this resource - The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Inter retations Approaches to Art Objects Selected from the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts Edited by Les Tickle and Veronica Sekules Visual Arts Education
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Sedgwick
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Sedgwick gives high priority to supporting educational initiatives within its
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Sedgwick is an award winner under the Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme for
its support of The Centre for Applied Research in Visual Arts Education, UEA.
©The Centre for Applied Research in Visual Arts Education, School of Education,
University of East Anglia, 1995.
AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanicat
photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the editors.
ISBN 0 904 510 425
ii
Acknowledgements Interpretations, created by the Centre for Applied Research in Visual Arts Education
in association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East
Anglia, is a sequel to the volume Starting Points. Both volumes have been produced
initially to provide help for primary school teachers sponsored by Sedgwick's
Norwich Office to follow a course of study in the visual arts. The materials have also
been used as learning resources by a much wider audience.
We are grateful to Debbie Hilton, Public Relations Manager of Sedgwick's Norwich
Office for her continued support and encouragement. Our thanks are due also to
many people - staff, guides, Friends of the SCVA, and teachers, who commented
favourably about the first volume and encouraged us to extend the materials for their
use too.
This volume has been produced with funding support from the Centre for Applied
Research in Visual Arts Education, the trustees of the Sainsbury Endowment Fund,
and Sedgwick, and would not have been possible without the generosity of these
bodies.
It has been prepared by a research team; Heron Dickson, Alan Kitchell, Will Rea,
Veronica Sekules and Les Tickle, working from the Sainsbury Centre, The Sainsbury
Research Unit, The School of World Art Studies and Museology, and the School of
Education, at UEA. We have been supported in many and diverse ways by the staff
in all these places, in carrying out the research and in the production of the book. Our
thanks go to everyone who has helped to make the results possible.
Photographs of art objects are by James Austin MA FBIPP. Line drawings and sketch
maps are by Les Tickle. Typesetting and design by Miriam McGregor. Printing by
Asgard Printing Services, Lowestoft.
iii
Preface This volume is intended to provide an introduction to more of the educational
possibilities of the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. (Some are introduced in
Starting Points: Approaches to Art Objects from the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts,
Sekules and Tickle 1993). The aim is to stimulate a process of enquiry and response
to art objects in the Collection, as a basis for developing an understanding of art.
The book is intended for all those people who are interested in teaching about art and
learning about art. These might include teachers of art or other humanities subjects;
parents who want to familiarise themselves with the Collection and work on
interpretations with their own children; and students or other visitors to the Gallery
who want introductory guidance to parts of the Collection.
It is based on our experience of teaching about objects from various periods and
cultures across the world, available in the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection.
iv
Contents Page The Sainsbury Collection
1
The Centre for Applied Research in Visual Arts Education
2
Developing Responses to Art Objects
3
The Culture of The Cyclades
17 Carved Figures From The Cyclades
25 Arts of Africa
41 Some African Objects
59 A Solomon Islands Figure
78 Eastern Solomons Body Ornaments
102 Ten Modern European Portraits
122 v
The Sainsbury Collection The Sainsbury Collection was given to the University in 1973 by Sir Robert and Lady
Sainsbury, who began acquiring works of art during the 1930s. It is internationally
renowned for its holdings of art from all over the world, from 4,000 BC to the present
day. It includes the indigenous arts of Western and Central Africa, Australia, New
Zealand and many islands of Oceania; art and artefacts made by the Aztec and Maya
Indians of Ancient America as well as more recent objects by Canadian Indians of the
Northwest coast and the Inuit peoples of the arctic regions; Indonesia, China, Japan,
India and other parts of Asia, antiquities from ancient Egypt, Western Asia and
Europe. Among the modern western artists, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti and
Francis Bacon are particularly well represented. There are also major works by
Degas, Picasso, Modigliani and Soutine as well as contemporary European sculpture
and paintings by John Davies, AnthonyGreen, Yuri Kuper, Antonio Saura, Manolo
Millares, Charles Maussion and Boris Zaborov.
The Sainsbury Centre, designed by Foster Associates and opened in 1978, is one of
the most distinctive postwar British buildings. Its superstructure forms a vast boxlike
canopy made of steel, aluminium and glass, lined on the interior walls with louvred
blinds. Maintenance services are discreetly hidden between its inner and outer skin.
The great open space of the interior is divided by low screens and mezzanine floors
to provide galleries for the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, other art collections
and temporary exhibitions, teaching rooms, offices, libraries and study areas for
undergraduate and postgraduate teaching departments; the School of World Art
Studies and Museology and the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa,
Oceania and the Americas. Beyond the reception area for gallery visitors, huge
evergreen Ficus Benjamina trees overhang the coffee-bar. There is also a public
restaurant at the west end. The Crescent Wing, opened in 1991, includes a new
gallery I conference space, a 'visible store' for the Sainsbury Collection open to the
public during gallery hours, teaching and office accommodation, and conservation
and technical workshops.
1
he Centre for
plied Research in Visual Arts Educa ti on The University of East Anglia, Norwich, was established in 1965, As well as having
extensive and wide-ranging programmes of research and teaching which are
internationally and nationally renowned, the University has a commitment to
serving the region of East Anglia,
Among its many specialist interests in research, scholarship and teaching, the
presence on the campus of the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, housed in the
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, provides a focus for many activities related to
visual arts education,
The School of Education at UEA has an established reputation for research, scholarship
and teaching in the fields of curriculum innovation, educational evaluation,
professional learning, and the development of teaching, These interests span
compulsory and post-compulsory schooling, and teaching and learning in a range of
professional contexts,
The Centre for Applied Research in Visual Arts Education, based in the School of
Education at the University, was established in 1991 in order to increase liaison
between the various disciplines already involved in the field of visual arts and
education, The Centre brings together the perspectives of artists, art historians,
educators, and other professionals, as contributors to the development of knowledge
and understanding of the arts,
The aims of the Centre are to research ways in which interpretation, knowledge and
understanding of the visual arts may be promoted and developed through the use of
experimental approaches to teaching about the visual arts from diverse social and
cultural contexts, and to disseminate research and innovative practices through
training programmes for art educators,
2
Developing esponses to Art Objects Les Tickle and Veronica Sekules
If one wants to enhance an individual's understanding (of art), the most likely route is to
involve her deeply over a significant period of time with the symbolic realm in question, to
encourage her to interact regularly with individuals who are somewhat (rather than greatly)
more sophisticated than she is, and to give her ample opportunity to reflect on her own
emerging understanding of the domain. (Gardner 1990 page 17)
Our aim is to acknowledge the importance of the learner who is working constructively
and actively on the growth of their own knowledge. The desire for knowledge might
grow from the immediate aesthetic stimulus provided by artefacts. A process of
reflecting on one's own response to them is an important next step. Puzzling around
the evidence of what the works represent; how they were inade; from what? when?
where? by who? for whom? why? and so on, can set a framework for more detailed
investigations.
Responses, reflections, questions, and puzzles provide a basis for understanding
particular art objects and the work of particular artists. They can lead to a further
stage: a search for possible relationships (similarities and differences) between
different objects or classes of objects, or between the work of different artists.
Developing an appreciation of the ways in which classifications and connections can
be made, we suggest, is one of the basic tools for understanding art. Approaches to
understanding objects in the Collection in terms of similarities, differences, and
relationships necessitates fitting them into a context of other objects and artists from
elsewhere. Knowing their places of origin, and the social and cultural circumstances
in which the objects were produced and in which the artists worked is part of that
process. This should not detract from the more immediate aesthetic experience and
personal interpretation and response to individual art objects. Rather, we believe it
should complement that experience.
We have considered some of the art objects (and their makers) which are included in
this volume in these ways - focusing on Cycladic, African and Solomon Islands
objects. We have sought to extend the kind of information available about particular
3
objects by inviting specialists from various disciplines (aesthetics; anthropology;
archaeology; and art history) to write about them and about the artists who produced
them, and/ or about the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced.
However, these cases are dealt with in ways which illustrate the processes of coming
to know and understand - the investigative nature of the experts' work; the
speculative approaches to evidence; continuing mysteries left for them and us to
ponder; and sometimes the accumulation ofinformation into more or less dependable
bodies of knowledge.
For other objects we have not gone that far. By recording a small amount of
information about individual examples of European portraiture we have provided
the beginning of some basic questions which arise when face-to-face with objects. We
have left it to readers to bring to these objects, if they wish, the approaches which are
exemplified in the more detailed sections. This is a deliberate approach, intended to
encourage readers independently to construct their own ideas, thoughts, and sources
of information around these objects as a way of developing the attitudes, skills, and
qualities of approach which are illustrated elsewhere. The choice of portraits by
contemporary western artists is also intended to provoke comparison with the kinds
of questions, responses, and information which arise from looking at the other kinds
of objects included in the book.
Beginning from what we know
In providing the information, in both the brief and the more detailed sections, we
have kept in mind the problems of trying to focus attention on some of the questions
from which an understanding of art objects can begin. In particular we want to
acknowledge the problem that in deciding to look at an object, the observer will bring
to it a particular attitude of mind- about themselves as novices or connoisseurs; a set
of perceptions - about the particular works of art or even about art in general; or
preconceptions - for example about subject matter, use of colour, or modes of
representation.
All kinds of social and cultural factors may play a part in the processes of interpretation
and understanding - for example, experience of the natural light in an environment
might affect a response to the representation oflight in a picture; exposure to religious
images might add a particular dimension to the interpretation of symbols; or
capacities to interpret facial or other physical gestures used within the family, or in
whole societies, might affect responses to figurative art.
4
No-one really knows how these cultural factors may influence response, taste,
judgement, or understanding, or even if it is possible to generalise about whether the
influences would be the same among individuals or across groups of people. What
we suggest is that levels of understanding of art achieved by individuals are likely
to be built within their own terms of reference, which will be influenced by their
cultural experience. However, individuals and social groups are no longer self­
contained, and terms of reference are rapidly becoming influenced by considerations
of others' viewpoints - in gender, race, cultural group, etc.
Awareness of the possible implications of cultural, temporal and historical variables
is important. The viewer might begin the process towards understanding with
knowledge about how their culture, personal preferences, skills, age and so forth are
likely to guide their approach, so that expectations about the level of communication
are rooted in their self-awareness about their own experience. Receptiveness to
stimuli from the work of art, a sensitivity towards looking and researching
inquisitively, is essential for approaching the next set of experiences. From then the
inquiry can be a process of exchange between the viewer and the work of art which
enhances the experience of the viewer so that understanding and expertise can grow.
The sequence is:
SELF-AWARENESS;
OPENNESS /RECEPTIVENESS;
RESPONSIVENESS;
FURTHER ENQUIRY;
NEW SELF-AWARENESS.
Directed interests
There may be particular interests brought to the encounter with art. The ways in
which a sculptor approaches work in the Collection might be with an appreciation of
the way other artists have treated form, or have modelled specific materials. A
painter might be interested in the devices used in composing pictures, the creation
of illusions of space on a canvas, the representation of light, or the juxtaposition of
certain colour combinations.
Those approaching from the perspectives and attitudes of other disciplines, such as
art history, anthropology, aesthetics, art criticism, religious studies, materials science,
or conservation will perhaps know and want to know other kinds of things. They will
seek their knowledge using the skills developed within their discipline. An art
historian can be especially interested in tracking patterns of patronage or of stylistic
5
influences, Someone interested in religious studies might be concerned with the
sacredness of objects or the representations of deities and power of symbols,
The more general and broad-ranging approach to developing understanding ­
beginning from what we know - is likely to be adopted by visitors to the Collection,
especially by teachers and young children, Initial contact with the objects will be
affected by previous experiences and personal interests, There will be some
preconceptions about what can be gained from the works of art and some directing
of interests,
The non-expert might not want or need to construct their knowledge in the same way
as experts do, They might want freely to roam around the range of questions we
began to pose in Starting Points, which are extended here, as well as posing their own,
So individual interests and perceptions will direct the viewer in certain ways, But we
want to encourage receptiveness to the range of possible interpretations of the
evidence available from the objects and surrounding information, This kind of
flexible foraging for understanding might be particularly important for people
working with young children, whose categorizations of knowledge can be considered
more fluid, perhaps, than those which pertain in academe, They will however
probably be directed by levels of experience and range of interests, and will need to
be encouraged in their responsiveness and enquiries towards new levels of
appreciation, awareness and understanding,
The style and content we have adopted, though, is self-consciously for adults and
older students rather than directly for a young audience, The material is intended as
a resource which can be used in whatever ways are appropriate by particular readers,
or in the case of teachers, for their particular pupils,
Specialist interests
We have kept an open mind about whether someone encountering the Collection
might prefer to develop an approach based on one or more of the specialist disciplines
which have contributed to the writing of Interpretations, These include:
aesthetics- opening up conversations and reflections about visual appearances and
the making of judgements about art; developing a language which allows oral
and tactile experiences,:
discourse as well as direct
making art - concerned to know about
artists have used materials and solved
6
problems of visual communication, to convey meaning or represent experiences;
art history- knowing about the relationships between works of art (individual works
of one artist, styles and movements); the lives of artists, and the social/ cultural
contexts of art production; and the extent to which aspects of history can be
illuminated by the study of objects;
anthropology-with its interests in peoples and their way of life, customs, beliefs, and
social organization;
criticism - developing an attitude through discourse, judgements across different
works of art, or between different movements, trends, or time spans.
We have tried to maintain openness and flexibility in terms of the particular interests
and approaches adopted, at the same time as including ideas from specialists in
particular disciplines. Some examples of how novices tackled initial encounters with
unfamiliar objects have been woven into the chapters to illustrate the approaches
which we are exploring.
The content of each section has been written from the point of view of the individual
author without restriction to any single one of the specialist interests - i.e. art
production; aesthetic response; art history, etc. It is left to the reader, if they choose,
to think of particular parts of the content of each of the sections in these categories,
or to select information based on any of the questions posed within the chapters.
We believe that by leaving these choices readers will be able to decide for themselves
how best to guide their own interests and growing understanding, as well as that of
particular children who are being guided by parents or teachers. Understanding
different aspects of the art objects themselves can be accompanied by an appreciation
of the different ways of developing knowledge of art, and the specialist perspectives
from which it can be approached.
One set of assumptions that we have adopted is that these developments will be best
served through sensitive uses of curiosity, attention to emerging confidence in
articulating ideas about art, and a capacity to handle intangible dimensions of
knowledge. It is now widely accepted that such an induction into knowledge of the
arts will not occur unaided or untutored (Gardner 1990; Hargreaves 1983; Taylor
1992). Some have argued that the development of understanding is gradually
7
cumulative, likely to be a long-term process, and will need to be based on the
persistent application of learning procedures and self-reflection about both the
subject matter and the learning process. Interpretations is intended to be a resource for
self-tutoring as well as for use in interactive teaching.
Diversity
The number, variety of types, and range of origins of objects in the Sainsbury
Collection is very apparent to the visitor. The question of what to choose to look at
first and where to begin to study is one which often arises. For us as editors, the
question of what to acquaint the reader (or their students or children) with or guide
them towards is the equivalent. How to extend (beyond Starting Points) awareness of
the diversity, at the same time as helping to deepen methods of critical response and
analysis, is the problem we have tackled in the choices of the sections.
The objects chosen for inclusion are intended to extend the appreciation of diversity
of the Collection in terms of types of art, subject matter and materials. We have also
sought to extend our attention to the scope of types of art, peoples and places in ways
which emphasise the idea of entering into realms of diversity in the social, cultural,
environmental and geographical sense.
The objects chosen for each detailed section are representative of very specific types
of art from particular times and places - Cycladic sculptures; Benin bronzes; African
masks; a canoe figurehead and body ornaments from the Solomon Islands; portraits
from contemporary Europe. They offer a basis for comparison and understanding of
the issue of diversity and differences.
As well as noticing difference (or, rather than emphasising difference) we have also
tried to remain conscious of the question of similarity - not of the appearance of the
objects, but of some of the answers to the questions which help us to respond to them
and understand them. This too is self-conscious, for it permits us to start thinking
about themes of subject matter, of uses of art objects, or of belief systems from which
they are manifestations. For example, in considering what objects represent, there are
themes in the use of images to convey the presence of deities; in the portrayal of
known individuals; and in relationships between people and animals, birds and fish
in nature and mythology. In considering how subjects are represented, the use of
stylization is a characteristic principle shared by different art forms.
The search for similarities in artistic purposes, or in principles of design, or concern
8
with subject matter, can be adopted to try to balance what we see as a prevailing
tendency (it is evident in national curriculum documents, and in the way this volume
is organized) to seek out distinctiveness and difference, especially between racial and
cultural groups and periods of time. As well as asking how styles and traditions (and
related social and cultural contexts) change across time and place, we also want to
pose the question of what ways art might provide evidence of common human
purposes, intentions, values, and responses to the world.
The problem of maintaining this attitude of searching for what is similar will be
evident as the following sections are read. In each case the types of objects on which
we focus, their locations of origin, and sources of information about them, are rightly
regarded as distinctive. That distinctiveness is inherent in their appearance, size,
type of materiat subject matter, and so on. It is often in the background information
- that which is not necessarily available to us from viewing the objects themselves ­
that we need to search for evidence of artistic intention and common human purpose.
Cultural visions
The islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, and the figures which were made there
in pre-Classical times, provide an entry to the ancient world in the lands in and
surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean.
Two approaches have been taken to these figures. One written by an art historian sets
out to explore how examples of this art in the Collection can be used for acquiring
basic methods of analysing objects. The other, written by a scientist who became
passionately interested in the region, introduces approaches to understanding their
geographical and cultural contexts, based on information, evidence, and
interpretations provided by experts who have studied other similar objects and their
ongms.
The ancient arts of bronze casting in Benin, and carving among the Yoruba, both in
Nigeria, are introduced as part of a chapter which considers the complexity of the arts
of Africa. These are followed by descriptions of the importance of the masquerade,
and the place of the arts within masquerade activities. Masks and other ceremonial
and domestic objects of the Asante, Dan, Yombe, and Kuba people of Africa, are then
considered through detailed observation and background research of the places,
people, and cultures.
These African objects are from a period about which we know, from historical
9
sources, something of social, cultural and commercial contacts between groups. Like
the Cycladic figures they are considered through approaches to the individual
objects as found within the Collection -i.e. by dose observation of whatis immediately
available to us. The observations are also set within a context of story, myth, social
organization, patronage and the rules of artistic production within the particular
communities from which the objects originate. The interpretive world of the
anthropologist is engaged, as a prelude to the realm of possibilities which exist, for
the reader who wants to take further the study of African art.
Some Solomon Islands objects in the Collection are considered initially for the
impressions which they created for a group of viewers, and the tangible evidence
which they offer. Isolation from their original context (and from other related
objects), their small size, and a sense of unfamiliarity about their purpose, material
production and place of origin, provided the initial stimulus for the approach to
them. (This sense of strangeness will be protected for the time being so that the reader
can approach them in the same way).
The immediate sense impressions and interpretations are added to by providing
information from anthropological sources which can extend and deepen responses
to them and an understanding of them. They indicate something of the social and
artistic diversity within the Solomon Islands. Within the Melanesian Islands of the
Western Pacific and more broadly within Oceania - i.e. incorporating Polynesia and
Micronesia - diversity is a characteristic of the arts. The selection of the Solomons
objects is intended to open the way to further study of the arts of this large, diverse
reg10n.
Portraits
The Sainsbury Collection contains many and varied examples of portraiture, in many
forms, made from a wide range of materials, and from various geographical and
cultural origins. We have selected ten, each made in Europe in the late nineteenth or
twentieth centuries, by known individual artists. The section is intended to provide
a contrast to the other chapters of the book, both in the objects chosen and the way
they are presented to readers.
They have been presented as pairs, in a way which raises some interesting questions
about the particular portrayals, the subjects, and the artists' intentions. Pairing them
in this way is, of course, simply a device for gaining an initial focus of attention and
stimulating discussion. A brief general introduction accompanies the selection, and
10 a minimal amount of information is associated with each pair. Presuming that they
will be broadly familiar with the culture that produced those images, readers are
invited to stand before the portraits in the gallery, to explore these brief beginnings
of interpretations, and to go beyond them by raising their own questions, and seeking
further possible realms of interpretation for themselves.
The immediate encounters with the portraits are intended to extend an invitation to
explore the work, life, ideas, and methods of particular artists responsible for each of
the images, and the social context :in which they were working. Initially, though, it is
the invitation to the immediate encounter which we want to encourage. This should
stimulate the process of reflecting not just upon the object, but also on what it is that
the viewer depends upon within their own ideas and experiences when that process
begins. It will also help potentially to form an appreciation of how that experience
changes through the encounter, from sharing thoughts with others, and by making
comparisons between objects, artists, and the contexts in which art is made. With
these portraits the reader is invited to engage again in the direct experiences and
personal interpretations, and begin the processes of self-awareness; receptiveness;
responsiveness; and further enquiry.
The school curriculum
Because parts of the book are likely to be used by teachers, perhaps by parents of
school children, or by older pupils themselves, the approaches outlined so far were
written with the Art National Curriculum for England in mind. This is compulsory
for pupils in Key Stages One to Three, up to age fourteen. The art curriculum contains
a dual emphasis on the study of art and the making of art. The requirement to make
connections between those two aspects of art education is explicit: pupils' understanding
and enjoyment of art, craft and design should be developed through activities that bring
together requirements from both Investigating and Making and Knowledge and
Understanding, wherever possible. (Department for Education 1995.)
The ways in which connections between the two are to be made, and how the context
of their own work is to be related to others' artwork, remains to be explored through
the ingenuity of teachers, parents, and children.
This is not a straightforward matter. It is an issue for artists themselves, as they work
within the traditions of a particular genre of art, whilst also developing personal and
creative means of expression. It is a complex matter for all artists, but is particularly
complicated for those who are interested in the very varied range of types of art and
11 modes of representation which are now available to us in galleries, museums, and the
media.
We believe that creative and imaginative handling of the possibilities implied by
these requirements will be needed to avoid mimicry. The potential for casual,
unsustained and superficial attention to objects is very apparent. It will be important
to ensure that pupils' work utilizes their contact with art objects as inspiration,
stimulus and resource in ways which are relevant and meaningful to them in the
context of their own lives. It will be important that pupils' experiences surround their
understanding and also extend it in depth.
We have left to teachers and parents the task of deciding how to explore with their
pupils ways to use contact with art and artists for the purposes of making their own
work. That aspect of curriculum practice, we believe, deserves separate attention
from the focus of Interpretations. In this volume we have maintained a focus on the
development of knowledge and understanding of art, artists and artistic traditions
from a variety of cultural contexts, through contact with original works of art.
Key Stage One
Children in key stage one (5- 7 year olds) are expected to be able to identify examples
of art and recognise how colour, shape, line, tone, form, space, texture, and pattern
are used in images and artefacts.
