african visual arts from a social perspective

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African Visual Arts from a Social PerspectiveAuthor(s): Paula Ben-AmosSource: African Studies Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Sep., 1989), pp. 1-53

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AFRICAN VISUAL ARTSFROM A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Paula Ben-Amos

THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Thestudyof Africanartbegan n the firstdecadeof thiscentury. n lookingbackovermore han70 yearsof research,t is possible o discern distinctive et of socialsci-enceconcerns, riorities, ndmodesof analysis.Thissocialperspective ependsnotsomuchondisciplinaryffiliation son thekindsof standsakenonthenature f artandontherelativemportancef culture s anexplanatory rinciplen understandingts mean-

ing. Thispapers concernedwitharticulatinghemainmodels hathavebeen utilizednsocial research n Africanart and with

tracingheir

mpacton the

developmentf art

studies.Thishistorical ccountwillalsopointoutsomeof themostseriousimitationsfthesemodelsandwill suggest tudieswhichmay eadtopromising ewdirections.

The focus of this review,then,will be on tracing he developmentf conceptualmodelswith a socialperspective.Studieswith a socialperspectivenclude hosewhichdeal with therelationshipsmongart,societyandculture. Theserelationshipsanbeconceived n a number f differentways,including, s Baxandall1985:89) succinctlysuggests,"causalityrsignificance ranalogy rparticipation."uchrelationshipsreal-waysa two-way treet:notonlydo socialpractices ndbeliefsilluminate ndaffectart,but artalso illuminates ndaffectssocialpractice.Twoessayswill clarify hespecificnature f the socialperspective.Bothclassics n thefield,bothdealingwithaesthetics,

they are:"YorubaArtisticCriticism"by RobertFarrisThompson (1973b) and "Principlesof OppositionndVitality nFangAesthetics"yJamesW.Fernandez1966). Thearti-cles arecomparable n severalways:bothscholarsshare a goal and a methodologyfor at-

tainingthatgoal; that is, Fernandezand Thompsonwish to learnaboutthe aesthetics of

sculpture n theirrespective groups,and set out to do this by eliciting evaluations of a se-ries of figurativecarvings. While Thompson'ssampleis muchbroader hanFernandez's,both querieda mixed groupof people in an open-endedway about theirvisual preferenc-es. Ultimately, Fernandezand Thompsonobtainedvery similar sorts of responsesbuthow they analyzedthis material s totallydifferent.

One major distinction is the relative interest in formal qualities of sculptureasagainstbroaderculturalmeanings. Both scholarsfoundthepeople they interviewedto be

concernedwith visual qualitiesand readyto evaluatecriticallythe techniquesand skills

AfricanStudiesReview,Volume 32, Number2, 1989, pp. 1-53.







2 AFRICAN STUDIESREVIEW

involved in the creationof form. Fernandez 1966: 56) points out that therewere indeedcommentsabout the smoothnessand finishedor unfinishedqualityof the carvings, yet he

reallydoes not discuss them. Thompson,on the otherhand,devotes most of his attention

to just these kinds of formal qualities, coming up with 18 separateaesthetic criteria,among them visibility, shining smoothness,and delicacy. He presents statementsmade

by evaluatorsandgives numerousexamplesof how these are applied. The core of theseevaluationsessentially revolves around how successful the artist was in realizing thesedesiredproportions,volumes, and lines. Cultural nformations minimal,brought n onlyto illuminatea point thatmightbe unclear to the Westernreader,suchas the significanceof the head in Yorubathought. Indeed, Thompson(1973b: 23) makes a distinctionbe-tween criticism (aestheticevaluations)and identification(culturalassociativemeanings)andarguesthatit is only the truecriticswho go beyondmere identification o purelyfor-malevaluation. Fernandez, n contrast, s totallyconcernedwith the cultural mplicationsof the standardshe elicits. This difference becomes particularlyclear when comparingtheir analyses of a phrase that both collected in response to figurative carvings: "Thislooks like a person." Thompson interprets his as the expressionof a mode of representa-tion, which he labels "mimesis,"an attemptto find a midpointbetween naturalismandabstraction.Fernandez 1966: 56) argues,in contrast, hat this is not anissue of represen-tationbutof symbolic expression:

theFangrecognizewell enough hat heproportionsf thesestatuesarenot thepropor-tionsof livingmen-that what hestatue epresentss notnecessarilyhetruth, hysicallyspeaking,f ahuman odybuta vitaltruth bouthuman eings, hat heykeepoppositesin balance..... [thestatues] xpress fundamentalrinciple f vitality.

The second majordifferencebetween Thompsonand Fernandez s the ultimateuseto which they put thesecriticalevaluations. ForThompson,thesecriteriaareevidence ofa Yoruba aesthetic of sculpture. They are named,reasoned,and systematic,and hencedemonstratean aestheticcanon,a pervasivesense of taste and good judgment:1"Seenasa whole, the Yorubaaestheticis not only a constellation of refinements. It is also an ex-

citing mean,vividnesscast into equilibrium" Thompson,1973b:58). The underlyingas-

sumption is that it is appropriateto look at sculpture as a phenomenon analyticallyseparablefrom its culturalmatrix. Femandez'sapproach s very different. For him, therealsignificanceof Fangcriticalevaluations s thatthey providea "clueto Fangculture."The discoveryof underlying ormalprinciplesin Fang sculpture oppositionandvitality)

led Fernandez nto otherareasof Fang life in which the same aestheticstructuralprinci-ples were at work, such as the layoutof towns as well as social organizationandthe con-

cept of self (Fernandez,1966: 59-62). In theirrelative emphases on the significance offormalqualities, the meaningof representation, ndtherelevanceof culturalassociations,Fernandezand Thompsonclearlyreflect the differingconcernsof a social perspectiveasagainstan arthistoricalandaesthetic one.

THE CONCEPTUAL MODELS

The 1920s and, especially, the 1930s are a watershed n the studyof Africanart,for

artbecame a focus for researchin Africa,and even more important, t was then thatthebasic models were developed thatwere to dominatethe studyof Africanartup untilthepresent. These particularparadigmshadtheirorigins in theoreticaldevelopmentswithin







AfricanVisualArts 3

the fields of anthropologyand sociology in France,Englandand the US. The ideas oftheir founders,Emile Durkheimand Marcel Mauss, A. R. Radcliffe-Brownand Bronis-law Malinowski,andFranzBoas, spreadbeyondtheirgeographicanddisciplinaryaffilia-

tions and shaped the directions of researchin the visual arts in Africa. Within theiroriginal disciplinesof anthropologyandsociology, eachof theseparadigmshas been sub-

jected to review and criticism, but, unfortunately,his sameprocessof evaluationhas notoccurredin African art studies. With the exception of Sidney Kasfir'sexcellent article,"OneTribe, One Style? Paradigmsin the Historiographyof African Art"(1984), therehas been no attemptto analyze the implicit assumptionsand theoreticalimplicationsofthe models informingresearch.3As Kasfir (1984: 165) found for arthistoricalapproach-es, so with social perspectives:the underlyingconceptualmodels arerarelyarticulated.

