Hi! I have appreciated our visit of the Museum of African Arts, because I have learnt about the actual complexity of African works of art. The guide explained very well how African art has been shaped by a lot of different interactions with the wider world. I've been especially interested in discovering more about the interaction between Portuguese explorers and west Africans. This is why I will do my paper on the Sapi-Portuguese hunting horn, which is represented in the above picture. The picture on the left describes a Bini-Portuguese saltcellar and on the right you can see the crucifix made by a Kongolese artist and chosen by Jenna to be the topic of her paper.
This part of the exhibition attracted my attention not only because of the interesting mix of European and African styles, but also because it taught me that the first African works of art that were imported to Europe were considered precious and prestigious. Of course they had been adapted to European tastes, but African artists added their own artistic talent.
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I'm sorry I wrote "Jenna", but I meant "Jennad" of course.
The Hunting horn was made by a Sapi artist belonging to the Bullom or Temne peoples, who lived in the region of modern Sierra Leone. As it was commissioned by a Portuguese agent, a number of European motifs can be identified. A number of details available in another analysis posted on the blog shows this was a royal wedding gift. Besides, the decoration represents mainly scenes of hunting. Most of the figures depicted are male Europeans, some of them holding chained dogs while others carry an animal on their shoulders. It has been interpreted as a Christian illustration of the Good Shepherd. Interestingly, precisely because African imagery was also incorporated into the carved motifs, some doubt this interpretation. I believe the supposed sheep in the illustration may be a dog. Dogs were sacred animals traditionally depicted on Sapi ivories. Snakes and crocodiles are also visible on the horn. They are symbols of transition in life in the Temne spirit. I think they may have been chosen for the occasion of the wedding. Today, we can only make speculations about Sapi art, notably because wars and invasions in Sierra Leone in the mid-sixteen century destroyed the traces of the Sapi civilization during the period of trade with the Portuguese.
The context in which the horn was carved also captured my interest. Ivories were “the first objects from Black Africa to reach European collections.” Fagg discovered that the Sapi people were the first producers of ivories for Europe, followed by Benin and the Congo River area. But what taught me most is that there was no feeling of superiority on the part of the Portuguese toward Africans at that time. Differences between Renaissance Europe and traditional Africa were less important that we might imagine in terms of social structure as well as working situation. Religious beliefs were similar, too. In both cases, magic and the existence of supernatural forces were taken for granted. Africans and Europeans did not perceive each other as very different at the time. This is visible through the way African artists as well as European artists depicted each other basically as themselves. This horn is thus very precious as evidence of this early relationship between Europeans and Africans.
Sources:
Bassani, Ezio and William B. Fagg. 1988. Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory, ed. Suzan
Vogel. Exh. Cat. New York: Center for African Art.
Curnow, Kathy. 1983. “The Afro-Portuguese Ivories: Classification and Stylistic Analysis of
a Hybrid Art Form” PhD dissertation. Bloomington. Indiana University.
The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection. 2007. Washington: Smithsonian Museum
of African Art.
Vogel, Suzan. 1981. For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman
Collection. Exh. Cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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