To achieve this, their lessons are to include introductions to the works of art in their
locality, both contemporary work and that from a variety of periods and cultures.
They will be expected to recognise differences and similarities in works of art from
different times and places, be able to describe them and their responses to them, and
explain what they think and feel about them.
Key Stage Two
Key stage two children (7 - 11 year olds) are expected to maintain and deepen their
knowledge of art available to them in the locality by being able to identify the
materials and methods used by artists. How images and objects are created through
the use of the visual elements (line, tone, colour, etc.) for different purposes is
intended to add to the depth of understanding.
Their appreciation of cultural diversity is expected to be broadened through further
12 attention to the work of artists, and children will be expected to recognise ways in
which works of art, craft and design reflect the times and places in which they were
made.
That appreciation is to include the capacity to compare the ideas, methods and
approaches to representation and expression used in different styles and traditions.
Personal responses are to include the expression of opinion and ideas about their own
work and that of others, using their knowledge through an associated, specialist, arts
vocabulary.
Key Stage Three
The development of knowledge and understanding at these key stages, and of the
skills of responding (to benefit the utilization of such knowledge in producing the
pupils' own work) will be built upon in key stage three (11 - 14 year olds). Their
lessons are to include sustained attention to works of art from a range of artistic
traditions from a variety of times and places.
It is expected that students will continue to analyse the distinctive characteristics of
art forms, craft, and design, and be able to relate them to their sociat historical and
cultural contexts. A capacity to identify some of the visual codes and artistic
conventions used in different styles and traditions of art is expected to result from
such study.
They will also be expected to be able to understand changes in styles and traditions,
recognising contributions of particular artists, craftspeople and designers to such
changes.
In the development of responsiveness and evaluative skills students will be expected
to justify their own preferences for and expressions about works of art. In the_making
of their own art they will learn to assess the influence of other art and artists on it.
13 Further reading Department for Education, 1995 Art in the National Curriculum, London, H.M.S.O. Gardner, H. 1990 Art Education and Human Development, Los Angeles, The Getty Center for Education in The Arts. Hargreaves, D. 1983 'The Teaching of Art and the Art of Teaching' in Hammersley,
M. and Hargreaves, A. (Eds) Curriculum Practice, Lewes, Palmer Press.
Sekules, V. and Tickle, L (Eds) 1993 Starting Points: Approaches to Art Objects Selected
from the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, VEA, Norwich, Centre for Applied Research
in Visual Arts Education.
Taylor, R. 1992 Visual Arts in Education, London, Palmer Press.
14 ANATOLIA
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The Cyclades Islands
16 The Culture of The Cyclades Alan Kitchell
Location
also the centres of some of the earliest
known manifestations of the culture that
blossomed throughout the Cyclades in
the early bronze age i.e. in the years 3200
to 2000 BC
Travel guides tell us that the Cyclades
Islands of the central Aegean Sea are the
realm of the footloose back-packing
young ferry travellers, and go on to
enthuse about their beauty-sea and sky
as blue as they are in the brochures; the
sugar-cube villages as white. They are
right, of course, but it is not the attrac­
tion of the islands as holiday resorts that
merits attention here. It is, rather, the
Origins
The islands of the Cyclades are small.
Naxos, the largest, is less than 32 kilo­
metres (20 miles) long. With the excep­
tion of the volcanic islands of Melos and
Thera (Santorini) most are practically
made of marble. Marble provided the
raw material from which were made the
pots and sculpted figures that charac­
terize unmistakably this early Cycladic
culture, and whichColinRenfrew(1991)
very specialculture that developed there
more than five thousand years ago.
It was only in more recent times, about
500 BC that the ancient Greeks gave the
islands the name Kyklades (Cyclades).
They did so because they :imagined them
as being scattered in a circle (kyklos)
around Delos, the holy island and sanc­
tuary of their great god Apollo. Stand­
ing on Delos now, the cyclical distribu­
tion of the islands of Mykonos to the
east, Tenos to the north, Syros to the
considers to be one of the glories of
prehistoric art. The figures in particular
are simple but :intriguing. They range
from nearly life size to miniatures. They
are usually female with arms folded
across the chest below the breasts. The
head is tilted back and flattened. Most
of them appear to be standing on tiptoe.
The only immediately noticeable facial
features are the characteristically elon­
gated nose and, sometimes, ears. Most
of the figures wear nothing, hold no­
thing, and give no clues to us today as to
why they were made or who or what
they may have represented.
west and Paros and Naxos to the south
is striking. None the less, the geogra­
phical centre of the thirty or so islands is
actually nearer Paros, which has be­
come the hub of the extensive present­
day ferry services that link the islands
with each other and with mainland
Greece. Paros and nearby Naxos were
17 Sfanding female idol
Neolithic (late 4th Millennium BC)
Marble h. 13.5 cm
UEA346
18
Life ancient and modern
Products of early cultures, such as these
marble figures, are particularly difficult
to interpret because, being prehistoric,
there is by definition no written record
to help. Systematic archaeological in­
vestigation can unravel some of the
As Lesley Fitton (1989) has argued, the
effort of trying to see the islands as these
early inhabitants saw them in the third
millennium BC is worth making. Geog­
raphy and the natural environment can­
not of themselves explain how or why a
society flourished in past times. How­
ever, they are basic to our experience of
the world in which we live, and in which
mysteries of the dista~.t past. Before such
work began in the Cyclades, investiga­
tions elsewhere had established that at
the beginning of the third millennium
BC, when the neolithic period was draw­
ing to its close, life throughout the is­
lands and lands adjacent to the Aegean
Sea was based on settled farming, fish­
ing and hunting, and the crafts of pot­
tery, weaving and woodwork, the last
by means of stone tools. In less than a
thousand years, before the end of the
millennium, the first civilization to de­
velop in southern Europe saw its flow­
ering in Crete, which lies only 112 kilo­
metres (70 miles) away from the
southernmost islands of the Cyclades.
other peoples lived, because of the ines­
capable effects of the forces of nature,
provision of resources, and potential for
contact.
These are windy islands. It is said that
on Mykos the wind is sufficiently strong
to drive windmills for 300 days in the
year. From spring to autumn a north­
erly wind - the meltini - blows reliably
southwards across the Aegean Sea. It
has even been suggested that without
this wind Greek civilization and culture
might never have arisen, because it
greatly assisted sea travel. The Aegean
area has been described as the cradle of
European civilization.
The development of metallurgy con­
tributed significantly to this rapid
progress towards civilization. The tech­
nology of smelting metal ores and mak­
ing alloys, and the skills of casting and
forging metals, produced better weap­
ons, tools and domestic vessels. The
Bronze Age had arrived and metal tools
facilitated the work of craftsmen, espe­
cially the boat-builders and sculptors of
Crete and the Cyclades. This may ac­
count in part for the superior quality of
the marble figurines produced in this
The islands were effectively stepping
stones linking east and west, north and
south, from the plains of Anatolia (Tur­
key) to those of the Hellenic peninsula,
and from the Danube basin to Crete and
the south Mediterranean coast. In the
Cyclades skills in boat-building, sea­
manship and navigation facilitated mari­
time trade and cultural exchanges
throughout the islands and mainland
period, called Early Cycladic II.
19 shores of the Aegean Sea and the coloni­
Farming and fishing
sation of adjacent islands.
Evidence from archaeological finds of
food residues and tools indicates that
There is no clear evidence that sail was
agriculture and animal husbandry have
used until towards the end of the early
changed little. Islanders are still preoc­
Bronze Age, about 2000 BC The early
cupied with self-sufficiency. The main
Cycladic mariners used longboats em­
crops were, and remain, barley (today,
ployingup to forty voyagers. It has been
on Naxos, a short-strawed variety),
estimated that with a crew of twenty­
olives (which also provided oil fuel for
five, such boats would be capable of
lamps) and grapes. On Thera (Santorini)
voyages of two weeks duration, giving
the fertile volcanic soil is terraced and
a range of about 320 kilometres (200
the stems of the vines are trained into a
miles).
basket-like whor1so that the plant stands
no higher than about 75 centimetres (30
Landscape
inches) when they produce their fruit.
The islands are small and rocky, their
Both are measures to ameliorate the rav­
cliffs often falling sheer to the sea. In fact
ages of the ever present wind.
they are the peaks of a submerged moun­
tain landmass. They are pounded by the
Sheep, goats, pigs and, where the ter­
sea and lashed by storms in winter, and
rain permits, cattle, are raised as they
baked by the sun in summer. The result
were in prehistoric times. It is not cer­
is a harsh, stony landscape supporting
tain that the donkey, much in evidence
aromatic scrub and punctuated with
today, had yet made its appearance in
outcrops of marble. The views are open
the Cyclades during the Bronze Age.
and often dramatic.
Oxen were possibly the draught ani­
mals then.
Probably covered by trees in the Bronze
Age, most of the islands have been de­
The sea yielded tunny, which pass
forested by the combined appetites of
through the waters around the islands
boat-builders and goats. Tamarisks still
seasonally, and octopus, as well as shell­
line the shores and cypresses are planted,
fish. Game was probably hunted too.
their dark green colour and upright habit
Much of the time of the early inhabit­
contrasting with the silver-leaved olive
ants must have been given to the pro­
trees that have been cultivated since the
duction of food and other maintenance
beginning of the third millennium BC
tasks related to it.
20 Buildings
grinding. Pumice, used for fine polish­
Shelter had to be provided against the
storms in winter and the sun in sum­
mer. Stone seems to have been the pre­
ing1 came from Thera (Santorini).
ferred building material but few
settlement sites have been excavated,
especially those of early date. From later
sites there is evidence of buildings with
both rectilinear and curvilinear walls
made of flattish stones bonded with
clay and rendered inside with a mixture
of day and straw. Doors were of wood
and roofs consisted of wooden beams
supporting reeds plastered with day.
Their remains have been interpreted as
The exact sources of metals are not
known but it has been established that
copper came from Kythnos and because
arsenical bronze was widely produced
it is assumed that ores containing
arsenic were available from one of the
volcanic islands, Melos or Thera. Lead
and some silver was mined on Siphnos
but there was no tin and, apparently, no
indicating flat, sloping, pitched and
vaulted forms of roofing. Vaulted roofs
withstand earth tremors best and are
as only a single bead has been found, in
the preferred form today on the vol­
canic islands. Also, houses are still built
In recent times a novice craftswoman
(Oustenoff 1984) has sculpted Cycladic
into the soft volcanic rock, providing
coolness in summer and shelter in
figures from local marble using only
tools of emery and obsidian, and
winter.
polishing with pumice. ANeolithic-type
violin idol 7.5 cm (3 inches) high took
Rocks and minerals
her five hours to make. An EC II-type
canonical figure (see below) 17.5 cm (7
inches) high occupied her for sixty hours.
gold at that time in the Cyclades. Nor
was gold from elsewhere used, it seems,
a tomb on Naxos.
Just as the soil on most islands is not
particularly fertile, so are other natural
resources limited. There is of course
marble in abundance on most islands,
though that from Faros and Naxos is of
especially fine quality. It is now trucked
out daily in huge blocks from quarries
in central Naxos. On Melos there is ob­
sidian which, like flint, can be chipped
to give a sharp and hard edge for use as
Though she acknowledged that a bronze
chisel would have been advantageous,
she is not convinced that they were
necessarily used in the early Bronze Age
except, perhaps, for the few examples of
more complex figures depicted playing
musical instruments. Metal tools would
certainly have saved time but, as she
tools. Naxos has emery which in
Neolithic times was used both for heavy
tools such as hammers or axes and for
remarks, a few hours of time may not
have been a consideration for craftsmen
working in the third millennium BC.
21 Violin Idol
Eastern Medite:ranean, Cycladic Islands (Ios)
Eady Cydadk I (3200-2700 BC)
Mairble h. 25.2 cm
UEA350
22
Settlements
survived into EC HI and then
In the period from 3200 BC, especially as
the products of metal technology began
to displace those of wood, bone and
stone, there was a steady evolution of
forms in architecture, domestic equip­
ment such as lamps, vessels and pestles,
and craft tools, as well as in the art
works themselves. Archaeologists rec­
disappeared.
Excavations
The first systematic excavations in the
Cyclades were made on Antiparos in
1883 and 1884 by an English traveller,
James T. Bent. His findings from about
forty graves constitute the core of the
British Museum's collection. The next
substantial investigation was made five
ognise three phases of this development
of Early Cycladic (EC) culture, viz EC I,
H, and III, in the period from 3200 to
2000/1800 BC Their research reveals
that EC I settlements were established
in sheltered coastal locations and were
unfortified. Later, in EC II, it seems that
invaders threatened these coastal sites
so the population moved to the hilltops,
building houses closer together, and
surrounding them on the lower slopes
with defensive ramparts. Finally, the
EC III settlements were again built on
the coast and were not fortified.
years later by the Greek archaeologist
Christos Tsountas, who opened up
several hundred graves on five other
islands. On Syros he made the first
excavations of a settlement site. It was
he who coined the term Cycladic Civili­
zation and recognised the folded arm
figurines to be "true products of the art
and spirit of the islanders".
The discovery by Arthur Evans in 1900
of the palace at Knossos in Crete
attracted attention away from the
Cycladic sites. Because of two world
wars archaeological activity did not
recommence until the early 1950s. In the
decade that followed there was great
interest and activity, driven largely by
the desires of collectors. They perceived
similarities between these 'primitive'
Cycladic sculptures and the works of
modern artists.
Few settlement sites have been investi­
gated and most of the evidence about
life in the Bronze Age comes from the
contents of graves - including most of
the marble figurines of known prov­
enance. These are often referred to as
idols, and appear to have evolved in
EC I from the so-called violin idols and
seated 'fat lady' figures of the Neolithic
period. The early figures often had very
long necks and did not have the arms
dearly folded across the chest.Not until
the EC II period did the folded arms
figurine become the canonical form that
Because of the consequent increase in
the market value of Cycladic works of
art, particularly marble figurines,
23 cemetery sites undisturbed for four
millennia were ruthlessly pillaged. They
were made useless to archaeologists try­
ing to reconstruct the history of
Cycladic culture and civilization. Also,
because there were insufficient genuine
pieces to meet demand, forgers were
quick to oblige, laying a long false trail
for those with an academic interest in
EC HI at exactly the same time that the
Minoan civilization in nearby Crete
began to dominate the region. This was
not military domination. On an island
265 km (160 miles) long, the people of
Cycladic art.
densely populated and wealthy centres
made Crete economically powerful and
able to trade widely.
Crete established great palace territories
utilizing skills absorbed from adjacent
cultures, including that of the Cyclades.
Peaceful interaction between these
The past thirty years have seen renewed
archaeological activity and scholarly
interest in the islands, and steps have
been taken to prevent further unlawful
interference with their heritage. Unfor­
tunately for visitors a consequence is
that those who are interested cannot
In contrast, the islands of the Cyclades
were geographically unsuited to co­
ordinated development. They were
small, isolated centres of cultural and
trading activities that were no match for
the scale of Crete. Localinitiatives which
were born within the relative isolation
of the islands, and which resulted in
advances in seafaring, metallurgy and
art, were apparently better exploited
elsewhere.
now buy maps that show the locations
of prehistoric sites.
However, during the past decade in
particular the results of archaeological
studies have been the subject of major
exhibitions, symposia and publications.
These have greatly extended our know­
ledge and understanding of the culture
of the Cyclades in the early Bronze Age
and, in particular, of the marble
figurines.
Further reading Fitton, J.L. 1989 Cycladic Art,
London, British Museum Publications. Oustenoff, E. 1984 The manufacture of
Cycladic figurines, in Cycladica, Lon­
don, British Museum Publications.
Demise
It is not always easy to deduce from
archaeological evidence the reasons for
the demise of ancient civilizations and
cultures. In the Cyclades the marble
Renfrew, C. 1991 The Cycladic Spirit,
London, Thames and Hudson.
figurines that manifest the blossoming
of the culture in EC II disappeared in
24 Female idol with folded arms
Eady Cycladic I, precanonical variety
(3000-2800 BC)
h. 9.4 cm
UEA347
25
Carved Figures From The Cyclades Veronica Sekules
Inspiring sight has to continue and to develop in depth
and complexity.
The simple shapes of the Cycladic fig­
ures and vessels, their confident and
assured outlines and the pure white
translucence of the marble, give them
an air of stillness and mystery which
seldom fails to intrigue the spectator.
The sense of curiosity is further aroused
with the knowledge that these images
were made some three to four thousand
years ago, and yet to us they appear so
modern. For children the figures are
appealing because they are so easy to
recognise and perhaps because they can
identify with the carvers who made
shapes not unlike their own first at­
tempts at rendering the human body.
Taste and appreciation
Even the initial exercise of appreciation
is more complex than we might at first
think. The first means of approach to
any object is invariably from the per­
spective of our own time and culture. A
number of people who have become
specialists in the field of Cycladic art
during this century have begun by be­
ing lured by the stark beauty of the
objects. But appreciation of their beauty
is relatively recent. In the early 19th
century, Cycladic figures were thought
crude, grotesque, repulsively ugly1 and
the simple forms of the figures attrib­
uted to the lack of artistic accomplish­
ment of their barbaric makers. Cycladic
art did not really reach the peak of its
recognition until the 1950s and 1960s
since when it has been sought after by
collectors and artists and appreciated
for its aesthetic resonance with modern­
ism. Artists such as Constantin Brancusi,
Hans Arp and Hans Coper were influ­
enced by it. Even if we have no knowl­
edge of these specific artistic connec­
tions, we are so attuned to streamlining,
Many gallery visitors would stop to
wonder and move on. The process of
looking is continuous, time is limited
and the next object beckons. Is it not
enough to know that these white mar­
ble human figures were made in the
Aegean islands of the Cyclades off main~
land Greece, and that the skills to make
them existed as long ago as the Bronze
Age? But if one is to cross the threshold
between appreciating the beauty of these
things and understanding them, then
the process of engagement with them
26 (1972), the relative autonomy of the
to reductionist, modernist design in all
aspects of our lives, that we can readily
Cycladic islands has been emphasised
and the development of culture there
during the 3rd millennium BC has been
seen as independent from the palace
cultures of the mainland and Crete.
relate to Cycladic figures and are pre­
disposed to take them seriously as
sophisticated products of a developed
culture. Because of this empathy with
contemporary taste, many gallery visi­
tors in our time find that Cycladic art
can become a means of forming a bridge
between the present and the far distant
past, a source of wonder, that perhaps
people who lived so long ago were in
spirit not so different from us.
After more than a century of excavation
and scholarship, there are still many
mysteries surrounding the subject of
the art of the Cyclades. Vital informa­
tion has come from the context of exca­
vations, but the important archaeologi­
cal sites are few in number and many
objects have been removed from inad­
equately excavated sites. There are no
documents which might have given us
written records to help with interpreta­
tion. Archaeologists and historians have
thus had to be very resourceful in recon­
structing the original cultural context
for the material, by comparison with
contemporary cultures, by inference and
deduction from the sites themselves and
by careful dassificati on of the excavated
material. But because of the very partial
and damaged nature of the evidence,
many questions remain unanswerable
and each new excavation has the poten­
tial to add substantially to existing
knowledge. This means that despite the
frustrations, the subject is in an exciting
stage of continual development. New
discoveries are being made all the time.
Mysteries and discoveries
Serious study began with the increas­
ingly professional archaeology of the
late 19th century and excavations on the
islands by James Theodore Bent and
Christos Tsountas. Nothing found on
the islands compared with the scale and
magnificence of Heinrich Schliemann's
discoveries in Mycenae and other sites
of the Peloponnese in the 1880s, or with
Arthur Evans's excavations in 1900 of
the palace at Knossos on the island of
Crete, which he identified as the palace
of King Minos. By the turn of the cen­
tury the whole subject of Greek Bronze
Age culture was dominated by these
Mycenean and Minoan civilisations,
which allowed a structure for analysis
and dating to be refined. More light was
thrown on the finds from the Cyclades
through comparisons with these greater
Dating
and better documented centres. Through
the more recent interpretations of ar­
chaeologists, especially Colin Renfrew
One of the first and most important
tasks in making sense of excavated sites
27 and objects is to establish evidence for
tion were uncovered there by the British
dating. Further classification can then
School at Athens under the direction of
assign characteristics of shape, form and
Duncan Mackenzie in 1896-9, the latest
style to periods in time. For the
layer corresponding to the citadel at
Cyclades, there are a number of dating
Mycenae. Renfrew re-examined all the
classification systems in use, the main
documentation from the Phylakopi ex­
one of which ultimately derives from
cavation and derived the name for the
Arthur Evans's dating of Minoan Crete
last early bronze age phase, EC Ht from
and divides the whole period into three:
the Phylakopi I site. (Renfrew 1972)
Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age,
each subdivided into three periods. So
Style
we have Early Cycladic I' or EC I (3200­
The folded arm figures of the Cyclades
2700BC), which corresponds broadly
are found in greatest numbers dating
to Evans' s Early Minoan I; Early
from the middle phase of the Early
Cycladic II' or EC II (2700-2300BC),
Cycladic period, EC II, the Keros Syros
which corresponds to Early Minoan II
culture. They are known as canonical
and Early Cycladic III' or EC HI (2100­
figures as they conform to a convention
1800BC), which corresponds to Early
and yet produce variations from it. Well
Minoan III.
documented excavations become type­
1
1
sites which are used for dating and
The archaeologist Colin Renfrew has
classifying similar material from less
suggested another terminology for
well-documented sources. If they yield
similar periods which derives from
characteristic figures or vessels then
characteristic archaeological sites. The
these too are named after the site and
earliest phase, corresponding to EC I
become type-styles. Thus there is the
took its name from early cemetery finds
Kapsala variety, the Chalandriani vari­
at Pelos on the island of Melos and the
ety, the Koumasa variety, the Spedos
settlement at Grotta on Naxos, so he
variety, the Dokathismata variety, each
nameditGrotta-Pelos. The middle EC II
of which has identifiable characteristics
phase, which represents the mature
which are useful for classifying other
phase during which the characteristic
material whose excavated source is un­
marble figures were made in largest
known, or which might have moved
numbers, was called Keros-Syros after
around the islands to other sites in the
the cemetery site of over 600 graves at
course of its use. The Sainsbury Collec­
Chalandriani on Syros and a site on
tion has examples of nearly all of these
Keros at Dhaskaleio Kavos. Phylakopi
styles, but most of the Spedos variety
on the island of Melos was a key site
which is the most numerous category
because three cities in layered stratifica­
and the most varied.