This paperwill trace the developmentof threekey paradigms thathave shapedre-searchin Africanart from a social perspective: the historical-particularist,unctionalist,and structural-symbolic pproaches.(Art historicaland aestheticapproacheswill be dis-cussed in a futureoverview paper.) I will show how each model entailedcertainassump-tions about the nature of art and about the sorts of questions that may legitimatelyand

productively be asked in art research.As a consequence of these implicit assumptions,certaindirectionswere taken,othersignored. A criticalcomparisonof these threemodelswill enable us to assess theirparticular trengthsandweaknesses and suggest possible di-rections of researchto pursue. Fromtime to time duringthecourse of this review, signif-icant studies from areas outside Africa will be discussed for the guidance they mightprovidein workingout these new directions.

Beyond theparticularproblemsinherent n each approach seen separately,however,there are general issues related to the Western perspectivewhich profoundly affect re-

searchin

the arts. V.Y. Mudimbe(1986: 3) has argued that"what s called Africanartcovers a wide range of objects introduced nto a historicizing perspectiveof Europeanvalues since the eighteenthcentury,"with the resultthatWesternunderstandings, efini-

tions, and classifications have providedthe frameworkfor conceptualizingAfrican art.ThatMudimbe s largelycorrectwill become clear in thecourseof this review as we lookat the formulationsof certainimportant ssues, formulationswhich derive fromWestern

conceptualdichotomies,such as the contrastbetween aesthetics andfunction or betweentraditionandmodernity. Underlyingthese contrasts,of course,is a particular iew of Af-rican societies as small in scale, highly integrated,and slow to change. The theoreticalconsequencesof these assumptionspervadeartresearch,hinderingunderstanding f Afri-canart,andnew formulationsneed to be developedwhichwill be closer to actualAfrican

experience.4

THE FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH

Both the functionalistand structural-symbolic pproacheshadtheirorigins in Durk-heimian sociology, but took very differentdirectionsgenerally,and in regardto art, inparticular. Developed in England in the 1920s underthe stimulus of A.R. Radcliffe-BrownandBronislawMalinowski,the functionalistapproachviews societies as made ofinterrelatedparts. Explanationof how a society works involves understanding ow these

partsarerelatedto each otherandhow theycontribute o the workingandmaintenanceofthe system. When all goes well, the system is in equilibrium, or it has reacheda perfectadjustmentor balanceof parts. Art in this sense is no different fromany otherpart,for it,








too, works towardshomostasis.The functionalists'understanding f art is a direct resultof theirpositionon the rela-

tive significance of society as opposedto cultureas a majorexplanatoryvariable. In this

they standin direct contrastwith the historical-particularistchool, to be discussed later.For the historical-particularists,ulture s the focus of study. Although they do notdefineculture in exactly the same way, all include the beliefs, customs and values that are

passed on from generationto generationby individualsthroughthe processes of sociali-zation. Art is partandparcel of culturaltradition,and hence potentiallyas valuableand

interestingto study as any otheraspect of that tradition. For the functionalists,in con-

trast,society haspriorityandart as partof culture s secondarybecauseit arisesoutof so-cial relations. In functionaliststudies as a whole, art has never assumedthe importanceof kinshiporpolitics.

The functionalists, then, generally are not very interested in art. One exception is

RaymondFirth,a student of Malinowski, whose work on "The Social Frameworkof

Primitive Art"(1951) is an excellent summaryof the functionalistapproach. Firthlooksat art and the artistin sociological terms. While he asserts the universalityof aesthetic

sensibilityandcreativity,Firthnevertheless sees the artistessentiallyas a craftsman,not

working for aestheticpleasure,but acting out a role in a complex social and economic

system. The artist sharesthe general public values andworks to give them artisticshape.In this article,Firth(1951: 162) poses the two key questionsof the functionalistapproachto art: first,what are the effects on society of producingand using art;thatis, whatdoesit do and how does its creation affect the system of social relations? Second,what is thenatureof the values expressed and in what way does the system of representation orre-

spondto the system of social relations? The forms of primitiveartare clearreflections of

social experience,for there areno landscapes,no portraitsor otherattemptsat naturalism.Perspectiveis not photographicbut rathersocial: relativesize is a measureof social im-

portance,not distance. The purposeof representationss to symbolize and define groupsand theirrelativestatus,or as Firth(1951: 179)puts it, "thegoal of artis to producean ef-fective social symbolism." As will be seen, these two questionsunderlie functionalist

approaches o Africanart.In the 1950s and 1960s a numberof scholars were drawnto what they perceivedas

the core difference between Western and Africanart:utility. Africanart was enmeshedin the fabricof daily life; a typical statement s Balandier's 1966: 67): "these 'aesthetic'worksarelinked to a certainmode of social organization;heyare, above all, instrumentsfor religious'technics"' see also: Adand&, 955;Mveng, 1968). Scholars at thattime felt

it was important o delineate the spheresof life in which Africanartplayed such an im-portantrole, thus KathleenTrowell, in her Classical AfricanSculpture (1954), suggeststwo broadfunctions-the enhancementof social status and the communicationwith thesupernatural-while Gerbrands n Art as an Element of CultureEspecially in Negro-Africa (1957) devotes a chapterto outliningthe functions-religious, economic, techno-logical, etc. Even morerecently,Brain(1980) has writtenanintroductoryext to Africanartwhich is organizedalong similarlines. Indeed,so functional s Africanartin this kindof perception thatone experiencesa kind of "frisson"whenencounteringwhatappears obe artforart'ssake,an artfreedof function(Himmelheber,1935:49).

During this period-and beyond-studies were aimed at documentingthe functionsof particular ypes of objects: William R. Bascom, 1962; Daniel P. Biebuyck, 1954,1968, 1972, 1973; Hans Cory, 1956; George W. Harley, 1950; Bohumil Holas, 1951,1952;Guy Le Moal, 1980;Lima Mesquitela,1971;JohnC. Messenger, 1962; Simon Ot-tenberg, 1972; Roy Sieber, 1962b; Regina G. Twala, 1951; Godelieve van Geertruyen,







AfricanVisualArts 5

1976;and Peter M. Weil, 1971, to cite buta few. Special attentionwas paidto those areaswhereartsupports he system,such as the areasof education(BiebuyckandCory)andofsocial control (Bascom, Harley, Messenger, Sieber, Weil). Perhapsthe most explicitly

functionalof all these studies is Simon Ottenberg'sanalysisof a maskedplay amongtheAfikpo Igbo. OttenbergcharacterizesAfikpo as a "consensus ociety"in whichmaleeld-ers rule by common agreement among themselves, but it is also a society with a highvalue on achievement,and as a result these two modes conflict and underlyingtensionexists between youth and elders. In his analysis, Ottenbergsets out to discover the ef-fects this play has on Afikpo society. He utilizes Merton'sclassification to distinguishbetweenthe manifest functionsof the play-to maintainsocial orderthroughridiculeofantisocialbehavior,to maintain sexual polarityand the dominanceof men-and the la-tent functions-to reduce deviance, to express anxieties aboutreproductive ailures,andto reduce individualismamongelders. Ottenberg 1972: 119)recognizessome of the dif-ficulties inherent n this type of functionalistanalysis,particularlyn ascertaining he ac-tualconsequencefor thepeople involved.

