tribe, rituals involving the death of a chieftain, initiation rites of young men as well as a whole range of occasions that include public punishment.
African Art Influence on
20th Century Art
Many of the ancient artifacts housed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City are similar to several in MoAW's Faces of Africa collection and had a major influence on many of the 20th century's great artist that carry through today. Here is an excerpt from the MET's essay: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, African Influences in Modern Art. Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris:
To read the full essay click on the green above. The green sections below will take you to the images of the referenced art works.
Matisse, an inveterate museum browser, had likely encountered African sculptures at the Trocadéro museum with fellow Fauve painter Maurice de Vlaminck, before embarking on a spring 1906 trip to North Africa. Upon returning that summer, Matisse painted two versions of The Young Sailor (1999.363.41 ) in which he replaced the first version’s naturalistically contoured facial features with a more rigidly abstract visage reminiscent of a mask. At about the same time, Picasso completed his portrait of the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein (47.106 ), finalizing her face after many repaintings in the frozen, masklike style of archaic sculptural busts from his native Iberia.
In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1913), Stein wrote an account of Matisse’s fall 1906 purchase of a small African sculpture, now identified as a Vili figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at a curio shop on his way to visit her home. Since Picasso was present, she recalled, Matisse showed the sculpture to him. Picasso later told curators and writers of the pivotal visits he subsequently made, beginning in June 1907, to the African collections at the Trocadéro, famously describing his revulsion at the dimly lit, musty galleries but also his inability to turn away from his study of the objects’ inventive and elegant figural composition. The African sculptures, he said, had helped him to understand his purpose as a painter, which was not to entertain with decorative images, but to mediate between perceived reality and the creativity of the human mind—to be freed, or “exorcised,” from fear of the unknown by giving form to it. In 1907, after hundreds of preparatory sketches, Picasso completed the seminal Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting to whose faceted female bodies and masklike faces some attribute the birth of Cubism and a defining role in the course of modern art throughout the twentieth century. He continued to make major paintings, sculptures, and sketches of mask-faced
figures composed of fragmented
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Next Week: It's your turn.
Do you have a favorite piece at MoAW you would like to see highlighted in our weekly email? You can visit www.moaw.org, see the collections tab, visit the catalogs and state your choice on the link below.
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Members Perks
So many reasons to join MoAW, you help keep the museum open, allow us to acquire new artifacts, plan and present programs including the Second Friday Fantasy, and help local students learn about ancient civilizations and human origins.
For all that you do to help us we thank you in many ways:
- Unlimited free admission for one year
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During the initial phase of "The Pause" we offered new members two extra months with membership. While we are back in "The Pause" we are offering this again. Current memberships will be extended by the amount of time we are closed and new members, 14 months of membership will start when we reopen. Click below for more information and to join.
Thank you.
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MoAW's mission is to provide public access to important fossil discoveries and treasured artifact exhibitions focused on the origins of life and ancient civilizations; to enhance universal curriculum development for local and surrounding school districts, colleges, and universities; raise the quality of life for residents; attract tourists; and to serve as an educational, cultural, and economic engine for Riverside County and the Coachella Valley.
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Ibibio Tribal Mask, Nigeria
Skilled in the art of mask making, the Ibibio tribes people created secret societies to sacredly house and administer their use in rituals to commemorate the deceased. These societies impact political, legislative, judiciary and religious doctrine in the village.
Representing the unhappy, tortured spirit of an ancestor left to wander aimlessly, this mask inspires dread, fear and vexation for a life not well lived and for which paradise will remain eternally elusive.
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Bafo Tribal Mask, Cameroon
Settling along the Atlantic coast during the Neolithic Era in present day Cameroon, “Africa in miniature,” the longest continuous population of inhabitants were tribes such as the Baka, Bamileke, Bamoun, Bassa, Douala, Ewondo, Bafo, Bulu and Baka, popularly known as the Pygmies, to mention a few out of the more than 250 ethnicities residing in geological and cultural diversity.
Living by the sea in the lush tropical rain forests gave rise to music and dance, fundamental elements associated with ceremonies, festivals and traditional storytelling. A chorus of singers echoes the soloist while dancers wear bells and play an array of percussive instruments, flutes, horns, whistles, harp and xylophones.
Wearing a double crown of blue beads, aquatic rays emitting from the lower jaw and a veil of netting, this spirit of the sea takes an oath to indulge the fishermen with a generous yield and a safeguarded return to shore.
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