28 Colin Renfrew has identified character­
istics of the Spedos variety as follows:
in Athens. Over fifty other figures have
since been attributed to this master, in­
cluding a figure in the Sainsbury Collec­
tion (UEA 342). Stylistic attribution and
identification of individual hands is a
very interesting phenomenon. If it is
skilfully and sensitively done, then it
can give structure to a body of material
that is otherwise amorphous. It :is an
essential classificatory tool and all
The figures of the Spedos variety appear
thick and well built in profile, and there is
much sculpting in the round. The head, seen
in profile, is fairly thick, with a vertical
surface at the crown. Seen from the front it
is sometimes lyre-shaped, broadening mark­
edly at the crown. The face has a convex
surface and the chin is rounded. There is
considerable variation in the body, which
may be rather straight, although it is more
fiexed at the knees. The waist is usually
clearly modelled, being narrower at the
thighs, and it generally terminates with an
incised line at the lower edge. It certainly
does not disappear altogether as it does in the
Chalandriani variety. The shoulders are of
varying width, although not as wide as in
the Chalandriani and Dokathismata varie­
ties, and are sometimes rounded. The upper
leg (pelvis to knee) is modelled separately
from the calf (knee to ankle) so that the knees
are shown by this modelling of the legs. The
arms too are generally modelled rather than
simply incised or cut. Incisions are not nu­
merous, and often the pubic triangle is not
marked at all. (Renfrew 1991, 86)
Attribution
Careful analysis of similarity and differ­
ence between figures can enable attri­
bution to workshops. One scholar, Pat
Getz-Preziosi has identified individual
people who work with objects have to
learn how to do it. But style is something
about which there can be much differ­
ence of opinion. There are also disagree­
ments with the principle of identifying
'hands' or 'masters' in that this can give
a particularly personality-based,
implicitly hierarchical view of artistic
creativity which may not actually fit the
evidence, especially over such a lengthy
period as the span of Early Cycladic
civilisation.
It is only specialists who need to engage
with the full debate on these matters,
and they are constantly testing each oth­
ers' theories and examining the evidence
afresh. But the general principles can be
explored by the non-specialist. The skiUs
of stylistic identification and analysis
can be acquired even at quite a rudi­
mentary level. There are no absolute
rights and wrongs and the process of
testing theories among the members of
. a group can be undertaken as an exer­
hands, notably the Goulandris Master,
who she identified from two figures
and a head in the Goulandris Collection
cise in testing analytical facility with
visual material.
29 Change
According to the way in which exca­
vated material has been dated and cat­
egorised1 it has become apparent that
Cycladic marble figures show a general
stylistic development from little fat squat
neolithic period figures 1 via interim
forms like the long-necked 'violin idol'
to the elongated and flattened charac­
to effect an aesthetic revolution? Can
change happen as a result of steady
collective development between groups
of workshops interacting and copying
one another? How is stylistic change
affected by other factors such as eco­
nomics, beliefs, changing patterns of
consumption? Although the details of
stylistic dating needn't concern the gen­
eral viewer, the lessons which can be
learnt from it can1 and the questions
which can be asked as a result of the
process which has taken place can stimu­
late thoughts and discussion about how
development and progress is under­
stood and how certain kinds of history
are written.
teristic canonical figure. The general
development took place over a period
of hundreds of years. One can also look
at the material in another way, not in
terms of gradual development with tran­
sitions between one style and another1
but in terms of change from one form to
another. The distinction between these
two approaches is quite important and
interesting to explore as it concerns how
we interpret the processes of artistic
production1 influence and cultural
change. Schematic figures in violin form
from EC I have been represented as if
they evolved stylistically into the ca­
nonical figure of EC II, but actually they
are quite different. How can the change
and difference be explained? Did artists
copy the forms and gradually refine
them over a period of time1 so that one
form could change into another? Or was
there a sudden change? Did a single
influential master in EC II, someone like
the Goulandris Master, suddenly change
the style to produce the canonical figure
which then established the norm? These
questions can be asked about any
period of art. How do influences work?
Does it require a single creative genius
Access to evidence
One of the great attractions of the study
of Cycladic art1the figures in particular,
is the potential accessibility of the sub­
ject to non-specialists. The objects found
during excavations in the islands of the
Cyclades have given1 and continue to
give, primary evidence about the cul­
ture that produced them. Because infor­
mation from documentary sources is
non-existent, scholars have had to study
the objects and their excavation con­
texts with particular care in order to
help them to understand the culture.
The subject has been well published, so
there are an unusual number of key
texts charting the progress of the study
of the artefacts and lavishly illustrating
them and their geographical and
30 they were discovered and some specu­
lations about their purpose which have
been made in the literature. Of course,
archaeological contexts. It is relatively
easy to understand and to become
really involved in the processes of
interpretation and to engage in critical
debate about the literature as well as
this is necessarily an oversimplification
presented here to give enough back­
ground information to enable objects in
the gallery to be used for teaching.
about the objects. It is also a very good
subject for exploring some of the meth­
ods by which artefacts from the past are
The figures have been identified vari­
classified and interpreted.
ously as: dancers; ancestors; Ushabti
figures which in this case were intended
specifically to satisfy the sexual needs of
the dead; substitute human sacrifice;
Detective work
The real puzzle is how these figures from
the Cyclades can be interpreted. What are
they?Whyweretheymade?Theanswers
toys for the dead; psychopompoi ­
spirits who guide the souls of the dead
are still not known, but many observa­
tions have been made and theories devel­
oped by specialists using their common
sense, taking into account all the data
available to them. But this exercise need
not be the exclusive pro-vince of special­
ists. Many of the theories can be assessed
by the general observer also by using
common sense and careful observation,
establishing a range of possibilities from
into the afterlife; nymphs and heroes in
a state of ecstasy; household deities and
votaries - the larger being deities and
the smaller, votaries.
The figures have been found to a limited
extent in graves. Most numerous in
graves from EC II/Keros Syros phase,
was pottery, obsidian blades and beads
and ornaments. The richest graves con­
tained a range of all types of finds
including jewellery of silver or bronze,
toilet articles and weapons. Marble fig­
visual evidence, from archaeological
sources on the islands themselves and
from better preserved and documented
sites elsewhere. Itis in this kind of exercise
and with the analytical techniques that
follow, that children can become involved
and learn about the processes of classifica­
tion of visual material and how deduc­
tions can be made from it.
ures are not common overall, although
they may occur in large numbers in a
single grave - as many as fourteen have
been recorded. According to Renfrew,
differences in wealth are thus apparent
with marble figures appearing among
the wealthier graves. One of the wealthi­
est graves of all at Spedos contained two
Clues
Summarised below are some of the sali­
ent facts about the manufacture of the
figures and the circumstances in which
marble folded arm figures, one of which
was 57.5 cm (23 inches) high, three
31 The figures are not exclusively female,
though female ones are in the majority.
There are also some musician figures
marble bowls, a marble lamp, a deco­
rated pottery lamp, two pottery jugs
(one decorated), two pottery cups (one
decorated), and two footed pottery jars.
Another, at Dokathismata, contained a
marble figure, a silver diadem, a deco­
and seated female figures carved fully
in the round. Vessels of various forms in
marble and pottery are extremely
numerous.
rated silver pin, two copper brac~lets, a
small sheet silver dish and a pottery jar
(Renfrew 1991, 46). Olaf Huckmann on
There is insufficient evidence to date
the other hand does not associate fig­
ures only with rich graves, but refers to
instances where there is only a single
figure in a grave, or in the EC I period
where'sculpture is replaceable by beach
pebbles'. (Thimme and Getz-Preziosi
about the gender of the deceased in
relation to the type or number of
figures. It appears that there is no
particular correlation. Figures are not
associated with the graves of children.
1977, 43-44)
Some of the figures have traces of paint
on their faces and bodies. (There are two
examples in the Sainsbury Collection,
UEA 347, an EC I figure and UEA 353,
an EC I head.)
Flat slab markers covered the graves.
Earlyonesaresingle,latermultiplegrave
structures of several stories are known.
The deceased was buried in a crouching
position lying on one side, normally on
the right side, with knees drawn up to
the chest. From Phylakopi I, rock cut
tombs are known (Thimme and Getz­
There is disagreement about whether
the figures are meant to stand up or lie
down. Some are clearly made to stand,
such as the figure groups and some of
the Plastiras and Louros figures
(Thimme 1977, 44). Renfrew believes
that the existence of double figures with
Preziosi 1977, 33-36). Figures have also
been found in settlements outside of a
funerary context.
paired in antiquity by means of bored
holes for strings to hold them together.
Some were buried in fragmentary con­
dition. Some were too large to fit in the
the second figure on the shoulders of
the first is a due that they were meant to
represent standing figures. Thimme
infers from the positions of the feet and
legs of the majority of figures, that they
were made to recline and that they were
meant to lie on supports, or with marble
cylinder neck rests (Thimme and Getz­
Preziosi 1977, 45-46). Fitton believes that
grave chamber.
the majority were designed to lie down
Marble figures vary in size. Most are
under 60 cm, but some are almost life­
size. There are dear indications in the
graves that many were broken and re­
32 What are they made of?
How are they made?
Are they complete?
and that their posture evokes funerary
associations (Fitton 1989, 40).
Looking at the figures
The most obvious initial questions about
Cycladic figures, arising from the most
basiccuriosityaboutthem,suchas 'what
are they for?', 'who made them?' 'who
In order to continue to tackle the big
question, reference will need to be made
to the literature (or initially to the sum­
maries here).
do they represent?' open up vast and
daunting areas of inquiry which only a
specialist could address in full success­
fully. But it is possible to develop a
methodology for carefully constructed
enquiry at a pace compatible with
More detailed questions in front of the
objects could be asked with the aim of
sharpening observation skills. Similari­
ties and differences between objects can
be noted in order to glean more infor­
mation about their relationships to each
other. It is by this means that objects can
be sorted into groups, like with like.
One can get some measure of the range
of variations of types. Questions may be
addressed by taking the objects system­
atically one by one and feature by
feature, such as:
different levels of non-specialist
knowledge of the subject.
One means of enquiry which we can
explore is the development of a
technique for asking small questions,
answerable from readily available
sources, while keeping the big
questions always in mind.
Are all the heads the same shape? How may the shapes be described? How many different types of head are there? What features do they have? What features might they originallyhavehad? What happens at the back of the head? How is hair indicated, if at all? If for example the big question is 'Who
do they represent?', a sequence of
simple questions could be asked in the
gallery with the objects aimed at
stimulating basic observation of details,
each answer bringing the viewer a little
closer to being able to tackle anew the
bigger question, such as:
This kind of analysis, if it is done
systematically, enables sorting and
classifying of the data. It could form the
basis for description and is a necessary
What gender are they?
What are they doing?
Are they standing, sitting lying down?
Are they in movement or still?
What sizes are they?
preliminary for a catalogue or for stylis­
tic comparison across different types of
related material.
33 It can be important to trace the indi­
Further reading
vidual observations which have led to
Doumas, C. 1979 Cycladic Art, Ancient
an assumption being made. For exam­
Sculpture and Ceramics of the Aegean from
the N.P. Goulandris Collection, Washing­
ton DC, National Gallery of Art.
ple, in answer to the question, What
1
gender are the figures?', a summary
glance could provide a ready answer
'female', but close observation follow­
Fitton, J.L. 1989 Cycladic Art, London,
British Museum Publications.
ing another question 'Why do you say
that?' 1 or 'What allows you to make that
assumption?' could reveal details such
Renfrew, C. 1972 The Emergence of Civi­
as that almost all the figures have breasts,
lisation, The Cyclades and the Aegean in the
Third Millennium BC, London, Methuen.
but that they vary in prominence, some­
times the figures have a pubic triangle
but not always, occasionally they have a
Renfrew, C. 1991 The Cycladic Spirit,
prominent stomach, so they are likely to
be female but with considerable varia­
Masterpieces from the Nicholas P.
Goulandris Collection, London, Thames
and Huston.
tions. Closer observations may provide
crucial evidence for interpretation
either of meaning or of style or distribu­
tion of styles. In fact the assumption is
Thimme,
and Getz-Preziosi, P. 1977
Art and Culture of the Cyclades in the third
Millennium BC, Karlsruhe, University
of Chicago.
often made, especially by children, that
the figures are male, but it would
depend very much on the age of the
children how far one could go in analys­
ing this aspect of the figures without a
group collapsing in giggles.
Questions may continue until the fig­
ures have been described and analysed
in such a way as to stimulate further
speculations about their appearance and
their interpretation and meaning. If a
group interacts well during these kinds
of questioning exercises with objects,
they can gain a sense of collective
achievement from building up an
increasingly complex understanding of
the objects and
J.
their potential
interpretation.
34 A HancHist of Cydadk Figures in the CoHection UEA
N~
DATE
STYLE
Whole figures
346
Neolithic
late 4th millennium BC
350
EC I Violin
3200-2700 BC
347
EC I (?) variety
3000-2800 BC
341
EC I
3000-2000 BC
340
EC II Spedos variety
2700-2500 BC
339
EC II Early Spedos variety
2700-2500 BC
344
EC II Early Spedos variety
2700-2500 BC
343
EC II Spedos variety
c2500 BC
345
EC II late Spedos variety
2500-2300 BC
358
EC 11-111 Koumasa variety
2400-2000 BC
Part figu1res
348
EC II Spedos variety
2700-2500 BC
349
EC II Spedos variety
2500-2400 BC
668
EC II Dokathismata variety
2500-2300 BC
410
EC II Spedos variety legs
c2500 BC
342
EC II Spedos variety (attrib. Goulandis master) c2500 BC
Head~
355
EC I
3000-2800 BC 353
EC I
2900-2700 BC 354
EC II
2700-2500 BC 35 Head of idol
Eady Cycladic I, p:recanonical variety
(2900-2700 BC)
h. 4.4 cm
UEA353
36
Female idol with folded arms
Eady Cydadic II, Spedos Variety
(2700-2500 BC)
h. 22.0 cm
UEA339
37
Female idol with folded arms
Early Cycladic U, Spedos Variety
(2700-2500 BO
h. 21.6 cm
UEA340
38
Fat or pregnant idol wHh folded arms
Eady Cycladic II, Spedos Variety
(2700-2500 BC)
h, 15.8 cm
UEA344
39
Idol with folded arms
Early Cycladic H~UI, Koumasa Variety
(2400-2000 BC)
h.12.0 cm
UEA358
40
Arts of Africa Will Rea
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
EGYPT
SAHARA
·NIGERIA TANZANIA
ATLANTIC OCEAN
ZIMBABWE INDIAN OCEAN Africa - outline sketchmap
41 Complexity in African art
However, this conception of art does
not necessarily mean that art in Africa is
African art presents the student with a
number of difficult and sometimes con­
purely functional, that it only has some
'use' value. It's use in many different
and diverse contexts need not hide a
tentious questions, and it is well to be
aware of them before proceeding. In
particular, the size and diversity of
Africa precludes loose generalisation
about its art. The variance in ecological
and cultural patterns across the Conti­
nent is extreme, and the art of Africa
varies accordingly.
critical separation of the well made piece
from the badly executed, a distinction
made within most African societies. If
we only see African art in terms of its
function, whether that function is for
ritual, warfare or for cooking a meal,
then we lose sight of the fact that art in
Africa is as much a vehicle for contem­
plation as any art work that we place in
a gallery.
The arts of Africa may include a number
of different objects that would not nec­
essarily be considered as fine art in the
West. In many societies there is no for­
mally defined philosophical concept of
art as it is often defined in the West. A
simple definition of what African art is
could therefore include any object pro­
duced in Africa that has elaboration
The variety of social, religious, political
and economic situations in which art is
found means that an art history of
Africa requires an understanding of the
local conditions of production and use.
But the mastery of the individual
(whether a potter, carver, weaver or
blacksmith) should not be underesti­
mated for its importance within the
artistic and social communities of the
region. There are growing fields of
research that demonstrate that the
African artist is recognised for skill and
creative prowess as an individual.
beyond the merely functional.
The elaboration of utilitarian objects is
as much a part of artistic practice as the
production of particular commissioned
works. An axe or yam-hoe may be as
much the object of artistic intent as the
large carved statue or masquerade mask
In a situation such as this it is difficult to
make distinctions between arts and
crafts. Any consideration of African art
must include the arts of pottery, weav­
ing and embroidery, for some of the
greatest aspects of African creativity are
displayed in the production of these
arts.
Finally, the attempt to understand an
African art history also encounters other,
more practical, problems. Many of the
materials used in the production of art
are friable, and so the time scale of the
material record tends to be rather
recent. Much of what is known about
42 African art derives from the late-nine­
Contact with Europe
teenth and twentieth century. Archaeo­
logical investigations are revealing more
about the time-scale of many African
societies and the study of the artistic
production of these societies is an
important source of information about
now forgotten communities.
It is the traditions from southern
Nigeria that are perhaps the best known
archaic examples of African art, although
the civilisations of Ethiopia, the East
African coast, and great Zimbabwe all
produced objects that enhance our un­
derstanding of the societies from which
they come. However, what is known
about African art mostly derives from
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This is primarily because the material
remains of African art don't generally
date back beyond this time, but also and
importantly this was the time that
Europe encroached on the interior of
Africa.
Origins of African art
The earliest art in Africa is painting.
Long before European Palaeolithic
paintings were discovered, wall paint­
ings from both Southern Africa and the
Saharan region were known about. The
earliest paintings and engravings in the
Sahara date from c.6000 BC. They depict
giant masked figures, hunters and ani­
mals now extinct in the region. Later
less naturalistic works chart the intro­
duction of cattle and chariots pulled by
horses. It is possible that some of these
paintings show the earliest rise of the
The process of colonialisation bought
many societies into direct contact with
Europe for the first time. The art of these
societies was initially regarded in
Europe as mere curiosity, until Picasso
and a group of Parisian artists, as well as
Epstein and Moore in Britain, began to
take the formal dexterity of African art
seriously. The interest of European art­
ists has left a legacy in the way in which
we now view African art. As they were
primarily concerned with sculpted form
itissculptureandespeciallywoodsculp­
ture that is nowadays regarded as the
African art par-excellance. The diver­
sity and richness of these kinds of art
forms, and the customs and cultures
which relate to them, extends well
beyond the empires of southwestern
Nigeria.
Egyptian empires and the trade across
the Sahara, a reminder that Egypt is as
much a part of Africa as it is of the
Mediterranean basin.
Even earlier paintings exist in Southern
Africa. The rock painting tradition of
the San bushman groups is the world's
longest continuous artistic tradition,
dating from the first millennium BC to
the nineteenth century, when San paint­
ings would depict the arrival of the first
European settlers in Southern Africa
alongside the Eland, an animal integral
to San mythology.
43 Wood sculpture
devotees at worship of the deity (as in
Forms of wood sculpture vary consid­
the Shango staff UEA 227), but it is rare
erably, but on the whole there is a gen­
that the sculpture is regarded as the
eral concern with the representation of
deity itself. It may be that the sculpture
the human figure, the animal world and
is imbued with some order of meta­
the world of the deceased. Concern with
physical power, by the addition of vari­
the ancestors lies behind much of the art
ous medicinal or magical substances,
produced in Africa. Different societies
but the actual worship
have different means of demonstrating
figure is rare in African pagan religions
(see note).
respect for the deceased. In formal state
a sculpted
societies, that is, those that have a king
or ruler at the centre of the social organi­
Understandably most of the richest
sation, the ancestral cults tend to be
wood sculptural traditions of Africa are
centred on the individual figure of the
found in the forest belts of West and
king, or the head of families. This is the
Central Africa. Societies such as the Gola,
case in Benin and the Kuba societies of
Dan, Yoruba and Ibo in West Africa,
central Africa, where individual repre­
and the Fang, Kuba and Jokwe in central
sentations of the king may be made.
Africa have rich and
traditions
in carving. High productivity of sculp­
In acephalous societies (that is those
tural works has meant that in these soci­
without defined rulers) the cult of the
eties the work of the individual master
ancestors tends to be more generalised
is identifiable.
and may include the use of masquer­
Recent changes
ades to honour the dead.
Art history, however, is increasingly
Sculpture is not only produced for an­
confined to the work of past masters.
cestral cults. Traditional religious sys­
New conditions of production and
tems of many African societies were,
consumption, new needs and interests
and still are, often based around the
in Africa, have led to a decline in the
very close relationship between humans
patronage of traditional sculpture. In
and deities. Often lesser deities are seen
certain areas new patrons have emerged,
as the intermediaries of a more distant
and it is not uncommon to find Chris­
high god. Representations of individual
tian iconography carved for use :inside
deities are however, quite rare. Rather,
the ever increasing (and increasingly
sculpted form is used as paraphernalia
popular) Christian churches.
in the propitiation of the cult figure.
Old cults have not necessarily died away
(although a great number have). Rather
Often sculpture is of representations of
44 there are spectacular mutations caused
by people's willingness to establish new
forms of religious worship on old prac­
tices. The art of the old cults may be
maintained, often supporting a certain
sense of identity and continuity with
distinctive eyes. It has been suggested that these clay figures were modelled using a subtractive technique, that is taking material away from the core rather than the additive procedure that is more common in clay modelling. This suggests that a wood carving tradition might have existed at the base of the N ok terracotta tradition. the past.
Although patronage may have died out
in one area, it re-emerges in others. For
instance, while there has been a decline
in woodcarving in Nigeria, weaving
maintains an impressive creativity.
Makonde black-wood carving in
Tanzania is so popular that it now
almost defines what African art is, both
to the tourists at airports and to the new
African bourgeoisie. There is an effer­
vescence in contemporary African
artistic production which includes the
woodcarver working in the rain forest,
the urban signboard painter painting
barber shop signs, and the new art­
school graduates that exhibit in the
capital cities of Europe.
Sub~Saharan
Continuities in form have been sug­
gested between the N ok traditions and those of southern Nigeria. The empire of Ife (founded c.1200 AD) developed one of the greatest artistic traditions of the Continent. Ife, the spiritual centre of the Yoruba people, developed as an empire ruled by a divine king known as the Oba. The Oba was the central figure in a cosmological system that even today is the major structuring principle in many Yoruba towns. In Ife the figure of the Oba was celebrated or commemo­
rated by lifelike representations in terracotta or bronze. The Ife sculptures are extremely realistic, if idealised, although like the N ok terracottas the head is in larger proportion to the body than is usual in Western sculpture. Art
The earliest known sculptural traditions
in sub-Saharan Africa emerged c.500 BC
in northern Nigeria, where terracotta
heads were found in tin mines on the Jos
Plateau. Although the distribution of
these heads is both temporally and
spatially disparate the culture that they
represent is known as N ok.