A few scholars were interested,like Firth, in pursuingthe consequences of social

functioningfor the art forms themselves. Trowell was one of the first to do so (1954).She distinguishedamong "man-regarding"rt,"spirit-regarding"rt,and theart of "ritual

display"(which combined elements of the first two and will not be discussed further).Man-regardingart (Trowell, 1954: 25) is tied to social rank and centered on the palaceand person of rulers, while spirit-regardingart is "addressed hiefly to spiritualforceswith the objectof harnassing[sic] spiritualpower"for the assistance of the group. Each

approachhadits own visual consquences.Man-regardings "intellectual ather hanemo-tional, inclined to naturalismrather hanstylization,decorative,elaborate; t will aim at a

high finish, will tend towardssophisticationand in the end to superficiality" Trowell,1954:32). Spirit-regardingrt,in contrast, s highly stylized, stark,conservative,andun-

changing; ndeed,originalitymightprovokethe spiritsandbringharm.Trowell'sdistinctionbetween the two types of artwas useful at the time because it

established thatAfricanart was not totallyat the service of religion. It hadan effect alsoin stimulating nterest n royal artsand severalscholars turned heirattention o its specialstyle, subject matter,materialsand functions(generalworks by Baumann, 1969; Brain,1980; and Dittmer, 1968, and case studies such as Dark, 1973; Geary, 1981; Vansina,1968, 1972). The most influentialof these studies was the volume of essays entitledAfri-can Art and Leadership (1972) edited by Douglas Fraserand HerbertM. Cole. In theiroverview, Fraserand Cole (1972: 295-328) take an approachto royal arts that strongly

parallelsthat of Trowell. Like her, they see that the functionof leadershipartsand thestructure(theirtermfor all thephysicalproperities:materials, form,style andiconogra-phy) are related;or more accurately,the second, structure,derives from the first, func-tion.5 Leadershiparts have crucial functions in maintaining he position of rulers;theartscontribute o theirsocial position, theirpolitical activities,andtheirsymbolicpower.Rulers are set apartfrom the ruled and this separation s expressedartisticallyin theirability to possess objects made of more costly, scarce and refractorymaterials,objectswhicharemonumental n size and veryelaboratelydone, all in contrast o whatcommon-ers possess. Theirvery tangibilityand durability-the rich materialsand iconography-contribute o the effectiveness of these objects as symbols, much more effectively in theauthors'view than music or dance, which are ephemeral.Even more, Fraserand Cole

(1972: 305) suggest thatthereis a correlationwhich goes beyondoperative function,thatis, an inherentconnectionbetween the structureof a society and thatof its art:"thecom-plexity of groupingandproliferationof detailcorrespond n theaestheticrealmto the dif-







6 AFRICANSTUDIESREVIEW

ferentiationof roles andinstitutions n the sociopoliticalsphere."The question thatFraserand Cole raise aboutthe connectionsbetween the structure

of artand society is centralto functionalanalysis. Indeed, in the 1950s and 1960s there

were several cross-cultural studies aimed at determiningthe relationshipbetween artstyles and social variables(e.g., Fischer, 1961). In regardto Africa,Wolfe (1969) hadWesternexpertsrankthe amountand qualityof artproducedby variousgroupsagainst112 societal variablesand only found a correlationbetween high productionand qualityon theone hand,andthe existence of men's associationson the other. All of thesecross-culturalstudies were ambitiousin scope but flawed by very limitedand uneven dataonboth art and culture and by reliance on highly subjectivecriteria. Little or no attentionwas paid to the historicalcircumstances hatmight accountfor similaritiesin social andartistic factors. Moreover,the ultimateexplanationsofferedfor the correlationswere hy-pothesized psychological tendencies which were beyond verification. Similarproblemsafflict the more recent

attemptbyFaris

(1978)to

explain whycertain art forms exist or

not in particularAfrican societies based on the relationshipof means of production o artform. Like the others, his examples are flawed and the actual connectionsbetween artandsociety not clearlyestablished.

If such links are ever to be ascertained, t will have to takeplace on a more limitedscale within specific regions, where historicaland ethnographicdata can be properlytakeninto account. Such a studywas done by Siegmann(1980: 91) for the CentralWestAtlanticregion. He suggests that "theuse or non-use of masks to manifestspiritual orc-es is directlyrelated to thedominant eaturesof social organizationn particular reasand

especially to the roles of lineages in political structures." The featuresof social organi-zationin questionare seen in relationshipto the specific historyof migration,settlement

andintergroupnteractions n this area;on this basis, threeseparatesubregionsareisolat-ed, each with its own particular elationshipbetweenart andsocio-politicalorganization.The value of this type of approach s that it can incorporate hangeinto the frameworkof

understanding,whereas the studies by Wolfe and the others had to factorout change inorderto establishtheircross-cultural orrelations.

For functionalists, this approachto change is not only methodological. They seesmall-scale societies as repetitivesystems, thatis, as systems in which changesand dis-turbancesoccur, but which possess regulativemechanismswhich reestablishthe prevail-ing social patterns (Gluckman, 1965: 279-85). Several studies in the Fraserand Colevolume stress the role of art in supportingthese patterns (see Fraser,Rudy, Biebuyck,Crowleyand Cole). In the functionalistview, as Firthpoints out, thereis no "artof re-

volt" (Firth, 1951: 167). Art cannot be subversive or revolutionary,nor can it be inti-mately connected with a new balance of power or a real overhaul of society. Yet weknow from the literaturea few (unfortunately, oo few ) examples in which the arts doprecisely that.

Leon Siroto (1972) shows how the Bakwele, in adoptingthe beete masked ritualfrom neighboring people, took the gon mask out of its ritualcontext and used it in thefield of competitionfor powerbetween lineages.The maskwas soon appropriated y thegen, a categoryof war leaders who specialized in using violence to manipulatevillagepolitics. The mask became a perfectdistancingmechanism,empoweringthem to carryon theiractivitiesof extortionand assassinationwith impunityon a background of "war

games"betweenthe lineages. Sirotogives an excellent sense of thechangesin behaviorsand usages in response to new situations,but even more, he indicateshow art itself isused in bringingaboutnew balancesof power. In anotherexample,Janzen(1977) dem-onstrates hatthe creationanddestructionof minkisi(charms,some of whicharein sculp-







AfricanVisualArts 7

turalform) have for centuries been signals of crisis and renewal in Kongo society. Hetalksof periodsof iconoclasmand of iconorthostismwhich areat the heartof Kongo re-

ligious change. In these ongoing reformulationsof society, the creationand destruction

of minkisiare the focus andthe dominantsymbolof societalreformation.Whatdistinguishes the functionalistapproach o artis not the descriptionof objects

withinculturalsystems, since that is done by most social scientists. The real issue is the

interpretation f meaning, or in Firth'swords, the discovery of the natureof the valuesthatare expressed by the formal characteristicsof the objects.The key terms n the func-tionalistvocabularyare "expression" nd,just as frequently,"reflection," oth wordswithovertonesof passivityand implicationsof derivativestatus. In the functionalistview, artbecomes, like any and all otheraspectsof culture,a secondaryphenomenonarisingout of

society andgathering ts emotionalpowerfrom social activity. It is never,as Layton putsit (1981: 41), "agenuinely creative orderof experience."

Religion is like art in this respect, thatis to say, essentiallya social phenomenon,as Durkheim 1912) so vividly pointedout in his analysisof totemism. In fact, function-alists often downplay religion as a motive for art for this very reason.In his previouslydiscussedarticle,"TheSocial Frameworkof PrimitiveArt,"Firthportraysreligionas es-

sentially personalandpsychologicaland hence nota determining actorin social systems.Fraserand Cole do not intentionallyexclude religion,but by tacitly acceptingTrowell's

dichotomybetween man-regarding nd spirit-regardingrts,they in fact do underplay e-

ligion, which has seriousconsequences for theirunderstanding f the meaningof materi-als used in divine kingship rituals.In Benin, brass is utilized by royaltyas much for its

apotropaicpowers as for its costliness (Ben-Amos, 1981),just as beliefs aboutsupernatu-ralpowerunderliethe use of gold by theAsante(Meyerowitz,1951).

Functionalistshave their ownapproach

togetting at meaning,and that is throughcontext. By knowing every situationin which an object is used, every referencemade

within that situation,by tracingout all culturalramifications,one comes to graspmean-

ing. While initially context was conceived as essentially social, underthe influenceofthe structural-symbolic pproach, t increasinglycame to includeaspects of culture suchas myth,cosmology, and oraltraditions(Abi6idin, 1975;Arnoldi, 1986;Bay, 1985;Bieb-uyck, 1977; Bradbury,1973; Brett-Smith, 1982; H. Drewal, 1977; M. Drewal, 1977;Holas, 1952; Horton,1963; Houlberg,1973;Lamp, 1985;Lawal, 1977, 1985;Ojo, 1978;Pemberton, 1975; Schweeger-Hefel, 1976; Siroto, 1979; Wescott, 1962; Wescott andMorton-Williams,1962). WilliamDavenport 1978: 6) pointsout a majorproblem n theanalysis of meaning within the functionalistapproach;accordingto him, "Thetrouble

with thisgeneralizedfunctionalism s thatthereis no defininglimit to symbolic interpre-tation.Symbolismbecomes associationism. An artobject becomes an entrypoint to acompletelyinterrelatedmatrixof culture."

Daniel Biebucyk's studyLega Culture,Art,Initiation,andMoral Philosophy amonga CentralAfricanPeople (1973b) is an excellent example of the functionalapproach nAfrica. The focus of his work is the vast variety of objects used by membersof thebwami association. These objects-both naturaland carved (the Lega categorize allbwamiobjects by the same term;the distinctionof what is art is made by the author)-aredisplayedto initiatesin a numberof differentrites as they advancethrough he ranksof the association. Biebuyck (1972a: 169-70) establishes the varieduses of bwamiob-jects and analyzes their functions as insignia of rank,as tokens that establishevidence

andcredibility,andas prestigeitems for thoseat the highest levels of bwami. Biebuyck'sunderstanding f theritualuse of bwamiobjectsis classicallyfunctional(1973a: 170):








Theyareanintrinsic artof initiations,s inseparables dances, ongs,music,dramatic

performances,ndexchanges. Sculpturesrecompletelyntegrated ithall theseotherfeaturesin sustainingand upholding,in positive or negative expression,the principlesof

the moralcode, the ideas aboutbwami,and its social role, andthe foundationsof thenet-workof socialrelations.

Since they arepassed from generationto generation,these sculpturesare symbolsofthecontinuityof families andlineages,but thisis theironly connectionwithreligion. For

Biebuyck (1973a: 173), "thereligious function of sculptures s subjugated o theirsocial,

political, and economic functions." The manner n which Biebuyck arrivesat the mean-

ing of Lega artis throughan exhaustiveanalysisof the ritualcontextsin which it appears,including especially the aphorismsassociatedwith each object. Often the same aphor-ism is used in a differentritual;the same object is associatedwith a differentaphorism.What

providesthe

unity underlyingall the

varietyis the broad frameworkof moral

val-ues. In the end, for Biebuyck (1973a: 232), Lega art "isprimarilyan art thatinspiresandunderlies a humanisiticview of man,an artthat is reflective of whatMauss called 'la to-

nalit6morale d'unesoci6t6.'"Functionalismbrought to art focuses on significant social institutions-kingship,

maskingassociations and the like--and an appreciation or the contextof use as one im-

portantavenue towardscomprehendingmeaning. But, as Hodderpoints out (1982: 4),"there s more to culturethan functions and activities. Beyond functioningand doingthere is a structureand a content which has partlyto be understoodn its own terms,withits own logic andcoherence." It is to these issues thatwe now turn.

SYMBOLIC AND STRUCTURAL APPROACHES

While Imile Durkheim's view of society proved central to the functionalistap-proach, his concern with collective representations(as discussed in The ElementaryForms of the Religious Life and particularly n the work he did with Marcel Mauss onPrimitiveClassification)was of key importance n the developmentof the symbolic andstructuralapproaches.Together with notions developed in structural inguistics, as weshall see later,these ideas had a profound nfluenceon subsequentgenerationsof scholarsof Africanart.

In Primitive Classification, Durkheimand Mauss set the frameworkfor symbolicstudies by establishing that classifications are a fundamental eatureof humanunder-standingof the social andnaturalworlds. Classificationsystems were in theireyes basi-cally symbolic, that is, arbitraryand culturallyrelative. The naturalworld was not thesource of classification systems but ratherthe social one, or, as they (DurkheimandMauss, 1973: 33) claimed, "the first logical categories were social categories;the firstclasses of things were classes of men."

In looking at a varietyof cultures,Durkheimand Mauss were able to establishthatclassificationsystems hada basic structureandnature. These systems expressed,firstofall, totalityandwere inclusive. Second, logically ordered, heirstructurewas hierarchicalanddualistic,the Australianmoiety systembeing the prototype. Third,the basic organiz-ing principlespervadedall realms of experience,so they were all parallelto each otherandall

homologous. While laterscholarsdid not all agreewith the first assumption,thatis, that symbolic systems originate in social ones, they were profoundlyinfluenced byDurkheimandMauss'structural haracteristicsn theirconceptualizationof artas a cultu-







AfricanVisualArts 9

ral code.In this earlier study, the Australianshad served as the prototypicalsociety. Durk-

heim followed up on this in his book The ElementaryForms of the Religious Life, in

which he attempted o explaintheoriginandessential characteristics f religion, using to-temism as the startingpoint. What is distinctive aboutreligious thought, accordingtoDurkheim, s that it divides the worldinto two domains, the sacredand the profane.Thesacredis distinguishedby taboos thatprotectand isolate it from the profane,which al-

ways must be kept at a distance. Durkheimcalled the sharedbeliefs about the sacred"collectiverepresentations"ndargued,as he and Mausshaddone earlier,thatthey were

systematicand symbolic in nature,translating"everything ssential." Religion'srole wasnot inherentlydifferent from science in thatrespect, for like science it set itself to trans-late realities of nature,man and society, to "connectthings with each other,to establishinternal relations between them and to classify and to systematize them." The distin-

guishing feature of this conceptualmodel is expressed by Mauss in his book The Gift(1954: 11):

We aredealing hen withsomethingmore hana set of themes,more han nstitutional

elements,more than nstitutions,more thanevensystemsof institutions ivisible nto

legal,economic, eligiousandotherparts.Weareconcerned ith wholes,'withsystemsin their ntirety.We havenot describedhemas if theywere ixed, n a staticorskeletal

condition,nd tillless havewedissectedhem ntorulesandmythsandvaluesandsoonof which heyarecomposed. t is onlyby consideringhemaswholes hatwehavebeenableto see theiressence, heiroperationndtheir iving aspect,and o catch hefleetingmomentwhenthesocietyand tsmembers akeemotionaltockof themselves nd heirsituation s

regardsthers.