Benin City and Empire He is only one city state in Nigeria that developed a brass casting tradition. Other towns such as Igbo Ukwu in east­
ern Nigeria also cast images in brass. It is perhaps Benin, the most prolific cast­
ing town in Africa, that is best known. Benin city is located in southwestern The Nok sculptures are naturalistic
terracottas, with large heads and
45 Nigeria. It lies in the rainforest belt west
the Oba's palace, from which the Oba
of the Niger river and just north of the
controlled and ran his kingdom. In this
area where that river becomes a delta
he was assisted by an elaborate cadre of
and disgorges into the Atlantic Ocean.
chiefs, of which there were three major
The city is populated now by some
groups: palace chiefs, town chiefs, and
160,000 people, mainly of Edo origin. To
the west they are bordered by the Yoruba
the Uzama, a group of chiefs that headed
the Edo villages that lay outside the city
walls.
groups and to the east by the Igbo and
the Itsekerri.
The palace was the centre of artistic
activity in the state. It was in the palace
Although now a part of a modern and
thriving nation state, Benin city was
that the guild of brass-casters worked,
once the centre of an extensive empire
as the Oba was the main, if not only
that developed from the fourteenth
century. At its height it held an influ­
'legal' patron of the products of the guild.
Castings were produced in the form of
ence over large tracts of what is now
plaques to adorn the walls of the palace,
southern Nigeria. Bounded by walls of
city of Benin
over 130 km. square,
serving as visual reminders of the might
was compared favourably to cities
nowned castings are those of the Benin
Europe by Portuguese travellers, who
first encountered the city in the fifteenth
heads, which were cast to sit on
century. By the seventeenth century
Altars were created for the commemo­
trading contact with the Portuguese had
been established, which resulted in a
ration of the current Oba's ancestors,
collaboration in ivory carving that pro­
lineage.
of
empire. However the most re­
ancestral altars of deceased Obas.
establishing
continuity of the royal
duced exquisite Afro-Portuguese ivory
objects such as saltcellars.
\A/orks of art in brass, wood and ivory
acted as visual reminders to people of
As with Ife, which various myths link
the social and cosmological structure of
with Benin, the head of the Benin em­
the town, or furnished the religious
pire was the Oba, a divine king. It is said
that the empire of Benin was the area
shrines and political ceremonies that
embodied that order. In 1897 the social
that the Oba had control over the life
order of the town was irrevocably dis­
and death of his subjects. The Oba was
believed to have status as a divinity; he
rupted by British intervention in the
affairs of Benin.
was regarded as second to the gods, a
position that was dearly portrayed in
the art of Benin. At the heart of Benin is
46 Head for an Oba
Nigeria: Benin
Brass, iron
Early 16th Century
h. 22.5 cm
UEA232
47
The royal altar head
subject's status as an Oba. It is possible
that this head is the Oba Ozolua and
The institution of the ancestral altar head
is found in most Benin households. It
was (and still is) contingent upon a
chief's sons to set up an altar to their
was made in or about 1505.
A royal sceptre
UEA 231 is one of the finest pieces of
deceased father. Inheritance is only guar­
anteed after the senior son has installed
an altar. The royal family is no different
and representations of the Oba's head
stand on an ancestral shrine created by
ivory carving to have emerged from the
City's guild of ivory and wood carvers,
the Igbesamwan. It is a unique piece from
the hand of an unknown master, and is
therefore difficult to date. It is also un­
clear whether it is a sceptre or the base of
a fly whisk Fly whisks are certainly an
important part of the regalia of all Obas
his successor.
Royal altar heads were cast in brass
using the lost wax process. Only the
Oba was allowed to authorise brass cast­
ing, which would be carried out by the
palace guild of casters, the!guneromwon.
A series of royal altar heads are known
about and a chronology dating from the
fourteenth century has been proposed
for them. UEA232is generally regarded
as an early head, dated by the excellence
of the casting and the serene naturalism
of the face.
of southwestern Nigeria.
guese contact brass was a rare material,
and much of the modelling for the head
may have been done on a clay core
rather than in wax.
The carving depicts an Oba of Benin on
horseback. The horse and rider motif is
commonly found across southern
Nigeria as a depiction of the stranger, a
position that the Oba, as the stranger
king when seen from outside Benin,
would hold. The ownership of horses
was also an important indication of
wealth and status. The Oba is shown
wearing full ceremonial regalia. His
headdress is of coral beads and extends
down his back. The base of the sceptre is
carved as a pair of jaws, probably those
of a python.
That the modelling of the face is natural­
The Yoruba
istic is a particular indicator of the early
date for this head, as later heads became
more schematic. They also tend to dis­
play a great elaboration of regalia. This
one shows only a simple coral bead
headdress and neck ring, symbols of the
Benin is not the only empire known to
have developed in the southwestern
region of Nigeria. The social structure of
The cast is very thin. Before the Portu­
the neighbouring Yoruba people was
also based on hierarchical state systems,
although only one of these, that of Oyo,
48 Royal sceptre
Nigeria:Benin
Ivory
16th~18th Century
h. 38 cm
UEA231
49
deities, which often had dear identities
and mythical stories of origin, as well as
sometimes being allied to certain natu­
approached the same influence and con­
trol as the state of Benin. The empire of
Benin and the states of the Yoruba are
linked in myths of origin, for the people
of Benin claim that their founding Oba
came from the town of Ile-Ife, the reli­
gious centre of the Yoruba.
ral phenomena.
Orisha are rarely depicted in icono­
graphic representation. Rather, carvings
depict aspects of the worship and
devotion by priests, priestesses, and
devotees. The cults of certain of these
Oris ha, such as Shango, god of thunder,
developed into instruments of political
domination, especially under the Oyo.
The basic unit of Yoruba social organi­
zation is the town. Yoruba towns are
nominally headed by an Oba, who is
supported by a number of chiefly
groups. Closely involved in the hierar­
chy of the town at one time were the
The Yoruba are renowned for their
priests of the various Oris ha, the Yoruba
gods. Each town operated as a minor
state with vassal villages. From the six­
teenth century the town of Oyo devel­
oped into a large empire controlling the
entire western Yoruba region, stretch­
woodcarving, with earlier known pieces
deriving from the seventeenth century.
The quantity and quality of carvings
makes it possible to discern a number of
different styles, and the hands of indi­
vidual carvers.
ing into what is now the Republic of
Benin (formerly Dahomey).
In the nineteenth century the old town
of Oyo was decimated by Nupe raiders
from the town of Ilorin, and the Oyo
empire re-centred around the town of
Ibadan. Nowadays there are over
twenty million Yoruba people in
Nigeria, and their political and com­
mercial influence is extensive.
The subjects of the carvings are diverse,
and were not simply created for the
Orisha shrines. An Oba, as well as the
generally wealthy, would commission
carvings for the adornment of their
compounds. The number of different
masquerade cults, which still perform
regularly, all require wood carved
masks.
Yoruba religion, before the influence of
Islam and Christianity, was predomi­
nantly based around the worship of dif­
Wood is not the only Yoruba artistic
medium. Brass casting, bead weaving,
and a multiplicity of textile arts are all
ferent Orisha. A belief in a high god
(Olodumare) was supplemented by the
worship of a pantheon of individual
part of an artistic diversity that still in­
forms everyday life in southwestern
Nigeria.
50 Shango dance wand
(Oshe Shango)
Nigeria: Oyo; Yomba
Wood, beads
19th/eady 20th Century
h, 38 cm
UEA227
51
The cult of Shango
Shere gourd rattle and in the left another
Staffs such as UEA 227, known as Oshe
Oshe. The bilobes on the head are depic­
tions of the edun ara (thunder bolts) that
Shango is said to send to earth: a defin­
Shango, are an important part of the
paraphernalia of the Shango cult priest
or priestess. The cult of Shango, the
Yoruba deity of thunder, is particularly
associated with thetownofOyo. Shango
is said to have been the fourth Alaafin
(Oba) of Oyo, a tempestuous king given
to making magic and trickery. The peo­
ple of Oyo, tiring of their king, cast him
into the wilderness where he commit­
ted suicide, entered the ground, and
was immediately deified as the capri­
cious god of thunder.
ing feature of all Oshe Shango regard­
less of their quality. This extremely fine
piece is carved following a style familiar
to the Ogbomosho area of northwestern
Yorubaland.
Divination
Bowls known as agere ifa are an impor­
tant part of the paraphernalia of Ha
priests (babalawo) of the central and
western Yoruba, a region where palm
nuts are the primary means of consult­
ing Ha. Ifa, the primary divination
oracle of Yoruba religion, is consulted
by the babalawo casting sixteen palm
nuts between right and left hand.
Depending on how many kernels are
left at the end of the cast, either one or
two, a mark is made in dust, which
The devotees of the cult of Shango, one
of the most widespread of Yoruba cults,
are noted for following the energetic
and unpredictable nature of the deity. If
a house is struck by lightening the
Shango priest divines why Shango was
angered by the household and in return
is allowed to carry off property of the
house.
usually covers a carved divination tray
known as an opon ifa.
Dances for the cult reflect two aspects of
This Oshe (UEA 227) depicts the latter
state. The woman devotee is carved in
an aspect of seemingly serene medita­
The process is repeated either four or
eight times. The combination of marks
left on the board is one permutation of
either sixteen (after four casts) or two
hundred and fifty six (after sixteen casts)
possible combinations. Each com­
bination is then related to one of the
verses of the Odu Ifa, the sacred poems
of the oracle, which suggest to the
babalawo the possible sacrifices that his
tion, a kneeling applicant before the
god. In her right hand she holds the
client must make to assuage his or her
problems.
the deity. During dances for Shango the
god is said to enter (mount) the heads of
his devotees, sending them into a
possession trance that is either wild and
uncontrollable or completely serene.
52 Ifa divination cup
Nigeria: Northern Yoruba
Wood
Late 19th/early 20th Century
h. 24 cm
UEA228
53
The Agere as a place of storage for the
palm kernels is integral to the system.
The kernels are stored in the bowl of the
the strengthening sun. As the mist rises
the early morning business of the town
becomes plain: men return from farms
laden with yams or cassava; women
prepare the first cooking fires; and
clouds of dust are seen coming from the
front of compounds as young children
stoop and sweep away the detritus of
Agere, and it is from the bowl that they
are scooped in the process of divination.
The caryatids (support column) of these
bowls depict a wide range of themes
from Yoruba social life. The mother and
child (as in UEA 228) is one that occurs
the night. Everywhere people greet one
another, inquiring after the night's rest
and thanking God that they and their
families woke well.
often, perhaps related to one of the cen­
tral concerns of petitioners of Ha, that
they be given children.
During the wet season this mist hides
The carving of this piece is an illustra­
tion of the extreme individualism that
can characterise Yoruba carvings. The
distortion of the figure may relate to the
fact that the body is thereby visible
underneath the bowl, but it is equally
plausible that this schematic style is the
signature style of an unknown carver.
other, stranger, things. For three days at
the end of July extraordinary figures
can be seen emerging from the forest
and running toward the centre of the
town. Some of these figures are dressed
in long robes, others are wrapped in
layers of green palm leaves and yet
others in the bushy weave of split raffia
palms. They yell and shout and dance,
run and gambol in the town with impu­
nity as nobody will dare to stop their
progression. The beginning of the major
festival of the town is marked by the
emergence of the town's masquerades.
The Masquerade
In southern Nigeria the rains begin in
April and continue to fall until Septem­
ber. In Ekiti, where I lived in a small
town, the middle of the rainy season is
the major festival period in towns
throughout the district. It is the time
when the yams are harvested and there
is a general surplus for people in these
mainly agricultural communities.
What are masquerades? The masquer­
ades described above are unique to a
particular region of Nigeria, yet mas­
querades are found throughout Africa.
Commonly the masquerade is regarded
as being a human figure in masked dis­
The mornings of this period are charac­
terised by a damp and grey mist which
rises from the green of the rainforest,
and is caught in the branches of the
larger trees before being burnt off by
guise and the word is often synony­
mous with the masks worn at festivals.
This is not entirely what a masquerade
54 is. The wood carved mask often regarded
as definitive of African art is but one
1. Where the mask acts as a dramatic
device, disguising the identity of the
performer but not producing any active
or qualitative change in the identity of
the performer.
part of a wider ensemble that is the
masquerade. Masquerades are complex
assemblages of materials, of which the
mask is only one element, and the cos­
tume of a masquerade is itself only one
part of a wider performance that in­
cludes dance, music and theatre.
2. Where the wearing of the mask signi­
fies a transformation of meta-physical
status in the performer. The identity of
the performer is transformed, rather as
in possession trances, and is subsumed
under the identity of the new presence,
that of the masquerade.
The most important element of mas­
querade is some form of disguise, some
element of masking. Masquerades vary
throughout Africa and there is a multi­
plicity of forms, styles and types, which
function for different purposes and
effects. Yet the feature that is common
to all masquerades is the notion that the
performer of the masquerade is unseen,
that the identity of the masquerader is
essentially unknown.
3. Where the mask is itself the object of
metaphysical presence, power or en­
ergy. The thing that is represented by
the mask is the power or spirit that is
actually the object of praise.
In each of these categories is the idea
that in some way the person has
changed. The effects of this change vary
from masquerade type to masquerade
type, largely depending upon the con­
text within which the masquerade is
used. In some instances the effect of the
transformation is not very profound,
the masquerade is used (as masks were
in ancient Greece) only to establish a
dramatic presence. In other instances
the effects of putting a mask on may be
such that the wearer enters into an en­
tirely different personality, there is a
substantive change, often said to be the
spirit entering and possessing the per­
former. In other instances the mask, as a
thing, is what is important and the
Transformation
AH masquerade implies transformation
yet this does not imply that all masquer­
ades have the same effect. There are
different levels of metaphysical changes
in the use of masquerades in Africa and
the notions of transformation involved.
Indeed when talking about masks in
Africa we cannot take it for granted that
what is understood in the West as a
mask is necessarily the same thing that
is understood in Africa, or that the
concept does not vary across Africa.
Generally however the effects that mas­
querades have can be divided into three
groups:
55 identity of the masquerader may not be
generalised spirits that come from
very well disguised. Common to all mas­
heaven. It is therefore common to find
querades though, is the idea that the
masquerades associated with funeral
transformation of the human person
rituals, either at burials or at remem­
creates a powerful presence, although
brance ceremonies. Often the masquer­
the degree of power may vary from
ade represents the deceased's final de­
mask to mask.
parture into the world of the ancestors.
Uses in context
The sense of movement from the living
Given that masquerading has so many
to the dead is often seen as the culmina­
different potential effects it is
tion of a series of life-cycle rituals that
unsurprising to find that masks are used
begin with the transformation of boys
in a variety of different contexts. The
into men in initiation ceremonies (mas­
use of masquerades runs from those
querade is a predominantly male activ­
that are purely for entertainment to those
ity). During these ceremonies, which
used in ritual. Masks may be used to
generally take place away from normal
comment on facets of the local village
town life, boys are exposed to the ap­
life, being a political commentator, or
pearance of masquerades, often to scare
they may accomplish a profound meta­
them and then to serve some didactic
physical meditation on human identity.
purpose.
Generally, however, masks are used in
Women are generally excluded from
contexts that introduce some extra­
wearing masks or even, supposedly,
human dimension into the general
knowing what is in the masqueradeo
running of social life. Appearances of
The exclusion of women lies at the base
masquerades are usually associated with
of much masquerade practice, and it is
contexts in which some form of spirit or
often reported that the myths about
deity is invoked. The range of situations
masquerade start with women owning
within which this might happen is large,
masquerades that are then takenby men.
and varies from social group to social
One aspect of masquerade may be that
group. It is possible, however, to outline
of the control of supposed women's
some general situations in which mas­
powers; witchcraft is taken for granted
querades occur,
in many African societies and masquer­
ades are said to counter
action of
witcheso
Very often masquerades are associated
with an ancestral presence. They are
often said to represent the dead, either
The very nature of masquerades, their
as individual named ancestors or as
disguising nature, means that they are
56 Often masquerades are associated with
the forest, being spirits from heaven (or
the world of the ancestors) that emerge
from the bush. Those that represent ani­
mals have widespread distribution. The
excellent components in secret
societies. There is often an element of
initiation in these societies, and gener­
ally secret societies act as cult associa­
tions. Membership may be open to all
adult men at some level but is often
types of animal represented vary from
society to society, as does the way of
representing them, yet there seems to be
a common concern in African masking
with the elements of the wild, animals
that are found in the bush away from
the towns and villages. Animal repre­
sentations may derive from mythical
stories, where the animal was involved
in the creation of mankind (often more
docile animals - such as antelopes), or
highly proscriptive at the senior level.
Masquerades may be used .in these
societies in several ways: in order to
reinforce the control that the societies
have over those who are not initiated
into their secrets; to make and carry out
judgements; to pass commentary on the
village leaders; to find and expel witches;
and occasionally to provide a disguise
in warfare, which in West Africa was
often carried out by junior society mem­
bers. Often the forms of masks, the types
they may be frightening masks used in
political domination.
of iconography displayed, relate to the
differing types of use.
The other common icon used in mas­
querade is the human face. The real face
is effaced by a representation of a face
on the mask The human face may be
used as a character mask, a dramatic
device to establish an identity, or it may
represent an entirely separate identity,
being more as a spirit in human guise.
The human face is also used to represent
the ancestors, not in any sense of direct
portraiture but rather as a generalised
(extra) human entity. Indeed in certain
Form and representation
Within the same masquerade corpus
there can be a number of different styles,
each of which may have a different
effect.Yet despite differences in carving
styles there are common, and often strik­
ing, continuities in the broad ranges of
subject matter found in African mas­
querades. Although the range of formal
representations in African masks is very
wide, iconography, the subject matter,
may be remarkably coherent. However,
masquerade groups the face is used to
represent mythical figures that lie at the
base of many masquerade groups.
Sometimes the human face may be sur­
although similar iconography is used,
circumstances and purposes of use vary
from society to society. Thus a bush cow
mask might be used for one purpose in
one society, but have an altogether
different meaning in another.
rounded by additional iconographic
carvings reflecting elements of human
society as well as the spirit world.
57 The one thing that all masks share in
common however is that they are hu­
man representations of an unknown
world. Thus all masks are the product of
the human imagination, imagining the
essentially unknowable. This means that
the range and stylistic conventions of
masquerades, within the limits of tech­
nology available, can be extreme. What
is perhaps more of a surprise to the
comparative ethnographer is that so
many common elements exist between
the masquerades of different societies.
Note. Pagan is used here as in the origi­
nal (Latin) sense of being from the coun­
tryside, or from the village.
Further reading
Ezra, K 1992 The Art of Benin: the Perls
collection at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art.
Fagg, W.,Permberton,J. and Holcombe,
B. 1982 Yoruba Sculpture of West Africa,
New York, Knopf.
58
Some African Objects John Heron Dickson
SAHARA
NIGER
CHAD
ATLANTIC OCEAN
0° (Equator)
ZAIRE
7
1. Asante region
2. Benin region
6
3. Dan region
4. Fang region
5. Ibo region
6. Jokwe region
7. Kuba region
8. Yoruba region
West and Central Africa - sketch map
59 An Asante Akua Ba An Asante myth tells of the woman Akua who was barren; a priest advised her to
commission a carver to make her a small wooden doll. She was told to take care of it
in every way as if it were a real baby and carry it on her back tucked into her waist
or body doth. Even though other women mocked her she did these things and
eventually had a beautiful daughter.
So Asante women have followed Akua's example. This Akua Ba (plural Akua mma),
meaning Akua child, is not meant just to be played with. It is principally a fertility aid
or, more particular1y, is designed to help the mother give birth to a beautiful baby girl.
Conversely it is supposed that if the mother during pregnancy looks on a monkey,
on any deformity or even a badly carved figure, she risks bearing a child like it.
Asante women customarily cherish the thought of a baby girl rather than a boy.
Women enjoy status in Asante society and family property passes through the female
line. The mother's head of family would be a maternal uncle or maybe a brother.
Daughters too are of course popular for the help they can give their mother with
younger children at home, particularly when she goes out to market or is with the
boys fetching firewood or carrying water perhaps from miles away.
The dolls are fashioned to display the Asante's traditional idea of beauty - the high
forehead, the long straight nose, the small mouth and the long neck. Since the body
is usually hidden beneath clothing there is no need for the lower half to be depicted
in any detail, but the design of the body, arms and base allows it to be easily held or
to stand on its own. Occasionally Akua Mma are found depicted with full length arms
and legs. Such figures were probably not carried on the person.
Most Akua mma are dressed in tiny beads hanging from the ears and round the neck,
at the ends of the arms and round the top of the base. Some, including this one, have
engraved designs on the back of the head, possibly a device against witchcraft which
was always very much feared lest the baby were harmed; so too the necklet of magical
bits and pieces, and the small scars on the face thought to provide protection against
infantile convulsions.
The wood from which this figure is made is naturally a pale colour. It has been
darkened artificially, probably by being smoked over a fire and then covered in a
patina of soot mixed with palm oil.
60 The tools used to make this figure would have been very simple- little adzes, knives,
spoke shaves, chisels, gouges and awls. Abrasive leaves used to take the place of
sandpaper until the latter became freely available. With the object held between the
toes or knees accidents were prone to happen and the carver might say prayers and
possibly sacrifice a chicken before he began work, to prevent the tools from slipping
and cutting him.
Ritual Doll (Akua Ba, plural Akua Mma)
West Africa, Ghana, Asante
Wood, beads
Late 19th century/early 20th
h. 35.6 cm
UEA226
61 A Dan Gegon Mask The Dan people come from both sides of the Liberian/Ivory Coast border. They live
in independent village communities, each with its own chief and elders; there is
otherwise no hierarchical structure to their society. Masquerades play an important
role in their culture, sometimes for entertainment but often fulfilling a range of social
or educational functions. Some types of masquerade are peculiar to certain areas and
there may be local variations in design of mask and costume. Masks are sometimes
'promoted' to perform another function and new masks are being commissioned all
the while; all of which makes classification hazardous.
This mask is known as Gegon, a word which is difficult to translate precisely but has
a connotation both of male masquer and male awesome being. It becomes easier to
understand when one remembers that in Dan traditional belief all creation, animate
and inanimate, contains du, an invisible force, power or spirit. One type of du is
known as a mask spirit and is waiting in some remote uninhabited region to make
contact with a sympathetic man by means of a dream. This dream is the man's
authority to commission the appropriate mask and to perform the masquerade.
The masquerade, Gegon, is nowadays performed principally for entertainment but in
former times provided instruction in Dan creation myth. Prominent in the myth is the
hornbill, a striking bird which people from many different parts of the world believe
to be imbued with mystical powers. There are many subspecies of hornbill. Most in
West Africa are predominantly black and white and have prominent bills often
surmounted by a strange helmet-like casque. One variety which commonly inhabits
Dan country (ceratogymna elata) is exceptionally big (3ft from head to tail) with a
grotesque noisy flight It likes to live in the tops of the forest trees and is seldom visible
until it comes to feed in the palm groves; palm nuts are its favourite food. The female
is differentiated by light blue skin on the face and a rufous head and crest. The blue
element is repeated in a closely related species with bright cobalt blue skin beneath
the eye and below the beak. Dance and costume in the masquerade may alter with
time but they still display some of this hornbill's attributes.