Onlybymakinguchconcrete bservationf social ife is it

possible ocomeupon actssuch asthosewhichourstudy s beginningoreveal. Noth-

ingin ouropinions moreurgent rpromisinghan esearchnto total'ocialphenome-na.

Mauss' focus contrastssharplywith the functionalistone discussed earlier,which is con-cerned with how all the partswork together. Mauss is suggestingthatthere is meaningabove andbeyond the workingof the parts-a totality. What is special to Mauss'percep-tion is that the totality is conceived as a process, as a kind of fashioningof collective

identity. As Beidelman (1970: 507) points out, "Suchan approachnot only makes useof and integratesall the social institutions of a society, but it also envisions the stuff of

which society is fashioned,people andobjects,as somehowalso affectingandmodifyingsocial categoriesandprocesses, even as theseactuponthem."The implicationof Mauss'conceptof totalityfor the studyof art is clear:if thereare

moments"whenthe society andits members akeemotionalstock of themselves" hroughcollective representations,are there also art objects-themselves collective representa-tions-which enter into this stock-takingor, indeed, are the very essence of it? As welook at the various directions taken under the influence of the Durkheimand Maussmodel, we will see how the role of art in this fashioning process was conceived in verydifferentways.

Like Boas in America and Radcliffe-Brownand Malinowski in England,Durkheimhad a profoundimpacton his studentsand colleagues andwas instrumental n establish-

ing a forumfor scholarlydiscussion:L'AnneeSociologique. His nephew and colleagueMauss played an importantrole in establishing the Instituteof Ethnology in the 1920s,where he traineda generationof Africanistresearchers. The early 1930s are especially








significantbecause they markedthe first majorfieldworkexpeditionto Africa, the Mis-sion Dakar-Djibouti 1931-33). One of the participantswas MarcelGriaule,who was toreturn o Mali (thenthe FrenchSudan)to do researchamongthe Dogon and neighboringpeoplefor the next 20 years.

The basic approachdeveloped by Durkheimand Mauss set the stage for a series ofstudies of African art that focused on issues of symbolic classification and structure.Mauss'studentGriauleandhis teamof researchersn Mali, includingGenevieveCalame-Griaule,GermaineDieterlen, Solange de Ganay,Michel Leiris, and DominiqueZahan,workedwith art forms as partandparcel of complex symbolic systems. A similarcourseof researchwas undertakenby Griaule'sstudentJean-PaulLebeuf in northernCameroun.Thegoal of theseresearcherswas to establish the underlying houghtpatterns romwhichthe collective representationsor-as we shallcall themfromhereon-symbols) derived.Theirpublications,beginningin the late 1930s, continueuntiltoday.

Durkheim and Mauss also had an indirect influence on African artscholarship,which was mediatedin the 1940s and 1950s throughthe work of scholars like Claude

Levi- Strauss,whose concernwith structure ndcommunicationwere to have a major m-pacton thefield. His works, togetherwith those of Radcliffe-Brown,E. Evans-Pritchard,MaryDouglasandEdmundLeach, stimulated nterest n the whole issue of classificationand the symbolic natureof artisticsystems. By the 1960s and 1970s theirimpactcan beseen in a series of studies investigating the structureof visual systems, how they com-municate,whetherthere aredifferenttypes of artisticsystemsandwhatis therelationshipbetween visual andothersymbolicsystemswithina culture.

The Approach of Marcel Griaule

A student of Mauss, Griaulewas the first scholar to focus research around an artformandhis classic study,Masques Dogons (1938), standsas a landmark.Masques Dog-ons is a detailed descriptionof the Dogon masking complex, includingpreparations,itu-al performances,and a list of over 70 mask types with their regional variants,specialcostumes and dances, myths of origin, and praise songs which accompanytheirperfor-mance. Griaulewas drawnto this topic notbecause of an interest n artperse, butratherbecause of his concernwith religion, in which he found thatmaskingplayed a predomi-nantrole (Gerbrands,1957: 93). As a result, the focus was entirelyon thereligious as-pect of masks,andconcernsabouteducationor social control,as the functionalistswouldhave had, were notevident.

MasquesDogons was essentiallya documentaryworkandshowed little of the Durk-heimianconceptual approach. A majorchange occurred,however, after Griaule's en-counter with the Dogon elder Ogotommeli in 1947. After this turningpoint Griaulewrote a numberof articlesdirectlyrelatedto artandsymbolism (1940, 1947, 1951, 1952,1966), which established a distinctive mode of interpretation.The encounterwith Ogo-tommeli revealedto Griaulea coherentsystem of thought hatunderlayall culturalman-ifestations, including art. Verbally, this system was most clearly expressed in myth,which then became the key to decipheringthe meaningof art. In his "Lessymbolesdesartsafricains" 1966), for example, Griaulederives the symbolismof the famousDogonkanagamask from a seriesof divine gestures made at the creation of the world (28).This

approachs found

throughouthis work,whetherdealingwith artor with featuresofsocial organization.Workingvery much withinthe Durkheimian ramework,he has dis-covered a total and coherentsystem, a mode of thought,which operateson the basis of







AfricanVisualArts 11

homologous structures.As Griaule explains (1966: 33), in a most Durkheimianway,"Thisway of abstractingallows the individualto function... in thatsystem of correspon-dences which is the creationof society or at the very least the expression of its profound

mentality."But Griauledeviates fromthe Durkheimianmodel in a very importantway. He does

not agree with Durkheim and Mauss about the determiningnatureof the social order.Rather,it is the cosmogony or "metaphysics"which itself underliesthe social orderandall otheraspectsof life. This meansthatart itself is essentiallyas importantas any othermanifestationof the underlying system and thus requiresno special mode of apprehen-sion or analysis.

Nevertheless,art-or at least one particularvisual system-turned out to be thekeyto the whole code. As Griaule'sresearchproceededinto the hidden andesoteric aspectsof Dogon culture,he and his co-workersdiscovereda system of signs which encoded the

Dogon thoughtsystem. Only hintedat, rarelydrawn,thesesigns constituteda "universalinventory." It is throughthe sign, according to Griaule and Dieterlen (1951: 5), that

"thingsexist and become conscious of themselves; it is through (the sign) thatman, inturn, akespossession of the largestpartof his domainwhich is the universe." translationBen-Amos) Hidden from view, the signs are "projected"nto what is concretein a verylocalized andspecific way, so thatonly partsor aspectsarerevealed atany one time. Buttakentogetherthey are the "expressionof thecosmogonic system."

It is in this system of signs that Griaule finds Mauss' totalizingmomentwhen themembersof a society take stock of themselves (Griaule,1952:7):

We glimpse romthatpointthata systemof signs-and all the more a groupof sys-

tems-not onlyconnotes considerableodyof actsandbeingsbut ndeed resentshemin order,since in additionresearchamong [the Dogon, Bambara,andBozo] reveals that

they graspthecoherenceof the worldandtherigorousorganizationof its workings.

(Translationen-Amos)

The methodof interpretationworkedout by Griauleand his teamis revealedin a se-ries of theirstudieswhich utilizedmythologyand cosmology to guide the analysisof ar-chitecture(Dieterlen, 1968 and N'Diaye, 1972 amongthe Dogon andthe Lebeufs amongthe Fali of the Cameroun 1955, 1961, 1968), door locks (Dieterlen, 1970), cicatrization(de Ganay, 1949a), clothing (Calame-Griaule,1951; Dieterlen, 1951), color symbolism(Zahan,1951), and maskingcomplexes (Zahan,1974) andblacksmiths(Dieterlen,1965-

66).Scholars who were not among the original Griauleteam utilized their findings on

cosmology to analyzeart(Flam, 1976;Klobe, 1977;Imperato,1978;N'Diaye, 1971;Nes-mith, 1979; Richardson, 1977) and the role of the artist, particularlythe blacksmith(Clement, 1948; De Heusch, 1956; De Maret, 1980; Makarius,1968; Richards, 1981;Schwarz, 1980).

Jean Laude's (1973) discussion of Dogon sculpturein AfricanArt of the Dogon(1966) reveals one of the majorweaknesses inherent n the Griaulianapproach. WhileGriauleat least startedfrom an in-depthcontextualanalysisof Dogon masks, Laude at-temptsto elucidate the meaningof a series of wooden figures withoutany culturalcon-text at all. We are nevertold what is the use of the figures,whatceremoniestheyappear

in, what theirpurposeis, who uses themand when. Theirinterpretationppearsto cometotally deductively, based on Laude'sunderstandingof myths and decisions on how toapplythemto artforms.This is a Griaulianrelianceon cosmology carried o extremes.








Durkheim's classifications are intellectual, explanatory,just like science. But this ap-

proachshifts fromexplanationto evaluation andpreference,whichare emotionalas wellas intellectual. Second, and even moreimportant,t places aestheticsat centerstage;it is

the key to looking at a cultureas a whole, Mauss'totality,for it is this valued form thatstructures very aspect of life. But in the end this approachrunsinto the same problemas the functionalistone: it presupposesa high degree of integration n the cultureand a

high degree of adherenceto aestheticprincipleswhich even Fernandezhas difficultyac-

cepting. To carrythis off, he says, people would have to pursuerelentlesslyaestheticin-

tegration. However, the Fang are at present too materialistic,too corrupted by themodem world.Thatthey cannotachieve such integrationmay thenreflect their"accultu-rativedisintegration."The implicationthatchange bringsabouta dissolution of aestheticstructures s problematicand reveals one of the limitations of this kind of approach,which as Drewalpointsout (1984: 88): "does not considerthe dynamics,orrather he in-ternalmechanism

bywhich

changecan occur and

by which,at the same

time,traditions

can be sustained."A recentdissertationby Kris Hardin 1987) treats thisproblemof aestheticstructures

and change. Hardinanalyzes Kono culturein terms of idioms which pervadedaily life,from agriculturalpracticesto spatial arrangements o concepts of the self. Accordingtoher, successful repetitionof idioms in a varietyof domainsprovidesa sense of aesthetic

satisfaction,of appropriateormrealizedin practice. But the repetitionmustbe success-ful, and Hardinprovidesexamples of both successful and unsuccessfulevents and inter-actions. Using notions developed by PierreBourdieu,she demonstrateshow changes in

practice bring about new associations and realignmentsthat ultimatelyalter aestheticstructures. For example, she analyzes the recently introduced Thanksgivingdance,

which, unlikeotherKono dances, takesplace in an open spacewith theperformers epar-ated fromthe audience andthe singerset apart romthechorus. Such an arrangement i-olates Kono idioms of containmentandgroupcenteredness,both of which relateto Konobeliefs that individuals who are set apartwith special skills are supernaturally ndowedand potentiallydangerous. Some performancesare betterthan others in effectively re-

solving the resultingconflict, but in so doing realignmentsarise, which over time alteraestheticpreferences(Hardin,1987: 175). The changesin dance areoccuringconcurrent-ly with changes in other domains, such as the productionof tradecloth, and as theseoccur, the idioms are being reshaped. Containment, or example, is becoming less rele-vant and less practicedand may eventuallybe redefined (Hardin,1987: 266). Hardin'semphasison the way in which humansactivelycreatestructures hifts the emphasisaway

from static to active and allows the incorporationof change into analysis of aestheticprinciples,somethingthat othersdealingwith aestheticstructures ouldnot do.

Art and Symbolic Classification

As BenjaminN. Colby, JamesW. Fernandezand David B. Kronenfeld(1981: 431)pointout, Durkheim ocused intereston "theconstructionof religiousuniverses":

Durkheimarguedthatevery religion, includingtotemism,suggest, a cosmology, a totali-

ty, andthoughhe himself was mainly interested n the generic ideas of class and in con-

ceptualhierarchies mpliedin collective activity ... he spokeof such symbolicmattersasthe attractionof similarimages, comingling of classes, feelings of resemblance and par-ticipation, and the effervescent contagiousness of religious beliefs .... Durkheimthus







14 AFRICANSTUDIES REVIEW

raisedquestions f associative rocesses, f symbol ormationnd unction....

Atissuehere is the logic, if it is logic, by which symbols arejoined.

In the study of art,this cosmological approach ocuses on the structureof the totalityand the place of artistic forms in that structure.The model has been appliedto several

topics as diverse in natureand scope as: animal symbolism (Ben-Amos, 1976b; Camp-bell, 1981; Mack, 1981; McLeod, 1978; and Witte, 1982), decorativedesigns (Adams,1983;Braithwaite,1982; andMack, 1980), gender symbolism (Glaze, 1975, 1981, 1986;Silver, 1980; Tonkin, 1983), color symbolism (Almagor, 1983; Breidenbach, 1976;Hagen, 1970; Jacobson-Widding,1979; Klumpp, 1980; Lydall, 1978; Turner,1967: 59-92; and Zahan, 1984), architecturalsymbolism (Beidelman, 1972; Blier, 1981, 1983;Bourdieu, 1973; Feeley-Harnik,1980; Fernandez, 1977; Holy, 1983; Komma, 1979;

Kuper, 1980; Littlejohn,1960, 1963; Prussin, 1976, 1980, 1981), and the meaningandstructure f masksand

maskingrituals

(Ben-Amosand

Omoregie,1969; Cole, 1985;De-Mott, 1979; Girard, 1967; Jedrej, 1976; MacCormack,1980a and b; Ottenberg,1982;Pemberton,1978; Tonkin, 1979; Vecsy, 1983; and Zahan, 1980). The notion of systemimplies that there arerules of selection and use and the key questionthenbecomes: whydo particularmages, designs or formsappearand not others? And as a corollary,why dothese images, designs or formsappear n the particular ontext thatthey do and not oth-ers?