Dan myth relates how that when the mother of the primordial hornbill died the
hornbiH 'hovered in the aching void, there where today the earth is'. It tried to find
an earthly realm to bury its mother but there was no mud in which to bury her. So it
flew to God for help. In the end it buried mother in the casque of its beak. The hornbill
is credited with having taught the Dan the value of palm nuts, now a staple part of
62 Dance mask, bird fo:rm
West Africa, Liberia and Ivory Coast
Northern Dan peoples
Wood
20th century
h. 35.5 cm
UEA 608
63
their diet. It was to the hornbill that God first showed the raffia palm. He told it to wait
by the palms and fed the bird with palm nuts until he had made it more land to live
in.
The mask which we see in the Sainsbury Collection is a dislocated part of the masking
costume to which it was meant to belong. The long beak is usually fringed with black
monkey skin but the holes by which wooden pegs would have fixed the monkey skin
to the beak are in this case missing. Perhaps the mask was never finished. Gegon wears
rows of cowrie shells above the forehead and a cylindrical headpiece covered with
fur, cloth, plumes and white feathers. He wears a voluminous blue and white cloth
around his torso. A thick raffia (palm leaf) skirt hangs from the hips, which to Dan
eyes signifies power and strength. He carries cow or horse tails in both hands. The
whole costume so transforms him in the dance that he does not impersonate the du,
but is the du.
The mask as we see it bears no obvious relationship to a hornbill; the humanoid
nostrils, the mouth and the concave form between forehead and beak are hardly
consistent. The intended viewers would have seen it otherwise. With its feathery
headdress, the dancers coloured costume, and particularly in the context of the
performance, the initiated would have recognised it as neither wholly man, bird nor
beast, but Gegon.
Gegon is accompanied by singers and musicians. He begins moving hesitantly, losing his
footing and swaying. Then he gently waves the fly whisks with arms outstretched, the
body bent forward to give the impression of a large bird flying. From time to time he
mimes a bird pecking the ground. In some versions of the masquerade he whirls the cows'
tails round at knee level, making people jump out of the way, knocking over pots and
generally causing commotion among women and animals. What the connection of this
is with myth is unclear but it is said to signify that if you interfere with other peoples'
business you may get hurt; perhaps all part of the fun and entertainment.
64 A Dan Ceremonial Spoon Dan society has no hierarchic structure. The people live in separate village communities
but share membership of a secret society (Go) to which all young males are initiated
and which governs social order and customary law.
Each community has its chief. Prestige and status are of the greatest importance, not
only within the community but between neighbouring chiefs. To this end villages
will try to outdo each other in gift exchange, feasts and public displays of affluence.
Not to be able to contribute to standards of excellence, whether agricultural or to do
with carving or music, constitutes a social stigma. In former times such people could
find themselves part of a gift exchange as a slave or, at the worst, the victim of
cannibalism. No village would ever accept a fugitive from another.
Such motivation must have encouraged the care and attention to detail seen in the
carving of Dan masks and other objects especially those designed for ceremonial
purposes. This ceremonial spoon was carved with as much care as any statuette. The
legs are identical, in their round and firm shapes, to those of female figures of that
region and at the same time would have fitted conveniently into the palm of the hand.
The volume of the spoon bowl balances the lower limbs which are anchored to the
ground by the wide base of the feet. The long length of the linking piece between
'head' and limbs creates an elegant balance. The reverse of the bowl, the calves of the
legs and parts of the torso are decorated with incised patterns. These may reflect the
scarified patterns with which the elegant Dan formerly adorned their bodies.
Dan country is well known for its black mud. Carvings would be buried in it to
blacken them and then subsequently made shiny with the sap of a tree (pha), painted
on with chicken feathers.
Ceremonial spoons are called wakemia or wunkirmian meaning spoons associated
with festivals. Only the most eminent women are entitled to own them and then only
after having been judged fit to do so by the spirit (du) which will take up residence
in the spoon and which must first appear to the would-be holder in a dream. She then
assumes the envied title of Wakede meaning 'she who is active at festivals'. This
woman will be in charge of gathering the food for the most important meals, such as
the feast which marks the boys' return from the circumcision camps, or during the
work of slashing and burning the forest to create new areas for agriculture.
65 Ceremonial spoon
West Africa, Liberia and Ivory Coast
The Dan people
Wood
Late 19th/early 20th century
h. 46.5 cm
UEA206
66
Another important feast takes place
when the grand mask of the village
receives the masks of other villages in
the area. The food for these feasts will be
prepared by Wakede' s assistants under
her supervision. The responsibility
remains hers and gives her the right to
parade through the village with the
spoon brandished or angled to display
small coins or rice mixed with meat of
animals from her own herd. She is
accompanied by helpers with plates and
fans and by a band of musicians. The
woman's chief assistant will extol her
liberality and urge her to outdo her
previous efforts. At the dose of the
performance she will receive the thanks
of the chief and other important village
figures.
Other spoons performing the same
function have handles carved as the torso
and legs of a woman or as a beautiful
female head; others with the head of a
cow or a ram; in some cases with twin
bowls. Some people have suggested the
bowls of these spoons are intuitive or
subconscious representations of the
womb and fertility. Giacometti in his
Surrealist period could have been
thinking on these lines when he used a
'wakaemia' as the basis for his sculpture
'Spoon Woman' of 1926/27. The
SainsburyCentre's example would have
Ceremonial §poon
We§t Africa, Libe:rfa and Ivory Coast
The Dan people
Wood
Late 19th/eady 20th century
h. 46.5 cm
UEA206
particularly appealed to his interest in
the incongruous. It has six or seven toes
on each foot. But then -that may be how
the Wakede dreamt it.
A Yombe Nkisi Figure In many parts of Africa figurines are made and empowered to protect against illness
and evils of all sorts, and to act as aggressive agents against enemies. They are loosely
dubbed 'fetishes'. A Yombe version of these is called Nkisi (plural Minkisi). The
figurine would be made Nkisi by a cult priest; it would become the animate presence
of an ancestral spirit, to Yombe eyes every bit as real and alive as a human being. If
cut or damaged, its failure to bleed would be proof of its magic. But its presence and
power would be lost unless the owner used it properly and followed the priest's
directions. It had to be 'fed' with magic medicines, probably a concoction of blood,
wax, rubber, bark, roots, seeds etc.
Amongst the Yombe the secret medicines were kept in bundles of raffia, in calabashes
or other containers and often in a bag attached to the figure. It looks as if such a bag
was once attached to this figure's chest; its traces can be seen in the discoloured patch
with small nail holes at top and bottom.
An Nkisi could both afflict with illness and cure it. Through its presence and power
it could help the owner to live well and long and, in due course, be received with
honour by the deceased. This Nkisi is of high rank. The skull cap is a royal one. It bears
a design of triangles round the border with a quatre foil leaf set in a five point star in
the centre. The armlets are another indication of high rank The crossed leg posture,
with the head resting on the right hand, is a convention signifying the thoughtfulness
and wisdom found amongst chiefs and elders. It may have been the property of a
whole village rather than an individual.
The figure's brown patina is typical of many Yombe figures. The face is treated in a
cubistic manner with three distinct planes and a square chin. The eyes stare,
challenging and confrontational; the black eyeballs set in exaggerated white olives
force a reaction from the viewer. If they are awesome, even repellent, this would be
in the character of Nkisi. The ears have been pierced but the metal rings which would
have hung from them are missing. The right forearm is unnaturally long and the left
arm much shortened to fit the space between shoulder and foot, and yet without
disturbing the naturalistic impact of the whole figure. The legs, crossed as they are,
suggest a conventionalised pose; too uncomfortable to be natural. The hands and feet
are carved with precise attention to detail, as in the thumb nail of the left hand. The
edge of the base is decorated with a raised nail head motif, with a cross inside a little
square at either end. The back is decorated with twelve bosses on either side reflecting
the Yombe custom of body decoration in geometric patterns.
68 Seated figure
Central Africa, The Congo Republic and Zaire
The Yombe people
Wood, porcelain
Late 19th/early 20th century
h. 27.9 cm
UEA915
69
Dance mask
Central Africa, Zaire
Bakuba
Kuba People)
raffia doth, beads, cowries, metal
20th century
h. 35.6 cm
UEA 594
70
A Kuba Mask The Bakuba come from south-central Zaire. They boast a long and distinguished
history. In the 17th century, or perhaps earlier, a number of related tribal groups were
unified under the King of the Bushoong whose dynasty still rules the kingdom. The
kingdom became one of the richest in Africa, not so much by force of arms as by new
practices in agriculture and an expanding economy. The Bakuba learned how to
harvest two or even three crops from one plot of land in the same year. They planted
newly discovered crops from America, including maize, groundnuts, cassava and
even tobacco, from as early as the 17th century. Pipe smoking became a prized form
of relaxation and pipes an art form.
Kuba society was hierarchical with a royal court, provincial chiefs and a wealthy elite.
Power and status were cherished. The king would proclaim special occasions as feast
days to be followed by masquerades when he and his officials would wear the richly
beaded and embroidered costumes to which they were entitled with all the
accoutrements of their office. The King's ceremonial costume was (and still is) the
most flamboyantly endowed of all, a mass of beadwork, cowries and feathers. The
present King's costume weighs 84 kilos when complete. During the long process of
dressing, the King's wives sing propitiatory songs to soothe him. Other comparable
occasions would enable the host to display his domestic treasures such as pots, cups
and pipes. The skill, lavishness and imagination with which these were carved and
decorated were symbols of status. Decoration mostly followed standard patterns
each with its own name but with scope left for the craftsman's individuality in his
choice of shape and form.
The design of the more important masks, particularly the royal masks, also followed
recognised principles having been introduced by a former ruler to tell, through
dance, a particular story or piece of history. They were made from combinations
wood and cloth, the doth originally being made from either raffia or the bark of trees.
They were decorated
coloured beads and cowries.
Cowries were first imported by the Kuba in the 17th century. Their exotic nature
have contributed to
association with kingship and rank They
rarity
subsequently became a currency for trade and exchange. Being relatively
indestructible, in limited supply and easy to carry they were very suited to the
purpose.
71 There are three patterns of Kuba royal mask. The Sainsbury Collection's example
belongs to a type known as Ngady Amwaash and was introduced by a lady of the royal
family called Nkogady. She had been appointed Queen Regent sometime in the 16th
and 17th century when there was no male heir available. On account of her femininity
she was having a difficult time. It was taboo for men to see any evidence of menstrual
discharge. Nkogady took care of this by having the walls of her palace compound
heightened. She was one day greatly embarrassed when she was thought to be
defiling the palace square where the Council was held. Tradition relates that such
experiences moved her to try to enhance the position and dignity of women by
invoking the spiritual presence of the wife of Woot, the mythical founder of the
dynasty, in this form of the dance mask. This lady was said to have been not just wife
but also sister and so a very reputable lady. Even so Nkogadywas constrained to find
a man and ask him, rather than a woman, to dance in imitation of a woman's
footsteps. A sequel to the story is that the Bakuba have had only kings ever since.
The mask (UEA 594) has a wooden face surmounted by a raffia doth head piece
decorated with cowries, and a coif with an open work border. Much of the head piece
covered with another layer of material, mostly blue or a bluey
appears to have
green with red round the beaded top edge. Traces can still be seen where the material
has been cut away from the beads and cowries. This probably explains the good
condition of the remaining fabric and why the coif is rather darker than the material
above. Separately carved wooden ears are sewn on to the head piece. The coif and
upper part of the face are painted with a design of alternating dark and light triangles
known as lakyeeng langeny - the razor.
The same design sometimes occurs on cosmetic and razor boxes. Three brass studs
are fixed to the nasal ridge. The eyes have narrow slits which cannot have been easy
to see through. It was important that no one should see any sign of humanity beneath
the mask. The eyebrows are underlined with three rows of small beads. The three
painted lines descending from each eye are known as tears (yooshdy). A broad band
of strands of small blue and white beads goes from the ridge of the nose over the
mouth and down to the chin. It is bound tight to the face with fibre ties going through
little holes to the inside of the mask A thick plaited cord performs a partly similar
function, but ends in a knotted loop beneath the chin (not always visible when
mounted on display).
Similar arrangements were used in the case of 'blind' masks to guide the dancer.
Anyone wishing to talk to the dancer would pull on the cord to attract his attention.
72 In this case such a thick cord inside the mask must have made it very uncomfortable
to wear.
Most masks of this type have a knotted bunch of plaited fibres at the back of the hood.
In this case it is missing but odds and ends of black and blue material may be
remnants of some such thing. A curious little metal cup may be a bell with a broken
danger. There are cases where bells on African masks have been added to repel evil
spirits, the concept being that evil spirits are powerless to stop a bell from ringing ­
that is unless the clanger falls out. Perhaps that explains why this mask has ended up
where it is.
No mask can properly be described without reference to the clothing which went
with it; the two are part and parcel of the one disguise. The dancer has to ensure that
he is totally covered and cannot be taken for a human. Beneath the headdress he
traditionally wears a pectoral or necklet of beads and cowries from which hang long
strands of ram's hair terminating in a cowrie, interspersed with red parrot feathers.
(African rams have hair much more like a goat's.) A tunic, painted with designs of
triangles inside larger ones, fits tightly round the chest and waist but with long loose
fitting sleeves. The hands are gloved and slippers are worn on the feet. A long
embroidered raffia cloth is wound around the body from waist to ankles. It is held up
by a belt tied with foliage from which hangs a bell. It sounds like a hot and clumsy
costume to dance in, but African dance in some cases involves subtle and rhythmic
little movements of parts of the body rather than great physical activity.
73 ----1
~
Cosmetic box
Central Africa, Zaire
]fakuba (the Kuba people)
Wood
Late 19th/20th century
w. 26.0 cm
UEA530
A Kuba Cosmetic Box The Kuba people from south-central Zaire are renowned for their skill in carving,
weaving and beadwork. Their commemorative carvings of Kuba kings are some of
the most naturalistic in Africa. Skilfully and beautifully decorated objects are
associated with wealth, status and power. A wide range of domestic items are
habitually embellished with careful decoration in traditional designs, particularly
drinking cups, pots and boxes.
Boxes like this were made for storing tukola; sometimes razors. Tukola is the name
commonly used in much of Zaire for a cerise coloured powder obtained by grating
species of camwood (pterocarpi). It is used as a base for cosmetics, as a dye and as a
deterrent to termites, which will soon destroy anything made of wood; the destructive
power of ants is one reason why so few wooden objects of any great age survive in
the forest regions of Africa. The Bakuba used tukola to dye raffia doth, particularly
for funeral costumes. The colour red is associated with death.
It was quite common for tukola boxes to be made in this crescent shape; other shapes
included baskets, huts, boats or any form which appealed to the artist's imagination.
The crescent shape is said to refer to the half moon phase in the lunar cycle,
traditionally the time of greatest fecundity in women. The top is decorated with
cowrie-shaped eyes and a facial image reminiscent of some Kuba masks. Interlace
patterns border the top with similar designs surrounding the sides of the box. The
inside of the top is stained a cherry colour having been used to mix up the tukola
powder.
75 Further reading
Adams, M. 1978 Kuba Embroidered Cloth, in African Arts, Vol xii. Antubam, K. 1963 Ghana's Heritage of Culture, Leipzig, Kohler & Amelang. Bannerman, D.A. 1953 The Birds of West and Equatorial Africa, London, Oliver & Boyd. Carey, M. 1991 Beads and Beadwork of East and Central Africa, Shire Ethnography. Cole, and Ross, D.H. 1977 The Arts of Ghana, Los Angeles, University of California Press. Cornet, J. 1978 A Survey of Zairan Art, North Carolina Museum of Art. Cornet, J. 1982 Art Royal Kuba, Milan, Sipiel. Fagg, W. and List, H. 1963 Nigerian Images, London, Lund Humphries. Fischer, E. 1977 Dan Forest Spirits: Masks in Dan Villages, in African Arts Vol xi, November. Fischer, E. and Himrnelheber, H. 1976 The Art of the Dan, Zurich, Museum Rietburg. Laman, K. 1962 The Kongo (vol III) Studio Ethnographica Upsaliensa Upsala, Sweden. Lehuard, R. 1989 Art Bakongo, Les Centres de Style, Arnouville, Arts d'Afrique Noir. McLeod, M.D. 1981 The Asante, London, British Museum Publications. Neyt, F. 1981. Traditional Arts and History of Zaire, Basle, Societe d'Arts Prirn.itifs. Rattray, RS. 1924 & 1927 Religion and Art in Ashanti, Basel Mission & Oxford University Press. Vansina, J. 1964 Le Royaume Kuba, Tervuren, Musee Royale. Vansina, J. 1978 Children of Woot, University of Wisconsin. Verger-Fevre, M.N. 1993 Art of the Cote d'Ivoire, Geneva, Barbier Mueller Museum. Willett, F. 1971 African Art, London, Thames and Hudson. 76 Do
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77
A Solomon Islands Figure Les Tickle
Getting to know
It was an agreed exercise in coming to
This chapter presents a case-study,
know; one which acknowledged that
beginning from a single object in the
most people seeing the figure (or any
Collection, approaching the object in an
other work of art) would have only their
inquisitive way, and gathering addi­
own ideas and the evidence of the object
tionalinformation to help to understand
to work from in the first instance. It was
it and the context from which it origi­
this kind of experience which the group
nates. The object is a small figure from
the Solomon Islands (UEA 173). The
was having in relation to other pieces in
inquisitive approach to it with which
their children would have when they
the chapter begins (the responses to it,
came to the Gallery or encountered art
interpretations of it, and the search to
elsewhere.
the Collection, and which they expected
understand it) was adopted by a group
of primary school teachers who were
As teachers they knew that an impor­
previously unfamiliar with the object.
tant point to the exercise was about the
nature of teaching and learning. In par­
The teachers worked together in a group.
ticular the relationship between enquiry,
At first they had only the figure in the
instruction, and the handling of infor­
glass case, the knowledge that it origi­
mation and interpretation of evidence
nated in the Solomon Islands, and some
from a range of sources was an impor­
experience of asking the kinds of ques­
tions suggested in Starting Points (Sekules
tant consideration. For the purpose of
and Tickle 1993). They knew that there
with the previously unfamiliar figure
was an entry relating to the figure in the
Sainsbury Collection's draft catalogue, and
they agreed that the first stage should be
tape recorded. Notes were also made, as
that a copy was available for consultation
the group was asked to respond to and
after the speculation session. They also
knew that I had done personal research
interpret the object without documen­
examining the nature of their encounter
tary support or instruction.
on the arts of the Solomon Islands, which
Iwould share with them as a third layer of
Photographic views of the object follow
information after they'd considered the
(the reader might start as the teachers did
catalogue entry.
before reading beyond this introduction).
78 UEA 173 79
UEA 173 were descriptions ofits technicalfeatures,
in the sense of how sections of it were
fixed to other sections; how it might have
been made to be attached to something
else; and how it functioned. These were
associated with questions about what its
function actually was. What it was used
for and the way :in which it might have
been used were sources of recurring specu­
lations.
Some of the ideas which they expressed
are then reported (which the reader could
use to compare her/his ideas with). The
catalogue entry is provided (so that the
reader may add that layer of information
in the same way ifs/he wishes to). Some
further observations of the object are
added, followed by information from
personal research and secondary (docu­
mentary) sources. Possible interpretations
based on that research layer are also of­
fered. Finally, further reading which can
be used to add other interpretations and
information is listed.
The personality characteristics of the fig­
ure, and the feelings which it conveyed
and invoked as a representation of some
form of being, were also a part of the
discussion. Quite what form of being it
might represent was a central question in
this. There were some tentative ideas about
the location from which it came, the kind
of person who might have made it, the
people who inhabit the Solomon Islands,
and the resources available to them for the
production of objects such as this one.
The figure
Standing before the figure the group s
1
responses were characterised partly by
a sense of excited puzzlement - as if
there might be a prize for making the
best sense of the object, or a time-limit
for asking questions and getting dues,
like a quiz game. There was also quiet
contemplation - as if searching for pre­
vious mental schemata from which to
make sense of it, wondering what ques­
tions to ask of the evidence before them.
The questions in Starting Points seemed
to offer some help, but there were also
some assumptions, displayed in the
questions which members of the group
asked, which seemed to be about the
The questions and comments didn't flow
in any kind of order, and speculations
about a technical feature led to ques­
tions about function, and on to the feel­
ings the figure invoked, in a to-and-fro
of ideas. In the sections of audio-tape
transcript which follow I have grouped
these ideas, for the sake of order, ac­
human purposes behind the making of
objects of this kind.
cording to the predominant topics of
conversation which emerged as the
Speculations began to unfold around
matterssuchaswhatthefigureismadeof;
how it was made; and by whom. There
group inspected the figure and thought
out loud. But it will be evident that the
to-and-fro of conversation makes neat
separation impossible.
81 Representation
grinder for food; a figure for the front of
there's another face underneath, look, it's holding another face in its hands, or its paws, or its ... they're hands isn't it a skull? is that a skull? is it a skull? is it a human figure? is it a human face, or apelike? I think it's meant to be human it's either that or it's caring for something, protecting something, is it religious? a great god with a little man underneath? a canoe which glides along the water)
is it friendly looking?
it's not frightening
do you think its protective or is it offering
something? do you know what I mean? it's
got a sort of protecting ...
to me it looks protecting
it doesn't look aggressive does it?
(other ideas included that :it could rep­
Making
resent the head of a chief; that it was
well it's made ofwood and it's inlaid with ...
what would that be? shell? abalone type, is
it abalone?
something like that
it's carved from a solid piece
do they have any trees?
is it in one piece? it must be carved if it's in
one piece
that bit could be separate underneath
(the smoothness) could be its age
its rounded nicely isn't it? unless that is age
it could be (made smooth with) a piece of
blade or knife;
how would they have got the pieces of shell
to stick on? is it inlaid? is it inlaid or stuck
on the surface? I can't see
it looks as if it's stuck on the surface ... oh no,
there's a piece missing there, the piece by the
bottom, yes it is inlaid
which means they must have got a minute
tool to have done that; it's very fine work
isn't it?
Personal characteristics
stylised; and a question about why the
jaw was distorted).