To illustrate hedistinctive natureof thisapproach, will comparetheanalysisof an-imal symbolismas carriedout within the frameworkof symbolic classificationby Mack

(1981), McLeod (1978) and Ben Amos (1976) with an analysis by Daniel Biebuyck(1979), whom we discussed earlier. These two approachesdiffer on several issues: the

reason for the culturalsignificanceof animals,the manner n whichanimal mageryoper-ates, and the nature of the artisticsystem in which animalsappear. For Biebuyck,ani-mals are significant to the Lega because of their economic and social use. The Legavalue huntingand utilize game in important ocial andritualcontexts in which distribu-tion and exchange follow rules of kinship, seniorityand ritual status. Biebuyck's baseline, then, is social and economic utility. In contrast,in the symbolic classification ap-proach,the base line is an intellectualquest for order,for explanationsof the natureofthings. Animalsare metaphorswhich define essentialhumanity n the sense that"thena-ture and defining characteristicsof animals function to establishthe outer limits of hu-manity, that is, the non-human or uncivilized as well as the more-than-humanorsupernatural"Ben-Amos 1976:242).

For both types of approaches,animalimageryis importantbecause it sets up meta-phoric links between the appearanceand behavior of animals and ideal or despisedhumancharacteristics.Thus, Biebuyck(1979: 77) pointsout thatthe initiatesinto bwamiassociation"metaphoricallyefer to themselves as elephants, eopards,bats,guinea fowls,binyangi birds, butterflies,nkambafish, turtles and certaininsects to express ideas suchas awesome power and theirsystematics, exclusiveness, circumspection,oneness, etc."In symbolic classification,the observanceof such a groupingof animals-from such dif-ferentrealmsand exhibitingsuch differentqualities-would not be an end in itself but astartingpointfor analysis. The goal is to find the schemawhich underliesthe selectionofparticular nimals.In the analysesby McLeod,MackandBen-Amos,the schemais basedon cosmography. Thus for Mack (1981: 53), particularanimals, such as the crocodile,bushpig andwarthog,arerepresented n Kubadivinationfiguresbecausethey operateatthe marginsbetween the spiritworldand the worldof humansand can thus act in a role








of mediation.

Biebuyck (1979: 77) is primarily nterested in the profusionof animal imageryandthe varietyof contextsin which it appears.Thereare no fixed representations, ut in any

context the preceptorscan call upona rangeof visual symbols,of aphorisms,of gesturesto formulateand interpretLega moralphilosophy. It is within the context thatmeaningsare"nuanced, larifiedandamplified":

The Lega initiates have no difficulty in replacingone visual symbol by another.Eachrit-ual communityand each preceptorhave some specialties that othersdo not possess. The

preceptorsraw atherreelyonaseeminglynexhaustibletorehousef materialbjectsto visually illustrate their thought. They take delight in the unusualcombinationsand

manipulationsof objects to heightenthe element of surpriseand the crypticaspectof the

initiationprocedures. (Biebuyck, 1979:78)

Biebuyck's approachhas the value of incorporatingnovelty and surpriseinto thecreationof meaning (something noticablylackingin the classificationapproach);howev-er, his view essentiallydoes not explainwhy certainanimalsmightbe included or not; in

short,he does not uncover a system. In contrast,the others set out to explainpreciselywhy certain animalsappearor not based on the logic of the system they outline. Thus,McLeodarguesthatdomestic animals areprecludedfromrepresentationn the domainofAsante goldweights for specific reasons:these animals are crucialto the Asante concep-tion of the naturalorder of the world, the division betweenrealms of the bush and the

village. Theweights, used to measurean amorphous ubstance-gold dust-and to trans-formvalues within a monetaryexchange system, belong to a realmwhich is both secon-

daryand inimical in

characterto the cosmographicrealms, where boundaries must bemaintained. Thus, "What s a key categoryin the universe cannot... be diminishedin

importanceby being tangled up in a lesser symbolic system, especially when thatlesser

system is concerned with the pretence thatdifferentthings are in some way the same"(McLeod,1978:306).

McLeod's argument(1978: 312) contains the notion that gold dust is somehow

threatening o inherentorderbecause its "role is to overcome, eliminate,or subsumedif-ferences." Theattentionto images, materialsor actions thatcutacrossrealms or combinecharacteristics f realms is of particularnterest n symbolicclassificationstudies,partic-ularly in the work of MaryDouglas and Victor Turner. In her classic book Purity andDanger (1966: 38-9), Douglas points out thatbeings or objects thatcut acrosscategories

or violate boundariesare treated as especially significant,eitherthroughcondemnationand tabooing or though special ritual use. Studies by Smith (1978), Witte (1984) andBen-Amos (1976b) apply Douglas'snotions aboutthe interplayof concepts of orderanddisorder. In my work on animal symbolism, I suggest that a categoryof creatures,de-fined by the Edo as "hostile"and "transformed,"ppear n the visual artsprecisely be-cause their power comes from a violation of ideal order, a breakdownof boundaries,whichassociates themwith nighttimeandwitchcraft. These hostile creatures,birds andanimals of the night, violate Edo canons of aesthetics:they are either disproportionatelike the grey heron,which is said to have an unusually argehead,or they areanomalouslike the cobra, which is described as a snake with a rooster'screst thatcrows before itstrikes. In their violation of canons of proportionand notions of inherentorder, these

creaturesbecome visualizations of moralaberration.This type of studyalso concentrateson the search for rules and violations of rules. Context is derivative of the system ofmeaningrather handeterminative,as in Biebuyck'sapproach. Interpretations basedon








socialrelations;n theonehand, he ifeof thesenseandof thefeelings, n theother,helifeof relations etweenmanandman, he ifeof dialogue ndexchange.

The second form of symbolic patterning s throughassociative clustering. Munn(1973: 591) explains thatin this type there are key symbols in a kindof semanticbundlethat tie togethervariouscategories:

eachwith tscomplexmeanings rawnromvarieddomains f experience... Thebun-dlehasaninternal atterningnvoking edundancy;ertainmeanings verlap thers, ndtheseoverlaps construct eneralizedhemes,abstractmeanings,whichemergeon theconcreteevel.