Purpose
(perhaps it's) agood luck charm or to frighten
something away
to ward off evil spirits
it could be some kind of fertility thing,
because of the small piece at the bottom (the
smaller head)
it could be used for a tribal ceremony
not necessarily religious, couldn't it ... it
could have been just warding off evil, or ...
spirits
it doesn't look as though it would ward off..
no it doesn't ... no
(other ideas included that it could be a
religious icon for ceremonial purposes,
a spearhead; a jartop or stopper; a
82 Technical features
... to the back ofthe head? I think that's quite
interesting, do you see what I mean?
the jaw? ... the jawline? that could slot onto
something
somebody said the prow of a boat
unless of course they used string to go
through that bit to tie it onto a staff
a staff, yes
'cause they wouldn't have had nails would
they, perhaps not, so they might have used
some kind of staff to lash it onto, a staff or
some kind of religious ... mmmm
at the back of it, on that vertical piece there
... there are three holes ... do they go right
through? yes, yes they do. I can see right
through it
it's almost like ... made for the purpose of
fixing on to something else, but what?
maybe a boat would have that at the front,
but it doesn't look big enough
it doesn't look big enough to go on the front
of a boat to me
no, no . . . look, it looks as if that's been
snapped off something at the side, you can
see the marks in the wood
its brain seems to be well represented, its
head
yes, it's like it's a separate thing, as if you
can lift it up
is it made in two pieces then?
look at it from the side, you can see a lot from
the side
it could be that the top bit could be made
(separately) because ofthe wood or whatever
it's made from, it'd be terribly hard to ... oh
no, it's not stuck on is it? you can see in
there, you can see where it comes out, it's not
stuck onto it at all
there's kind of a top, a skull cap, from a
distance, from over there it looked as if it was
stuck on but it's not
the one (small figure) at the bottom has got
the same ridge round the head, so its obvi­
ously to do with the way they see the shapes
I don't know what it could go on, a staff, or,
but if it does fix to something, something has
got to go through that way or that way, its
going to fix sideways onto something
the base ofthe chin is at a right angle isn't it?
People
who are the 'they' that you are referring to?
the people in the Solomon Isles, the artist
somebody with clever hands (laughter)
he must have been a bit special, with that
inlay
they might have just done the wooden part
they were quite skilled weren't they?
it could depend on what it was made for, like
if it was a religious piece of work it could be
made by a religious character
Puzzling
The questions: are there many trees in the
Solomon Islands?, and do they have glue?
were also asked. Indeed, the number of
questions asked, and the number of
speculations brought to bear on the
object, in attempts to interpret the vis­
ible evidence and understand it, were
matched by only one or two firm com­
mitments. The conversation was char­
acterised by a real sense of puzzling.
This was mainly based on interpreta­
tions of the information available in the
83 object itself. But it also included a search
protruding slightly when viewed from
the side. Both ears appear to be broken
at the same places. Below them, attached
for possibilities about the purpose of an
object from a place and people unknown
to the group, and the ways in which it is
(or was) used. The speculations seemed
to the head, are concave shapes. At the
base of the shapes, by the jawline, they
terminate with broken wood similar to
the breaks on the ears. Could these be
part of what was an open disc? I suspect
so, and will say why later. But first let
me turn to the second stage of the exer­
cise which was to consider the evidence
of the catalogue entry.
to be guided by some general ideas about
the possible uses of figurative art ob­
jects such as this one within cultural
groups in general. Those possibilities
seemed to be focused on representa­
tions of deities, and the power of talis­
mans to protect people. Different ideas
about how the object might have been
used competed for the label 'correct'.
The entry is reproduced below to pro­
vide the reader with exactly what the
group then had available. The informa­
tion in it was regarded as an extension
to the evidence available in the figure
itself, and as an aid to interpreting and
understanding it. However, that infor­
mation is provided within the conven­
tions of such catalogues - i.e. the need
for abbreviation in order to accommo­
date all objects in a collection; an as­
But speculation about the makers and
users, and theirplaceandlifewerevague
or nonexistent.
Other observations
On dose scrutiny of the figure it is clear
that it is made from wood, especially
from the grain that is detectable where
the ears have been broken. The wood is
burnished, and deep reddish brown.
But in the curve of the arm a thick layer
ofblacklacquer-likematerialisevident.
It looks like a residue from more exten­
sive covering of the figure, since there
are traces of black also around the eyes
and mouth, as weH as patchily across
the surface of the face. There are what
appear to be file marks across the top,
rounded shape of the head. Marks on
the arms suggest either gouging by cut­
ting tools, or damage during use.
sumption of some prior knowledge
which might have brought the reader to
consider the entry; and the use of schol­
arly style and sources for acknowledg­
ing the information and connecting it to
wider references in the community of
scholarship. In short, each entry is part
of an extensive, scholarly catalogue deal­
ing with a large collection of art objects,
intended to provide an abbreviated ac­
count.
The nose septum is pierced. Its lips are
especially thin, and leave the small teeth
84 Catalogue entry Solomon Islands, Roviana Region
Canoe figurehead
19th century
Wood, pearl shell
h. 6 1/2 in (16.5 cm)
Acquired 1967 UEA 173
Canoes in the Pacific region were often decorated and elaborated far beyond the basic
requirements of technical efficiency, for they were great ritual vehicles, used for
important enterprises like ceremonial exchanges, fishing and war expeditions. The
success of any enterprise was dependent upon divine favour, and many of the carvings
on canoes, like this figurehead, referred to tutelary spirits, who protected the occupants
and acted malevolently towards an enemy.
In the Roviana (New Georgia) area the local plank-built canoes were elaborately
decorated with carvings and shell inlay (see Starzecka and Cranstone, 1974: 29, 41).
Close to the waterline, beneath the prow, was attached a figurehead of this type, which
Somerville (1897: 371) stated was "to keep off the kesoko or water fiends which might
otherwise cause the winds and waves to upset the canoe".
These images, known as musumusu or nguzunguzu, usually have prognathous features
and arms which reach forwards, sometimes holding a small head, as here, which may refer
to a headhunting trophy. Waite (1984) has suggested that figureheads with a pointed
head date from the 1880s, while those with a rounded head, as is the case here, may be
earlier. The large-lobed ears are damaged and some shell inlay is missing from the main
face and the eyes of the small head; the nasal septum is pierced and there are three square
holes at the back of the head for attachment to the canoe hull.
Using the catalogue entry
The catalogue entry starts with a coun­
try of origin and particular geographi­
cal location within the country, followed
by a statement of what the figure is and
the century in which it was made. It
later locates the Roviana Region in New
Georgia, and the Solomon Islands in the
Pacific. References to the general place
and worship. The material from which
the figure was made is rather simply
stated, and we are told that it was carved
and the shell inlaid. The focus of its
context narrows to plank-built canoes
of Roviana; to the way in which they
were used; and why. A description of
of canoes in the Pacific region sets a
context for what the figure is, with refer­
ences to decorative and elaborative
the figure in the Sainsbury Collection
coupled with interpretations about other
objects of its type is also provided.
objects associated with ceremonial, war
85 30km
Vella Lavena
go
S
~pare
New Georgia Islands
86 Our group had begun the other way
round. When they read the entry it was
used to look for links with what had
been said while looking at the figure, to
information1 and in doing so raises ad­
ditional questions1 especially about the
context in which the figure would have
originated, such as what are tutelary
spirits? (guardians or protectors); what
is a headhunting trophy and what was
the nature of headhunting?; who were
the canoe occupants?; who were the
enemy?; what was the nature of their
belief in spirits and fiends?; what were
plank-built canoes with elaborate deco­
ration like? It tells us that one theory has
one style of these heads dated in the
1880s, with this one possibly earlier1
raising questions about how common
such figures were/ are; over what
fill in pieces in the speculative puzzle.
The catalogue entry gave approval to 1 or
confirmed, some of the speculations and
observations made by the group. It adds
other observers' information1 interpre­
tations and speculations, and gives the
sources, providing a degree of authori­
tativeness about the interpretations. The
ideas that the figure was carved from
wood and inlaid with shell; fixed to a
boat; glided along; was protective; in­
tended to bring good luck and ward off
evil; connected with ceremony; and
carries a small head - probably human,
were all supported by the catalogue
information.
period of time they were made; whether
different styles evolved over time; or
whether different styles were made by
different artists or by different groups
of carvers in specific localities. It makes
no mention of the origin of the particu­
lar being which the figure represents, or
of the image itself which came to repre­
sent that being.
It did not approve other ideas which had
been proposed in the group1 and nar­
rowed down the possible interpretations
of the figure which the group had en­
gaged with: for example1 that it might be
a spearhead or domestic implement; or a
Roviana
great god with a little man beneath. But it
leaves some questions unanswered and
some puzzling intact, such as how was the
figure carved? how was the shell inlaid?
how and why was the wood so black­
ened? how was it fixed to a canoe? who
made it (was it necessarily a man)? why is
Some of these questions were always
likely to remain speculative or unan­
swered as the group proceeded to the
next layer of information. Adopting a
middle path between the figurehead in
the glass case and the catalogue' s start­
ing point about canoes in the Pacific
the jawline distorted? is it friendly and
region, I will present that layer to the
reader in the form of imagery and infor­
mation about the Roviana Lagoon and
its people in the recent past. The
protective, or frightening?
The catalogue entry also adds other
87 intention is to extend the realm of inter­
pretation of the figurehead by placing it
in a context as I see it - that is, as an
interested guest of the Solomon Islands
people for five years during the late
1960s and early 1970s, who has also
style. The village is shaded by coconut
trees, reaching high into the blue sky,
rustled by gentle, cooling breezes from
the sea. Around the village are banana
and pawpaw trees, and gardens with
sweet potato, cassava, taro, and yams.
made use of documentary sources from
earlier visitors to the Islands.
The gardens are cut as clearings from
jungle which yields fresh water for
drinking and bathing; timber, sago palm,
and vines for house-building; many
kinds of nuts and fruits as food supple­
ments; and timber for canoe-making.
The jungle stretches back and up into
mountainous terrain to the north. Inter­
Imagine a village of a few hundred peo­
ple, with houses built of sago-palm
leaves, set at the edge of the tropical
New Georgia Island and stretching
down to the shores of the Roviana
Lagoon. The villagers are black skinned.
Very black, satin, skin, with handsome
fine-featured faces and tightly curled
dark hair, worn in a rounded bushy
mittently the hot sun is interrupted by
heavy tropical downpours of rain, leav­
ing the air constantly humid and the
ground moist.
A Solomons Village
88 In the other direction the coconut palms
Neighbouring villages in the lagoon, as
reach out over the beach, which is white
well as mission stations and schools, are
from the fragments of bleached dead
easily accessible by canoe, more speed­
coral that form it. The water is shallow,
ily since outboard motors became avail­
and brightly reflects the sunny blue sky.
able. Munda, never more than a few
The view across its tranquil surface is to
hours away, has a harbour for trading
reefs which enclose the lagoon and pro­
vessels, an international airport, trade
tect it from the outer ocean; to other
stores, a large hospital and administra­
islands, some small and uninhabited
tive offices for the churches and
standing aloft the reefs; others large
government. Other villages inland are
enough to support village communi­
accessible by foot.
ties. These smaller islands also make up
the outer edges of the lagoon, providing
The past century
extensive, shallow and usually calm
The people of the village and these is­
fishing grounds, abundant with fish,
lands have been called Melanesians by
shellfish and other food resources. The
Europeans (from the Greek melos- black)
largest neighbouring island is also in
because of their very dark skin colour.
view: Rendova to the south, reaching
The name Melanesia has been given to
high out of the sea.
the general area of the Western Pacific,
including parts of New Guinea, the
A crescent-shaped bay within which
Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New
the lagoon is formed is enclosed on the
Caledonia.
east, north and west by the mountain­
ous, jungle-dad and fertile island, New
Europeans have been in regular contact
Georgia. The island is the largest (ap­
with the people of Roviana since the late
proximately 50 miles [SO kilometres]
nineteenth and early twentieth century.
long and 20 miles [32 kilometres] wide)
(European ships had visited in 1568,
in the New Georgia Group of a dozen or
around 1600, and then between 1767
so main islands and hundreds of tiny
and 1826). Between 1850 and 1900 whal­
minor ones. The group is in the Western
ing ships visited, traders and coconut
Solomons, eight degrees south of the
planters settled, and sugar planters from
equator and about a thousand miles
Queensland and Fiji raided the villages
northeast of the Great Barrier Reef.
to take people both voluntarily and by
Lower lying coastal parts of the Islands
force to their plantations. Christian mis­
have been developed as coconut
sionaries came to teach the gospel, to
plantations. Commercial logging has
establish hospitals and schools, and to
developed in parts where deep-water
take Solomon Islanders overseas for
harbouring is possible.
training.
89 anthropological study, missionary ac­
counts, film-making and photographs.
It is from these that we have a sense of
From 1893 the New Georgia islands were
deemed by the British to be part of the
protectorate of the Solomon Islands,
and the people subject to British laws
the previous context of the canoe prow
figurehead (presuming that the way of
life, the traditional practices, and the
oral accounts of the people provided
accurate reflections).
and rule. In 1941 the Japanese expan­
sion into the Pacific, quickly followed
by American and Allied opposition,
brought dramatic invasion and
counter-invasion to New Georgia
(J.F. Kennedy'sP.T. boat was torpedoed
at Plum Pudding Island near Gizo and
Canoes in daily life
Some basic factors have not changed.
Village life is based on growing vegeta­
bles (cassava, taro, yams and sweet
potato especially); on growing or gath­
ering fruits and nuts (bananas and
coconuts in particular); and on fishing
and gathering shellfish. Canoes are
essential in the village. They are the
main form of communication among a
scattering of islands. Even within one
island it is often easier to go on water
than to walk through tropical, moun­
he was saved from Japanese capture by
villagers who hid him in the bottom of
their canoe).
In the postwar period fundamental
changes to the economy and political
structures occurred. Communications
with more distant places through radio
and air transportation; the commercial
production of coconuts for vegetable
oil; the availability of trade goods such
as outboard motors; increased mission
activities; the exploitation of forest re­
tainous jungle terrain. Canoes are used
for fishing, for visiting relatives .in other
villages, for trade along the coastline
and for entertainment (small lightweight
sources by international companies; and
greater government interest in fishing,
forestry, mining, agriculture, health, and
education, all occurred prior to the
Solomon Islands becoming an inde­
racing canoes are made specially for
children).
pendent republic within the British
The land provides a plentiful supply of
Commonwealth in 1978.
timber and other natural materials for
making them, and for buildings and the
manufacture of other art objects - vines
for baskets and for binding and stitch­
ing building materials; and tita nut for
During this century of change, records
of aspects of the way of life of the
people of New Georgia as it was before
these events, or which in part contin­
ued through them, have been made
making a sticky, putty-like filler and
glue used for waterproofing canoes and
for fixing shell inlay decoration into
through the collection of objects,
90 human, which had only ever resided in
carvings. The sea has a plentiful supply
of cowrie, mother of pearls and nautilus
shell for decorative purposes.
the supernatural world, and those which
were venerated ancestors. Within that
world and that connection with daily
life mana was a central feature.
Tools for building work and making
canoes and carvings are now imported
-steel blades for axes, adzes, and knives;
The nature of mana is difficult to convey.
Its meaning may vary from place to
place, and has been variously interpreted
by anthropologists and linguists. H is
possible to think of it as a force, or as a
state related to quality of action.
saws; and files and sandpaper for
shaping and smoothing. The first iron
tools were traded in the early 1800's by
whalers in exchange for food and turtle
shell. The land and the sea previously
provided the tools and materials of
manufacture - stone and shell for adze
Mana ... carried meanings of efficacy, po­
tency, success, realization, luck (with the
assumption that these entailed both support
or activation by ancestors or gods and proper
human performance and skill) . . . people
could be spoken ofas "having mana-ness "or
"being mana" ... as a verb (it meant) sup­
port, protect, empower ... mana-ize (us) ...
as an invocation in prayer or magic it was
like 'Amen'.
blades and scrapers; wood shafts for
holding the blades and vines for bind­
ing them; sharks teeth for drilling and
fine cutting; sharkskin and the leaf of
the 'sandpaper tree' for smoothing.
Mana
The life of the village in pre-Christian
times was closely connected with the
supernatural, which influenced the nat­
ural world and daily events. Preoccupa­
tions included the worship of ancestors,
a common feature of Melanesian
society throughout the region. In the
Western Solomons, including Choiseul,
the Shortland Islands and the New
Georgia Group, ancestor worship was
closely related to the belief that the head
contains the life-power of a human.
(Keesing 1984 page 140)
Mana derived from the spirits, but could
Belief in a world of spirits and deities
which influence daily human activities
also exist in people and objects, includ­
ing especially the bones of revered an­
cestors. It was a beneficial quality with
which men or objects like canoes, tools,
and weapons could be infused. Mana
was necessary to bring success in activi­
ties such as gardening, and good luck in
events such as fighting. Its presence was
thought to be responsible for good crops,
and for success in war. So to have or to
was also commonplace. Spirits were of
two main kinds, those which were never
be mana, to have objects which had or
were mana was an important quest.
91 In men mana was believed to reside, or
Among Headhunters in 1890, and photo­
graphed canoes and canoe houses in the
villages. What was very evident to visi­
tors were the sacred places close to
Roviana villages, with their heaps of
skulls. These were still in evidence and
still revered places even into the second
half of the twentieth century.
at least be concentrated, in the head. The
skulls of venerated ancestors - those
who themselves had been thought to
have or be mana - were revered. In New
Georgia carved effigies of ancestors were
made, and in some cases their skulls
were over modelled with paste, deco­
rated with shell inlay, and coloured
black.
The scale and ferocity of raids for
headhunting and the capture of slaves,
mounted on neighbouring islands, is
said to have increased greatly between
1880 and 1900. Local chiefs ('big men')
The practice of warfare was based on
the aim of capturing human heads.
Headhunting raids for this purpose were
commonly launched in the Roviana and
Marovo Lagoons of New Georgia, as
well as neighbouring Choiseul and the
Shortland Islands. Expeditions were
mounted in large canoes, known in New
Georgia as tomoko. The raids might cover
a hundred miles, into the islands of Santa
Isabel and Guadalcanal. Mana was an
increased their power and prestige
through the acquisition of wealth by
controlling trade relations with
European traders. Iron tools and weap­
ons, including guns and ammunition,
tobacco, cloth, and other products,
introduced in small numbers by whal­
ers in exchange for food and turtleshell,
were now traded in quantity for dried
coconuts (copra) used for palm oil, tur­
tle shell and beche-de-mer (an edible sea
slug).
important quality invoked for these
expeditions.
European visitors in the second half of
the nineteenth century reported the phe­
nomenon of headhunting in their ships
logs, diaries, and missionary accounts,
though some of that was second-hand
reporting rather than as first-hand wit­
nesses! A visit by a Captain Cheyne to
Simbo Island :in 1844 recorded witness­
ing the return of a raid with ninety-three
heads of men, women and children.
Charles Woodford, who became the first
British administrator of the protector­
ate, recorded his story A Naturalist
Increased wealth brought greater
opportunities to lead large raids, which
in turn, if successful, generated more
mana and prestige. Success was the more
assured because of the new weapons.
Hingava, a chief at Munda, used axe­
heads mounted on long handles as
the perfect weapon for headhunting. In 1894,
jointly with allied chiefs and with help from
traders, he raided Choiseul Island with five­
hundred men in twenty-two canoes and two
92 English-built boats, carrying up to four­
hundred rifles and five-thousand rounds of
ammunition (Bennett 1987).
ing. Skilled canoe makers were highly
respected, and would lead the activi­
ties. The work began by carefully select­
ing species of light, straight-grained
trees, which were felled and the planks
cut in situ in the forest, so that they could
be carried to the shore. Cutting and
shaping the central planks using an adze
was the next stage. The planks were
sewn together with Zaya vine, passed
through holes bored or burned into their
edges. Stem and stern were shaped,
stitched, and joined to the base in simi­
Such places were not safe for Europeans
either. With increased colonial interests
in exploiting natural resources, particu­
larly by acquiring land for coconut
plantations, and to ensure protection of
labour supplies both from within the
Islands and from German and French
colonists in the Pacific region, Woodford
set about to pacify the islanders, largely
by force. At the same time Christian
missions were established, not least in
lar ways, followed by bracing, straight­
ening, and addition of the sides to align
the canoe correctly.
those places which had been subjected
to headhunting, but also among those
responsible for the raiding. Chiefs made
pacts with traders, administrators, and
Construction was a cooperative activ­
ity, with a large number of villagers
missionaries, and sought to join in on
white men's powers. By 1906 when
Hingava died the prestige of the big
men and their powers gained from the
old beliefs and activities were also more
using the loya vines to align the planks.
Caulking was done with the crushed
or less dead.
The outside of the canoe was charred to
harden the timber, and was also made
Pride and prowess in carving continued
to be applied to domestic canoes, and in
a redirection towards the production of
objects for sale. Larger canoes were
produced for peaceful celebration.
black from a mixture of carbon and
putty-nut. Strengthening from the
inside was done by lashing carefully
chosen, shaped pieces of tree root as
thwarts along the gunwales. l'hese also
provided seats for the occupants.
fruit of the tita or putty-nut tree
(Parinarium glaberrium) being forced into
the cracks with a stick and left to dry.
Tomoko
The largest of these fast, light, plank­
built canoes was as long as sixty feet and
carried thirty warriors or more. It was
the pride of the village, and a great deal
of communal effort went into its mak­
93 Tomoko on display in 1969
94
Nguzunguzu
Tomokos were extensively and intricately
were made from stone and from shells,
in varying sizes. Surfaces were smoothed
with sharkskin, or with the leaf of the
'sandpaper tree' (Ficus storkii). Grooves
into which the shell could be inlaid were
cut with small, sharp pieces of shell or
possibly sharks teeth. More recently (i.e.
since European traders arrived in the
firsthalf ofthenineteenthcentury) axes,
metal blades set in a carved adze
handle, tradestore rasps, knives, pieces
of glass and sandpaper have been used
for the various technical operations.
decorated by inlaying shell into the tim­
ber, and by attaching feathers and white
cowrie shells, following the visual lines
of the prow and stern. Woodford
described
the rich decoration of shell inlay and added
ornaments, of which the most complicated is
the ladderlike facing of the prow with its
rows of Ovulum shells. On the top of the
prow are two small images of human figures
looking out fore and aft, and a larger figure­
head near the water line. At the top of the
stern there are two faces looking out to
starboard and port. Thus watch is kept in
every direction. The white arms on each side
of the canoe indicate that heads have been
taken. These appear to be painted after a
successful raid. '(Woodford 1890).
The distinctive inlay was usually made
from nautilus shell, which is easy to cut,
thin (needing a shallow groove) and
providing plenty of flat, pearly areas
from which to cut the pieces. It used to
be cut with a vine, but more recently a
hacksaw blade replaced that. Long
narrow grooves provide alignments of
small pieces of shell. The pieces are each
cut to distinctive decorative, abstract
shapes, which are embedded into the
same kind of crushed, sticky putty nut
as is used for the canoe caulking. The
The making and then the fitting of the
larger figurehead near the water line,
the nguzunguzu, saw the completion of
the canoe:
Low down on the prow above the water line
the head and shoulders of a nguzunguzu is
suspended; it is so placed as to dip in the
water in front of the canoe. The function of
this nguzunguzu is to keep offthe Kesoka, or
water fiends, which might otherwise cause
the winds and waves to overset the canoe, so
that they might fall on and devour its crew.
wood could be blackened by charring
and/ or by mixing carbon with the paste
of the putty nut.
After attaching the figurehead the
canoe was left for several months to
allow the caulking to harden, before
being used in its first raid on another
village. At this stage the role of mana
was crucial. It is thought that the canoe
(Somerville 1897, see Note 1)
The figurehead was cut and shaped with
an adze from a single piece of timber.
Prior to the availability of metal, blades
95 prow figure itself and the canoe in
Further interpretation
general had to be inaugurated by mount­
ing a successful headhunting raid. To
achieve that, perhaps they needed to be
infused with mana first. In any case,
nguzunguzu were believed to be charged
with protective power, to ensure safe
passage for the canoes across the shal­
low reef waters, and through the open
seas. They were believed to protect
against sea sprites too, ensuring success
in the journeys and hence in the chance
of capturing heads and returning to the
villages with them, and more mana.
There are many examples of nguzun­
guzu in museums, collected by visitors
mainly during the period from 1850,
suggesting that tomoko and headhunting
were commonplace. Each figurehead
had :its own distinctive character, within
stylistic conventions. These conventions
included a projecting jawline and nose.
Forward nostrils, pierced septum, and
prominent lips are also characteristic.
Outstretched arms and hands holding
either a small head or bird are usual.
Large-lobed ears often with an inserted
disc, or with a disc space, are also very
common. Shell inlay eyes and decora­
tive markings which follow the carved
lines of the eyebrows, cheeks, and jaw
are distinctive to the figures, as is the
fixing segment behind the head. The
wood is usually blackened.
In recent times (post 1970) a search for
national unity for the Solomon Islands
was accompanied by assertions of
regional identity. The nguzunguzu
image became a symbol of the Western
Solomons.
Canoe houses
One of the problems of interpretation of
the nguzunguzu comes from studying
some of these figures, including the one
in the Sainsbury Collection, and other
objects from New Georgia, in the light
of what is known about their original
social context and other art objects made
in the villages of New Georgia. There
are many descriptions of the figures as
protector spirits. Yet it is difficult to find
myths or legends associated with this
spirit, or reference to its origins (see
Note 2). So let's return to the speculations
The importance of the tomoko as a cen­
tral instrument in the life of the villages
was reflected in the architecture of the
canoe houses in which they were kept
between raids. The timber-framed struc­
tures with steeply pitched roofs, dad
with palm-leaf panels, were the largest
buildings in the villages. A large rectan­
gular doorway, reaching the height of
the side walls, was located in the gable
end of the canoe house. Above the door­
way a slot or slots extended upwards
into the gable itself, allowing the high
prow and stern of the vessel to slide
of the group of teachers about the range
of possible interpretations of the
evidence. In particular they were curious
through.
96 about nguzunguzu as a deity or protector.
Their ideas began to delve into the nature
of the deity as an anthropomorphic figure
- that is, one which resembles human
form, or which results from attributing
characteristics of human form to a deity.
This and other similar figures hold the
possibility ofrepresenting human charac­
teristics. It is likely that, as with some
other nguzunguzu, this one had disc­
shaped ear lobes. (If so and they projected
at right angles to the cheeks as it appears
they would have; and given the weakness
of cross-grain in narrow carving; and
knowing the location of the figure when
attached to the prow, one might not be
surprised that they became damaged).
The stretching of ear lobes and wearing of
plugs in them was a common practice in
Roviana and elsewhere in Melanesia.
Piercing of the septum and wearing of
nose bones or other decorative objects
was also commonplace.
There were some interpretations which
the group seem to have been imposing.
For example, the gesture of the arms
and contents of the hands as one of
making an offering, or perhaps of safe­
guarding a more vulnerable being. The
relative size of the small head which it
holds makes it difficult to see the figure
as human representation - if one pre­
sumes that smaller head to be human.
And that is what has often been as­
sumed - that the head in the hands
Yet some of the features of the figure
counteract these possibilities. The
proportion of arms to head and ears, for
example, are distinctly not human. Full­
figure representations of ancestors from
the same region had more naturalistic
proportions. Might it be that the nguzun­
guzu proportions, and the fact that they
have no body below shoulder level, the
concept of power residing in the head? Or
is it a stylistic option which developed
because of the purpose, location, and use
of a figure which would be vulnerable to
damage on the reefs? Connecting the
hands or smaller figure to the underside
of the chin certainly makes technical sense
for strengthening otherwise vulnerable
limbs. Another possibility is that in its
original conception the canoe hull is the
body of the figure.
represents a trophy from a raid. Or is it
possible that the relative sizes of the two
heads was associated with mana; that
the smaller one was intended to sym­
bolise the vulnerability of an enemy, to
represent a trophy of war physically
dominated by the raiding power?
Given the information which has now
been offered it :is possible to ask: where
in the realm of representation does the
figure lie among the remodelling of
ancestral skulls, the carved represent­
ations of ancestors, and the represent­
ations of a Being which was never
human? This is an interesting question
which might extend those with which
we began as a group, standing before
the figure in the Collection.
97 Canoe prnw figure
(see Bousnoure 1993 p180)
Portrait of a Roviana man
(based on photograph in Waite 1983)
These possibilities return us to the realm
by a group of teachers. Ideas were first
of speculations - more informed by
based on dose observation of the evi­
layers of information, yet continuing to
dence, coupled with aesthetic responses
consider a range of possible interpreta­
about the emotional effects of the char­
tions of the nature, purpose, use and
acter and its stylistic feature, and draw­
design of the figurehead, its physical
ing on previous experience of art objects
characteristics and our responses to
and conjecture about their purposes.
them, and its technical qualities and
Connecting new impressions of an un­
features. Further layers may be gained
from other sources listed below, and
familiar object with personal reactions
this particular figure may be seen as one
piece of evidence of an artistic culture
an image and its purposes, suggests
to it, and with the possible meanings of
how complicated the problem of under­
standing that art object is.
which was distinctive and localised
within Melanesia.
The second layer of information, from
Becoming info:rmed
the catalogue entry, helped to translate
I have tried to show how, initially, the
some of the speculations into a more
evidence which was found in a single
object, the canoe prow figure, stimu­
communal kind of knowledge, with
evidence from other sources confirm­
lated speculations and interpretations
ing some of the first impressions
98 and being confident about personal re­
sponses. These are important principles
in the study of art objects.
expressed by members of the group.
Information from the catalogue also
opened up new questions about the ob­
ject and its origins. The aesthetic re­
sponses i.e. feelings for the image (or
caused by it) and reflection about their
own feelings, as well as appreciation of
human artistry, remained largely per­
Notes
1: Somerville gives the name as Totoishu,
the name used for the figure in the
Marovo Lagoon area of New Georgia.
sonal.
2: Haddon and Hornell 1936, page 107,
cite a report that for the people of
Ranongga the head represents agood spirit
that used to live in the mountains.
A third set of ideas added background
to the immediate experiences of response
and interpretation, in the informative
sense of getting to know something
about the geographical, historical and
social context from which the figure­
head derived. These sources of knowl­
edge extended the experience of com­
ing to understand from persistent atten­
tion to the concrete detail of the object,
and personal responses to it, into the
realm of speculations about the nature
and purposes of artists' work and art
objects in particular communities.
Further reading Allen, A., House, B., O'Brien, C. and Tickle, L. 1974 Images and Islands, Suva, Fiji, UNESCO. Allen, A., Craven, A., House, B.,
Keleirnae, A., O'Brien, C. and Tickle, L.
1978 The Grass Roots Art of The Solomons,
Sydney, Pacific Publications.
Bennett, J.A. 1987 Wealth of The Solomons:
a history ofa Pacific Archipelago 1800-1978,
Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.
The gradual accumulation of different
kinds of experiences and layers of infor­
mation affected a return to nguzunguzu.
Working in that way also affected the
experience of other objects. It shows,
too, the possibilities of extending un­
derstanding through further research.
What became clear is that the whole,
accumulating experience included the
discipline of attending to the detail; the
securing of information; maintaining an
open mind to speculations, living
comfortably with what is not known,
Bousnoure, V. 1993 Visions D'Oceanie,
Paris, Musee Dapper.
Brake, B., McNeish, J. and Simmons, D.
1979 Art of the Pacific, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Cranstone, B.A.L.1961 Melanesia: A Short
Ethnography, London, British Museum.
Czarkowska Starzecka, D. and
Cranstone, B.A.L. 1974 The Solomon Is­
landers, London, British Museum.
99 Gathercole,P.,Kaeppler,A.L.,andNew­
ton, D. 1979 The Art of The Pacific Islands,
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of
Art.
Guppy, H.B. 1887 The Solomon Islands
and Their Natives, London, Swan
Sonnenschein, Lowry and Co.
Haddon, A.C. and Hornell, J. 1975 Ca­
noes ofOceania, Hawaii, Bishop Museum
Press.
Keesing, RM. 1984 'Rethinking Mana'
in Anthropological Research 40, 1, pp137­
156.
Sekules, V. and Tickle, L (Eds) 1993
Starting Points, Norwich, UEA Centre
for Applied Research in Visual Arts
Education.
Somerville, B.T. 1897 Ethnographical
Notes inNew Georgia, Solomon Islands,
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti­
tute, Vol 26 pages 357-412.
Waite, D. 1983 Art of the Solomon Islands
from the collection of the Barbier-Muller
Museum, Geneva, Musee Barbier­
Miiller.
Waite, D. 1987 Artefacts from The Solo­
mon Islands in the Julius Brenchley Collec­
tion, London, British Museum.
Woodford,C.M.1890ANaturalistAmong
the Headhunters, London, Philip and Son.
100 ')
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SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS
Tikopia
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Eastern Solomons
101 Eastern Solomons Body Ornaments Les Tickle
UEA871
102
Impressions
Observation and the inquisitive stance
towards another previously unfamiliar
object (UEA 871) provided the same
group of teachers with evidence of a
large (15 centimetres or so), off-white
disc of thick (about 0.5cm) hard mate­
rial, the surface and edge of which are
smooth. There was immediate recogni­
tion of this as some kind of shell. Mark­
ings on the surface show fine, curvy
striations and brown blotches. The
latter look like staining. The shape and
finish of the disc suggest that it is manu­
factured by a skilled craftworker. The
group was intrigued by the brown
turtleshell overlay design:
what's the black? is the black leather?
the black? it looks like a darker shell
a darker shell? what kind
sea shell ... (laughter from the group)
I think that's a tortoise shell
turtle shell
it looked like leather
yes it did
A search for meaning in terms of what
the design might represent followed the
eventual accurate recognition of the
material, and re-evaluation of its colour
(from black to brown). The large em­
blem-like shape at the bottom, of possi­
bly a stylised bird form with forked tail
and swept back wings, was especially
noticed. A fish shape above the bird was
also picked out quickly. Above the fish
two sloping shapes link the figure to a
rising column of open fretwork,
protruding symmetrically from either
side of a central column, and resem­
bling the tail ends of fish. The final, top
shape is without 'tails' and left solid:
what does it represent?
I think its a bird
what's the zig zag?
a net? a fishing net?
fish bone, fishbone
or nets
well that's the backbone of the fish
is it? could be, could be
isn't the front bit ... it looks like a stick to
me ...
There was a suggestion that this might
also represent a human figure, its
vertical stance suggesting an anthro­
pomorphic figure of body, shoulders,
arms and legs. The neck of the figure is
surmounted by a stylised fish shape in
place of a head and beak, the tail of the
fish at the left. There was a suggestion
that this represents a synthesis of
human and fish:
it's quite like a (human) figure though
I thought that
wouldn't a fish be horizontal, you know, it's
vertical which suggests a human figure
it could be some sort of synthesis couldn't it?
fish and man, you know?
it's like a head at the top isn't it? legs at the
bottom
Plaited fibre is tied in front of the central
column. Woven in and out of the fret­
work in places, it is threaded through
103 the column and the disc above the bird/
fish, rising up behind the disc, and tied
of information. They wanted to know
'can we read now?' The reading of entries
at the top.
for this and a similar object in the Re­
serve Collection .(UEA 745) brought in­
stant reaction:
This fine string is joined at the top to a
long, softer, more openly plaited thong
which is tied together at its ends. The
purpose of the fibre seemed readily
identifiable:
what are those on the front?
maybe they tie it round the backas anecklace
that's the fixing part of it
and this front bit that goes straight down the
front?
yes it is; there are two holes, ahole ... it goes
through does it?
it's a bird, a sea bird, it's caught a fish'
so it is actually a synthesis of two, a fish and
a bird,
frigate bird
gives fishermen prowess, that comes across
doesn't it, because of the strength of the
object
Recognition of the purpose of the object
followed in part from this, and in part
from glancing at catalogue information.
At first it was seen as a good luck charm,
but then:
it's a breast plate, possibly protective, possi­
bly decorative, made from shell
From this evidence the speculations and
interpretations-the excitement of guess­
ing exclaimed by the group - seemed in
part accurate and certainly open minded.
Some referred to the catalogue entry
and began to feed in some information
to the group. Some said it's actually
more fun looking at it and guessing than
when you read the information from
the catalogue. Others agreed: yes, yes, it
is, it (reading) spoils it!' This was not
everyone's experience, though, and
some people were frustrated by the lack
1
104 Photo UEA 745
105
Catalogue entry
Santa Cruz Breast ornament 19th/20th century Clam shell, turtle shell, fibre (UEA 871) cloth (UEA 745) diam 6.5 in (16.5cm) (UEA 871) 6in (15.2 cm) (UEA 745) Acquired 1983 (UEA 871) 1980 (UEA 745) 1. This (UEA 745) distinctive form ofbreast ornament, locally called tema, was worn by
men suspended round the neck on a cord, which in this case is made of twisted cloth (see
Koch, 1971: pls 15-16 for photographs of men in full ceremonial costume).
The pendant is composed of two main parts; a white disc ground from the hinge section
of a large clam shell (Tridacna gigas) and pierced through the centre, to which is fitted
afiligree overlay carved in turtle shell obtained from the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys
imbricata). The turtle shell designs on tema usually show the silhouette of a frigate bird
with angled wings and forked tail, above which are a series of triangular elements,
generally interpreted as fish (see Beasley, 1939, for a variety of designs). As in the
neighbouring Solomon Islands (see nos. UEA 833 and 755), the frigate bird is associated
with fishing prowess, strength and endurance.
2. In this example (UEA 871) ofthe tema breast ornament the head ofthe frigate bird takes
the form of a fish, with seven further double fishlike elements above.
Many tema are localised to the Graciosa Bay area of Nidu Island (also known as Ndende
or Santa Cruz Island), but it is not clear where they were made, since red feathers, canoes
and other valuables circulated throughout the group as part of an extensive exchange
network (see Davenport 1962: 96-7). Both examples illustrated here most probably date
to the first part of the twentieth century, though the clam shell discs may be older, and
make an interesting comparison in technique; the craftsman who carved the turtle shell
on this example having a much more fluent style.
Provenance: Collected in 1983 from Ebol Japusa, Lwepe village, Graciosa Bay, Nidu
Island.
106 Tema in context
The information provided in the cata­
logue on the Santa Cruz breast orna­
ments steers us further (i.e. following
the chapter A Solomon Islands Figure)
into a world where the sea is notably the
main coating of the earth. It is a world of
canoes, trading between islands, crafts­
men, fish, birds, turtles, clamshells, and
ceremonial dress. It is a world at the
eastern extremities of the Solomon
Islands, a place where, on the map and
Islands. Another is the construction of
round houses. A third is the particular
kind of carved wood images which com­
memorated the dead, to which offerings
were made. The making of red feather
money- 10 metre long rolls of fibre and
dove feathers, intricately coated with
the rare, tiny throat feathers of the cardi­
nal honeyeater (Myzomela cardinalis) is
another local feature.
to some degree among the people,
Melanesia merges with Polynesia.
Nearby to the southeast of Graciosa Bay
are the Polynesian Islands of Tikopia,
Anuta, and Fataka. Polynesian Sikaiana
Prior to recent shipping, air transport,
and telecommunications, its people were
known to those of the nearest large
islands of Makira and Malaita as the
'open sea people' (Ivens 1927, 199). The
and Ontong Java are further northwest,
and Rennell and Bellona directly west.
Northeast is Micronesia, including the
Santa Cruz Group is more distant than
any of the neighbouring islands in the
main chain of the archipelago. Some of
those can be seen, one from another,
and they are within relatively easy reach
of each other. But Santa Cruz is known
even today as the eastern outer islands
of the Solomons.
tiny coral island groups of Kiribati,
Tuvalu, and Phoenix. To the south
Melanesia continues through Vanuatu,
towards Fiji. The Santa Cruz people are
Melanesian, though with some
Polynesian characteristics, especially in
the Reef and Duff Islands. The Group
shares common characteristics with
other parts of the Solomons in its physi­
cal, climatic, and wildlife environments,
as well as in some aspects of culture.
It is also a part, however, like others in
the region, which has its own distinc­
tiveness. Perhaps the most notable of
these in the material culture was the use
of weaving in Santa Cruz, a craft which
was not practised in other Solomon
The reasons for local distinctiveness
throughout the Solomons may reason­
ably be surmised. Physical separation
of the islands by the ocean, and, in the
larger islands of parts of an island from
other parts by mountain and jungle,
played a part, though interaction by
canoe was and is important. Some of
that interaction, though, was based on
traditional strength of group (or clan)
identity, and conflict between groups
was also important in social and
107 cultural boundary maintenance. One of
the most telling manifestations of such
local identities is the existence of dis­
tinct languages even within quite small
islands.
That combination of common charac­
teristics and distinctive features of par­
ticular localities, groups of people, and
material products is one which makes
interpretation of the art of the Pacific a
complex task. It also means that consid­
eration of some of the art of the Eastern
Solomons, starting from these Santa
Cruz objects, can demonstrate both the
local and some of the more universal
characteristics of art objects, their pur­
poses, use of iconography, use of re­
sources, means of manufacture, and
links with other objects and social
activities.
Body adornment
The tema of Santa Cruz are a distinctive
kind of body ornament. They are also
part of the extensive use ofbody decora­
tion which characterises the people of
Santa Cruz, their neighbours in Makira
and Malaita, and other Melanesian
groups in the western Pacific and New
Guinea. In these tropical islands cloth­
ing was not needed for defence against
the climate. It was not used day-to-day
for reasons of modesty. Yet dress was
used in very particular styles of body
adornment, through the decorative and
symbolic use of natural materials from
the ocean and forest. Its variety is
summed up by Czarkowska Starzecka
and Cranstone:
'The scantiness of clothing contrast with the
profusion of ornaments, usually more elabo­
rate for men than women. In the hair wood
or bamboo combs were worn, the handles
carved or incised, or decorated with pearl
shell inlay or intricate plaiting of yellow, red
and black plant stems, depending on the
locality. Flowers and scented plants were
worn in the hair or tucked into armlets,
which - like wristlets - were plaited of
coloured plant stems. Wooden plugs, often
carved or inlaid, were worn in the ear lobes,
their size being increased gradually to ex­
tend the lobe, and wooden, shell or bone pins
were worn in the pierced septum.
The most valued ornaments were made of
shell. White cowries strung together were
worn on the forehead and around the legs,
below the knee. Nose ornaments, very popu­
lar in the Solomons, were also made of shell.
In Ontong Java turtleshell nose ornaments
of distinctive shape were worn; in Santa
Cruz the everyday round turtleshell orna­
ments were changed to carved pearl-shell
plates for dancing. Turtle shell was used
frequently for ear ornaments. Ornaments
known as kapkap were worn on the forehead
or on the breast; white shell discs with su­
perimposed smaller discs of turtle shell in­
tricately carved in open work; in Santa Cruz
the turtleshell overlay is not circular but
consists ofstylised representations offrigate
bird, sharkand bonito. Another type of breast
plate is of pearl shell in the form of a crescent
or a stylised frigate bird. Necklaces were
108 made of seeds, shell beads and teeth of dog,
porpoise, cuscus and fruit bat.
ornamentation hanging from its points,
and protrusions projecting forwards
from the face. Around the neck hung the
In the main islands heavy rings of the giant
clam shell, sometimes with a natural orange
tint and decorated with a fringe of beads and
teeth, were worn as pendants and were par­
ticularly precious. The giant clam also pro­
vided material for thick arm rings. Belts
were made of vegetable fibres, sometimes
dyed, and the ceremonial ones were of shell
beads and teeth, sometimes interspersed with
trade beads and seeds. Such belts, like the
necklaces and arm rings, were used in cer­
emonial exchanges or payments as currency.
In fact, the dividing line between currency
and ornaments is a very fine one, for at times
people displayed their wealth by decorating
themselves with shell money - strings of
white, pink and red discs'. (Czarkowska
Starzecka and Cranstone 1974, 35-36)
support for the tema, sometimes together
with necklaces of shell discs, beads or
teeth, drilled and threaded. The tridacna
shell discs worn as breastplates were
sometimes plain and drilled at the
centre to receive the neck chord. More
elaborate ones were overlaid with the
conventional designs of frigate birds
and fish, cut from turtlesheU, and vary­
ing only in their size, thickness, and
craftsmanship.
Adornment in Santa Cruz
As this general summary suggests, tema
were just one kind of object used to
provide elaborate displays of aesthetic
sensitivity, craftsmanship, ceremony,
prowess, prestige, status and wealth
among the men of Santa Cruz. Such
display was greatest around the head.
Combs surmounted with upright dis­
plays of feathers and palm leaf set off
the head and face. In the ears bundles of
intertwined rings of shell and turtleshell
were fixed in the pierced lobes. The
lower part of the nose (septum) carried
a carved fretwork plate of mother-of­
pearl, with strings of bead and shell
Arms were decorated above the elbow
with rings of shell, above which were
worn woven armlets with precise geo­
metric designs. Into these were inserted
lozenge-shaped objects made from
wood, beads and shell, with strings or
tassels hanging from them, or with
pandanus leaf strips, which themselves
were decorated in conventional geomet­
ric shapes and lines. A waistband sup­
ported the woven napanesa, or skirt: its
flat, plain upper section folded between
body and waistband. The lower part of
the skirt was layered, with bands of
decorative weaving interspersed with
layers of tassels or shredded fibre. Wrist­
lets made of palm leaf, fibres, beads and
shell complemented the layering of the
skirt. Around the knees thongs were
tied, to support palmleaf accoutrements
to the back of the legs below the knee.
Anklets of tiny shell discs, threaded like
the necklaces, completed the array.
109 Santa Cmz man in ceremonial dress
(see Koch 1971pages112-113)
110
f'\
0
\
Three sisters
UUki
D Santa Ana "" Santa Catalina Makira (San Cristobal)
Eastern Makira
At the eastern tip of the nearest large
island to the Santa Cruz Group, Makira or
San Cristobal Island, lies the inlet of Star
Harbour and the offshore islands of Santa
Ana and Santa Catalina. The Sainsbury
Collection contains an example of how
localised features based on a common
theme can be found in the art objects of a
region. Consider UEA 755 and 833 in the
ways in which we attended to the Santa
Cruz breast ornaments:
The larger crescent (UEA 755) seen from
beneath the glass shelf displays the outer
coarse surface of the pearl shell. Two
holes drilled at the centre upper edge
have a fine plaited thread running
through them. The two ends of the
thread are tied in a knot, making a loop
long enough to pass over one's head.
The pearly surface of the shell is notice­
ably golden, more so around the wider,
lower curve. Surmounting the surface,
attached by threads at the top of the
inner curve, is a turtle shell figure. It is a
stylised fish, above which is a bird with
forked tail and outstretched wings - or
is it a single bird/fish figure, or a bird
holding a fish in its claws?
UEA 833 is a crescent-shaped figure,
with highly polished, pearly surface,
finished at each tip with a rounded head
and beak. Cut from pearl shell, the sym­
metrical shape and perfect edges dem­
onstrate skilful craftsmanship. The
object is very smaH, with two holes
pierced in the centre of the top edge.
What can we infer from this evidence
alone? We might presume that the ob­
ject was used as jewellery, like a brooch
or badge. We can see from the material
that its maker had access to seashells.
The two halves of the crescent might
represent the breasts /backs of a double
bird figure. What of the holes? For pin­
ning it to something or for tying some
material through? The catalogue entry
for UEA 755 and 883 tells us that these
items originate in the southeast region
of the Solomon Islands and that they
were used as neck pendants.
111 112 Catalogue entry
Crescent-shaped neck pendants of this type were made in the Malaita and San Cristobal
area and were worn by men. Bird imagery occurs on both pendants illustrated here, and
the turtle shell overlay on UEA 755 depicts a frigate bird clutching a fish, probably a
bonito. Both these species feature prominently in local iconography, for the frigate bird
is associated with protective spirits and is often seen at sea above shoals ofbonito, acting
as a guide to fishermen. Special fishing expeditions for bonito were formerly an
important part of male initiation rites (see Fox 1925; Davenport 1981).
Ivens (1927: 393-5) noted that whereas small pendants like UEA 833 were made from
local black-lip pearl shell, large examples like UEA 755 had been made since the late
nineteenth century from gold-lip pearl shell obtained from European traders. (Note 1)
The smaller pendant was formerly in the collection of Harry Beasley and attributed to
Santa Ana or Santa Catalina.
UEA833
113
Bonito
At the beginning of the calm March
weather, when the seas are less rough
than usual, fishermen of the villages of
the eastern Solomons would keep a
sharp lookout for the flashes of silvery­
blue which appear with the arrival of
schools of bonito that feed as the tide
turns.
'The bonito fish has a sacred character, and
to the mind of the people the catching of it
asks for something more than mere ordinary
skill as a fisherman. The first fish caught
every season is sacred, and none but the
priests, those whose duty it is to approach
the ghosts, have the right to eat it.' (Ivens
1927, 130).
Fishing for bonito is an exciting sport
and an important source of food even
now, as well as being a sacred activity in
the past. Then the bonito were thought
to have sacred power from their contact
with the ancestral spirits, and the magi­
cal control of the bonito was thought to
rest with those spirits which could mani­
fest themselves in the form of sharks
and frigate birds - incarnations of men
who during their lifetime had demon­
strated their power by being successful
in catching bonito (Ivens 1927page 137).
These tutelary spirits were part of a
much wider supernatural world, of dei­
ties and sea sprites which had never
been human, as well as culture heroes
who had, and mythical figures who may
or may not have been. It was a world
which included wild, mischievous,
spoiling and deadly spirits as well as
benevolent ones. A world where rela­
tionships with the environment in­
cluded the need for access to the power
of benevolent spirits and control over
wild ones (see Note 3). Skill in catching
bonito was a demonstration of such
means of access and control. Dances,
songs, and incantations to the spirits
contained many references to bonito,
and therewerespecialonesused to help
in catching the fish:
Cast like a hornbill, eat like a hornbill; Cast like a falcon, eat like a falcon; Cast, eat, Lord First-on-to-the-bonito; This is thy hook I am casting, Lord First-on-to-the-bonito, Cast for bonito of the deep. I shall spread my charm over the bonito of the deep this day. They will sing my praises before the fleet this day. They will be as bonito food for me this day. They will be as the midribs of the sago palm for me this day. They will be as shrimps for me this day. I make incantation, the bonito are jumping. Jumping up the stern of our canoe. To my little rod, to the tip of my little rod. I hooked up my trailing rod. Give me a bite, mouths of bonito. (Ivens 1927, 330-1 see Notes 4 and 5)
114 Initiation
The power to catch the fish was given to
young boys when they caught their first
one during initiation into adulthood. At
about the age of twelve the sons of chiefs
and of wealthy families were segregated
from the women, even their own moth­
ers, to live in the canoe house. This was
the place where ancestral remains were
kept, and where rites aimed at securing
the favour of ancestral spirits were also
centred. The initiation lasted several
years, and included preparation for
catching their first bonito, which would
symbolise their entry into adulthood.
During seclusion they were dressed with
ornaments made of shell beads, in pat­
terns of red, white and black, tied round
goodly sight to look on, his clear brown skin
adorned with the old time ornaments, his
face set and his whole manner serious - he
was to catch his first bonito and to be made
a man. Sea birds wheeled overhead, the black
kaule, man of war hawk, the king of them all,
gulls, terns, kittiwakes, boobies (brown gan­
net) all added to the excitement with their
shrill cries. The big bonito fish leapt high out
of the water as they fed, churning the sea up
all around till it fairly boiled. (Ivens 1927,
134 see Note 2)
Re-entry into the community as an ad ult
was celebrated with a lavish feast, dur­
ing which the boys stood on a platform,
itself sometimes shaped like, or deco­
rated with the form of, the bonito. Such
times of celebration were occasions for
full ceremonial dress, in which the cres­
cent shaped neck pendant had a central
place.
wrists, ankles and waists. A string of
white cowrie shells was worn on the
forehead and a large cowrie below each
knee. These were the ceremonial regalia
of the men. On the upper arm armlets of
red and yellow plaited grass and fibre
were worn. A comb decorated in red
streamers was worn in the hair.
The canoes were also sacred, extensively
decorated with nautilus shell inlay and
painted designs in black, brown and
white, particularly of fish and birds.
Stems and sterns were festooned with
streamers of dyed red fan palm. Fishing
rods were deemed to have magical in­
fluences, especially in their tips. The
event of an initiation fishing expedition
was described by Ivens:
The lad sat in the centre of the canoe, a
Frigate bird
Wherever schools of bonito appear fol­
lowing the bait on which they feed, the
frigate bird is usually in attendance. The
Great Frigate Bird is a metre long from
tip of beak to tip of tail, with a 2 metre
wingspan and exceptionally light body.
Its life is spent mostly soaring quietly in
the sky, where it can also display spec­
tacular flying skills. It sometimes chases
other sea birds causing them to dis­
gorge their newly swallowed food,
which it catches in midair as it falls. The
frigate also feeds on the fry, or bait,
115 Frigate bird
which the bonito prey on and on flying
fish which are flushed from the water
by the feeding bonito.
The presence of frigates was an impor­
tant omen. Their gathering in numbers
above the shoals, and their activities in
feeding, could be seen from great dis­
tances, sometimes longbefore the flashes
of silvery-blue on the surface of the sea.
Their presence both signalled the ar­
rival of the bonito and led the fishermen
to their quarry. The birds were thought
to be incarnations of supernatural be­
ings, the spirits of ancestors. Like the
bonito its sacred character is defined
and celebrated in the designs of many
objects. The sacred fishing canoes often
had their prows shaped like the head of
the frigate bird; ritual food bowls used
for feasts and making offerings to
ancestors were often in the form of
frigates; and body ornaments frequently
had the image in more or less stylised
form as part of their design.
116 Behind the image
Those first, tentative steps taken by the
the reader can re-approach these par­
group in coming to know these small
ticular objects. Or one might approach
objects, which might be regarded as al­
most insignificant in themselves, show
other objects with a view to making the
most of what is immediately available,
how the puzzling and speculation - the
wondering what else might lie behind
fun of looking and guessing enjoyed by
some - began to open up a realm of
the object itself, and seeking to confirm
or refute the possibilities which come to
understanding through immediate,
mind by reference to sources like those
direct, engagement with the objects. Via
I have used in these examples.
the catalogue information, further quests
began regarding the images, materials,
Shield
purposes, origins, and users of these
A good place to begin with another
object might be with UEA 632, a shield
objects. I have added through the third,
research-based layer of information
from the Central Solomons. It should be
something of the social and cultural
evident from the focus so far on the
context from within which the objects
geographical extremes of Western and
Eastern Islands, and on the canoe prow
and images came.
figure and body adornment, that
The intention here is not to spoil the fun,
Solomon Islanders' art is diverse.
but to extend it by showing how a few
Extending one's sense of that, while also
small and apparently rather insignifi­
developing an understanding of how to
cant objects (relatively speaking, within
appreciate similarities and differences
the size and diversity of the Sainsbury
between artefacts and the cultures in
Collection) can provide an opening to a
which they are made, is possible by
wealth of aesthetic forms, creative prac­
incorporating the Central Islands of the
tices, ways of life, and beliefs, among
Archipelago: SantaisabetGuadakanat
Malaita, Nggela. The possibilities
groups of people whose art is signifi­
cant to themselves in a number of differ­
become immense if one seeks to puzzle
ent ways. The puzzling of anthropolo­
gists and other visitors to the region, the
bothaboutthis shield in particular, about
gathering of information, and the inter­
about other objects it might be associated
with, and their use.
pretations which they have placed on
its general category as an object, and
the production and use of art objects, is
intended to suggest ways of thinking
The same kinds of general questions
about the objects themselves.
apply: what is it made from? how was it
made? and so on. But one might quickly
With this information in hand and mind
move to questions which the shield
117 provokes about utility and aesthetics, and design considerations taken into Tahiti, New Zealand, and elsewhere,
account by its maker: of wearing pearl shell breast ornaments
was it simply an instrument of defence? may be the origin of its introduction to
what instrument of hostility might it the Eastern Solomon Islands. He also
defend against? why would a shield be so small? claims that the crescent shape, called
'rainbow dahi', is a more recent variant
what does the image represent? on the whole-shell 'moon dahi'. How­
how durable would this image be under attack? ever, similar use of whole and crescent
shaped shell breast ornaments was and
how strong would the shield itself be? is an important part of ceremonial dress
and he argues that the Tahitian custom
among Melanesian groups in New
These kinds of speculations, and the search for possible answers, will lead Guinea, where shells were traded widely
into the interior regions.
potentially to extensive information and understanding about a realm of objects 2. Kaule is the South Malaita name for
(from the Solomons and from many the frigate bird. Man o'war is the name
other cultures) which incorporate an intrinsic and (to me) seemingly given to it by sailors. Kaule itai - where
paradoxical relationship between art is the frigate bird - is an important cer­
emonial dance in South Malaita.
and hostility. But such personal speculations mustbegin when the reader stands in front of this shield, as the 3. At the time of writing this chapter I
groups did initially with the other objects from the Solomon Islands. English newspaper: Today is the feast
day of The Guardian Angels. Everyone
Notes
has one. Angels are pure spirits, per­
sons but bodiless, and their job is to
1. What Ivens (1927, 393 - 395) says is
praise God, be His messengers and
that the gold lip shell was known in the
watch over man. The belief that an angel
Florida Group, having been 'put into
is appointed by God to guard over each
circulation' by white traders, whalers,
person is widespread, though it has not
and labour ships there, from where it
been defined by the Church. Guardian
was traded by canoe, via Malaita. Ini­
tially worn whole with the back of the
angels act upon men's senses and im­
agination, rather than their will. The
shell outside, he says, it was scarce and
idea of celebrating masses for the Guard­
owned by chiefs. He claims the whalers
were present Makira (San Cristobal)
ian Angels seems to have originated in
came across the following article in an
the 12th century. (The Independent 2
October 1994, 28)
in 1845. They had Polynesian crews from
1
4. Bonito are in the same class of fish as
Buhler, A., Barrow, T. and Mountford,
the mackerel and tunnies. In the 1970s
C.P. 1962 Oceania And Australia: The Art
commercial fishing for bonito began in
of The South Seas, London, Methuen.
the Solomons, under the direction of a
Japanese company. To avoid the sensi­
Czarkowska
Starzecka,
D.
and
tivities of those for whom it was sacred
Cranstone, B.A.L. 1974 The Solomon Is­
the name used for the fish by the com­
landers, London, British Museum.
pany was skipjack tuna. Solomon
Islands skipjack tuna can be bought :in
Cranstone, B. A. L. 1961 Melanesia: A
England from Sainsbury's.
Short Ethnography, London, British Mu­
seum.
5. In 1994 European Union fishermen
from member countries, especially
Davenport, W.H. 1968 Sculpture of The
Spain, France and Britain, engaged in
Eastern Solomons, in Expedition, Vol. 10
what were referred to as the tuna wars
No. 2 Winter 1968.
in the Bay of Biscay, as they competed
for shares of the shoals which pass
Davenport, W.H. 1981 The National
through the Bay in summer. It is said
Gallery presents ethnographic art from
that for the ancient Greeks and Romans
Oceania, in Studies in Visual Communica­
portions of the flesh from the belly of
tion, Vol. 7 pages 74 - 81.
tunny formed the centrepiece of classi­
cal feasts (Pycraft, undated, 469).
Further reading
Allen, A., House, B., O'Brien, C and
Tickle, L. 1974 Images and Islands, Suva,
Fox, C. E. 1924 The Threshold of the Pacific:
an account of the social organization, magic
and religion of the people of San Cristoval in
the Solomon Islands, London, Kegan Paul,
Trench Trubner and Co.
Fiji, UNESCO.
Guiart, J. 1963 The Arts of the South Pa­
Allen, A., Craven, A., House, B.,
cific, New York, Golden Press.
Keleimae, A., O'Brien, C. and Tickle, L.
1978 The Grass Roots Art of The Solomons,
Guppy, H.B. 1887 The Solomon Islands
Sydney, Pacific Publications.
and Their Natives, London, Swan
Sonnenschein, Lowry and Co.
Breasley, H. G. 1939 The Tamar of Santa
Cruz, Ethnologia cranmorensis 4: 27-30
Beermann, I. and Menter, U. 1990
Bernatzik, H.A. 1936 Owa Raha, Vienna,
Schmuck der Sudsee: Ornament und Sym­
bol, Munich, Prestel Verlag.
Bernina Verlag.
119 Ivens, W.G. 1927 Melanesians ofthe South­
east Solomon Islands, London, Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.
Koch, G. 1971 Materielle Kultur der Santa
Cruz Inseln, Berlin, Museum Fur
Volkerkunde.
Mead, S.M. 1973 Material Culture and art
in the Star Harbour Region, Eastern Solo­
mon Islands, Toronto, Royal Ontario
Museum.
Poignant, R. 1967 Oceanic Mythology,
London, Hamlyn.
Schmidt, C.A. 1968 Oceanic Art: myth,
man and image in the South Seas, New
York, Abrams.
Waite, D. 1983 Art of the Solomon Islands
from the collection of the Barbier-Muller
Museum, Geneva, Musee Barbier­
Miiller.
Waite, D. 1987 Artefacts from The Solo­
mon Islands in the Julius Brenchley Collec­
tion, London, British Museum.
White, G.M. 1991 Identity Through His­
tory: Living Stories in a Solomon Islands
Society, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
120 121
Shield
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Ten Modern European Portraits Veronica Sekules
The Sainsbury Collection is rich in representations of the face. Here a selection has
been made of ten face studies, mostly portraits made in late 19th and 20th·century
Europe. It is interesting to look at why and how representations of the face are made,
especially in this period when photography has really rendered obsolete the necessity
for accurate recording of features. Each of these portraits presents a penetrating
likeness that is as expressive of the artist's personality as it is interpreting characteristics
of the sitter. Although they might have been inspired by a very private relationship
between sitter and artist, they are now subject to public gaze in a public gallery. In that
context, a more general significance emerges, a concern with the identity of the
individual and the nature of relationships not only between the sitter and artist, but
also between sitter and viewer and viewer and artist.
Among the selection included here are portraits which have been made as tokens of
friendship and given as keepsakes, portraits which idealise and schematise a facial
representation, faces which represent emotion or which evoke emotion in the
observer, faces which deny any insight into personality but highlight the technique
of the artist as virtuoso and faces which use pictorial techniques to explore the
psychology of the individual.
The portraits are presented here in pairs. Each pair has a theme, or several themes in
common. If we compare them, looking for differences and similarities, our interpreta­
tions of each one might be enriched, as ideas which we see expressed in one will lead us
to search the other in a way that perhaps we might not have thought of otherwise. If these
comparisons are made systematically and imaginatively, it is a good method for
generating questions for further enquiry into wider artistic, social and historical contexts.
The comments recorded here as introductions to the pairs of images have been generated
in this way, as a result of quite basic comparisons being made.
Further reading
Brilliant, R. 1991 Portraiture, London, Reaktion. Derrida, J. 1993 Memoirs of the Blind, The Self Portrait and Other Ruins, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Fraser-Jenkins, D. and Fox-Pitt, S. 1989 Portrait ofthe Artist, Artists' Portraits Published by 'Art News and Review', 1949-1960 London, Tate Gallery. Liggett, J. 1974 The Human Face, London, Constable. 122 Berthe Morisot: Isabelle
Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac: Portrait of Colette
Both these are portraits of people well known to the artists. Both exploit the
special knowledge the artist had of their sitters and hint at mood and psychology
of the individual. Colette, the novelist, has been shown towards the end of her
life, quietly thoughtful and slightly sad, the mood accentuated by her abundant
unruly hair and her large hunched shoulders which cradle a heavily outlined
little pointed face. A striking feature of Morisot's portrait of Isabelle Lambert
is the occluded left eye which gives the face a slightly frightened and vulnerable
aspect, and which contrasts with the impression of bright fresh firmness given
by the rest of her features.
123 Berthe Morisot Isabelle Berthe Morisot 1841-1895 Isabelle 1885 pastel on paper 40.0 x 29.8 cm
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124 Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac Portrait of Colette i.
Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac 1884-1974
Portrait of Colette
1939
etching on paper
12.7x11.4 cm
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125 126 Amadeo Modigliani: Head of awoman (Anna Zborowska)
Chaim Soutine: Woman in Blue
Modigliani's portrait is of Anna Zborowska, the wife of his friend and dealer.
Soutine's subject is unknown. Both these images are strongly stylised. There
is very little illusion of depth, both rely on strong outline and almost flat
colour. Each has a marked element of distortion of the shape of the head, the
neck and the shoulders and arms. Yet they are very different. The face of the
Modigliani (which is the portrait) is masklike, the eyes are empty. The Soutine
has a piercing and watchful gaze. The elongation of the Modigliani face
makes it look mature and a little careworn whereas the Soutine with its
rounded face, high forehead and large ears appears youthful.
127 madeo Modigliani Head of awoman (Anna Zborowska) Amadeo Modigliani 1884~ 1920 Head of a woman (Anna Zborowska) 1917 oil on canvas 53.7 x 36.8 cm
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128 Chaim Soutine Woman in Blue Chaim Soutine 1894-1943
Woman in Blue
c.1931
oil on canvas
80.0 x 62.9 cm
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129 130 Pablo Picasso: Head of a woman
George Rouault: Girl with a red ribbon
Both these representations of unknown females rely in totally different ways
on strong pattern-making and heavy outline. The Rouault is a female image
made up of patches of colour in a framework of black thick lines. It is perhaps
a version of an Empire portrait as the girl appears to be wearing historic dress.
Yet representation of the personality of an individual is unimportant. It is
engulfed in painterly technique and colour. The Picasso almost subverts the
idea of the individual as several views of the face are shown simultaneously
in profile and frontally, engulfed in patterns of stripes and cross hatching. The
faces are almost communicating with one another.
131 Pablo Picasso Head of a woman Pablo Picasso 1881-1973
Head! of a woman
1926
gouache on paper
12.7 x 10.2 cm
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132 George Rouault Girl with a red ribbon Georges Rouault 1871-1958
Girl with red ribbon
1934
gouache on paper
41.9 x 31.1 cm
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133 134 Alberto Giacometti: Diego Assis
Frank Auerbach: Portrait of Leon Kossoff
These strongly modelled, heavily shaded drawings are both of fellow artists.
The Giacometti represents his brother and collaborator, Diego. The Auerbach
is a portrait of Leon Kossoff. In both cases the artists shared considerable
closeness and empathy and yet more than all the others these portraits
represent introverted isolated figures. In both, the figure almost blends into
the shading of the background, heightening their intensity and perhaps also
the impression of the fusion of figure and art.
135 Alberto Giacometti Diego Assis Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966
Diego Assis
1948
oil on canvas
80.6 x 50.2 cm
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136 Frank Auerbach Portrait of Leon Kossoff Frank Auerbach b. 1931
Portrait of Leon Kossoff
1957
charcoal on paper
66.0 x 53.3 cm
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137 138 Francis Bacon: Imaginary Portrait of SS Pius XII
Antonio Saura: Imaginary portrait of Philip II
Both of these are imaginary portraits of figures of authority from the past.
Francis Bacon's is one of his series of images of Pope Pius XII after Velasquez,
which in some versions he represented as screaming. The Saura is an
imaginary portrait of King Philip II of Spain. Both have strong distortions
which do violence to the image. Bacon's Pope is a remote figure, his features
almost obscured behind a veil of shading. The distortions in the Saura make
the face look horrifically unbalanced and a little skeletal, but there is something
comical and mocking about the small black hat, the staggered eyes and the
crazed grin. In their very different ways, both of these pictures take issue with
the genre of the official portrait and reinvent a historical figure, but are they
turning them into images with a strong private meaning for the artist, or do
they have a wider significance for a modern audience?
139 Francis Bacon Imaginary Portrait of SS Pius XII Francis Bacon 1909-1992 Imaginary portrait of SS Pius XII 1955 oil on canvas 108.6 x 75,6 cm
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140 Antonio Saura Imaginary portrait of Philip II Antonio Saura b. 1930
Imaginary pmtrait of Philip H
1969
oil on paper
69o9x495 cm
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141