Such clusteringis the focus of ArnoldRubin'sdiscussion of AfricanAccumulativeSculp-ture: Power andDisplay (1974). In his introductionRubinsuggeststhatcertainartforms

in which redundancyandprogressiveaccumulationareimportant esthetic featuresareinfact message systems about notions of power and display. Classificationsystems areways of organizing qualitativedimensions of environmental eaturesand phenomenainorderto exploit these qualitiesin power contexts. Powermaterials,such as horns, claws,and beaks are signatureelements which are more thanmetaphoricallusions but actuallytranfer apabilities:

thetendencyomultiplymedia npowercontexts houldprobably e seen as intentional

design-redundancy,alculatedoorganize widespectrumf systematicesponses.Ac-tivationof objects hroughheprocessof transfer ndconcentrationf energies s thuscumulativenintent s wellasaccumulativen

aspect.Rubin, 974:10)

A study of Akanchiefly regaliaby HerbertM. Cole and DoranH. Ross exemplifiesthe utilizationof redundancydescribedby Rubin. A chiefs ceremonialcostumeexhibitsan "overloadof material,symbol,andwealth"whichcutsacross verbalandvisual realms,reiterating hemes of power, wisdom, dignityandwealthin multipleways through ewel-ry, appliquedesigns, sandal,and umbrellamotifs in an organizeddisplay of "intentionalredundancy"1977: 23). Similarprinciples seem to be at work in BamanaKomo masks(McNaughton,1979b)andEdo Olokunmudshrines(Ben-Amos, 1973).

The repetitionof themes in differentmedia and imagery is one way of associativeclustering. Anotheris throughorganizationarounda dominantsymbol,an analyticcon-

cept, developedby VictorTurner n his TheForest of Symbols(1967), derivingultimate-ly from Durkheim'snotion of collective representations. A dominantsymbol not onlyfulfills a specific purpose within a ritual,but also "andmore important, efersto valuesthatareregardedas ends in themselves,thatis, to axiomaticvalues"(Turner,1967: 20).By naturethese symbols are multivocal,bringingtogethercore notionsfrommanycultu-ral domains. Turner'sview of the dominantsymbol comes closer than any other ap-proach that we have discussed to Mauss's totalizing experience, for it is in ritualconfrontationswith dominantsymbols thatmembersof a society "takeemotionalstockofthemselves"andintegrate heirexperiencesat variouslevels. That artcan be analyzedasjust this type of dominantsymbol is clearfromChappel's 1977: 28) descriptionof deco-ratedgourdsin northeasternNigeria:

thedecoratedourdmaybeexperienceds aclear-cut,man-mademageof thebasiccon-








figurationf forcesunderlyinguman xistence.Assuch, tmayevenoffer hebeholderanencouragingemonstrationf man'sability o organize is experiencen sucha waythatorders created ut of chaos .. and hat he dealhumantate s oneof directactivi-

tyadding ptoa unifedandbalancedwhole.

Turner'sapproach s explicitly used by Allen Robertsin his essay "Socialand His-torical Contexts of Tabwa Art" (Maurerand Roberts, 1986). Roberts argues that theimage of the new moon is a key metaphor n Tabwaphilosophy, condensing a rangeof

meaningsrelated to knowledgeandrenewal. The cycle of themoon is utilizedas a meta-phor for understandingmuch of humanlife and endeavor,but is especially important n

understanding he hidden powers of the sorcerer,likened to the moon during its darkphase. There is a decorativepatternwhich represents he new moon, balamwezi,whichconsists of "isosceles trianglesjuxtaposedso that theirbases form parallellines" which

appearson virtuallyall forms of Tabwaart. Robertssees this asproviding

the"unity

ofartisticandphilosophic expressionfortheTabwa":

The drama f anewmoonrising, hen, nfused ocial ife at anumber f levels,from hepracticalprotectionrommaraudingeasts) o theceremoniallunar hasesas a meta-phor orhumanharacter). hedark f themoon,kamwonang'anga,as aperilousime,buttherising tselfwascause orrejoicing.... The unarmetaphor,o importantstoberepresentedhroughhebalamwezi attern f triangles n allmanner f pre-colonialrearly-colonialbjects,helpedTabwa onsider othpositive ocialvalues guidance, en-erosity, estraint)nd heir nevitable ialectic pposites greed, espair,xcess).

(MaurerndRoberts, 986:3)

Art as Visual Communication

This approachto art differs from the previous ones because of the significantroleplayed in its developmentby models drawnfromlinguisticsand semiotics. An influen-tial figurein this developmenthas been ClaudeL6vi-Strauss,who hasdiscussed artspe-cifically in his writings, but whose major impact comes from his generalapproachtoanthropology,which he sees as essentiallya semiologicalscience thattakesas its guidingprinciple the notion of meaning (Morris, 1987: 266). L6vi-Strausswas influenced byDurkheimand Mauss but even more by the linguist Saussure(who himself hadbeen in-fluenced by Durkheim).Saussure treatedlanguageas a networkof structural elationswhich must be viewed as an independentsystem. In following Saussure's ead in regardto language-and extendingit to othercultural orms-L6vi-Strauss essentiallydistancedhimself from the Durkheimian radition,or as Lewis puts it (1971: 14), he "cutthe linkwhich binds [collective representations] o theirsocial base." In this kind of approach,meaning derives not from context but is determinedby its position within a system.Analysis thenfocuses on the natureof the systemand how it operates. Language,accord-ing to L6vi-Strauss Charbonnier, 969: 150-51), is theprototype orall systems:

Languageis the most perfectof all thoseculturalmanifestationswhich, in one respector

another,constitutesystems, and if we want to understandart,religion, or law, and per-

haps even cooking or the rules of politeness, we must imagine them as being codesformedby articulated igns, following thepatternof linguisticcommunication.







AfricanVisual Arts 19

Just such an approach o Africanarthas been takenby scholarswho have investigat-ed the communicativefunctions of codes relatingto personal appearance, hat is, hair-styles (Baduel and Meillassoux, 1975; Houlberg, 1979), body adornmentand clothing

(Biebuyck, 1982;Cole, 1979;PaulmeandBrosse, 1956; Paulme, 1973;Poynor, 1975). Inthese studies, the focus is on social categoriesand transformations:ender, stages in lifecycle, membership n religious congregations,etc. The visual code is treatedas a signsystem andthemeaningof the visual markings s only exploredin a limitedway.

Inotherstudies, the natureof the code andthe creationof meaningare central actorsin the analysis. Both cloth (Battestini,1984) and architecture Lagopoulos, 1975) havebeen analyzed,but the main focus of attention, nterestinglyenough,hasbeen on the areaof artforms which have flourishedin recent times, that is, touristart (Ben-Amos, 1977andJules-Rosette,1984)andpopularpainting(Szombati-Fabian ndFabian,1976). Inre-

gardto the former,this author's tudylooked foranalogiesbetweenpidgin languagesandtouristarts,as both arise in similarconditions and face similarproblemsof communica-

tion. Ina broadsemioticanalysis,Jules-Rosette(1984) analyzesthe complexitiesof rela-tionshipsbetween creators and purchasersof tourist art and the variety of messages-some ironic,othersprotesting-that areconveyedat different evels and to differentaudi-ences.

The most interestingof the touriststudies is Szombati-Fabianand Fabian'sdiscus-sion (1976: 18) of popularpainting in Shaba,Zaire,which was mentionedearlier. Theauthorsset out to look at popularpainting"like a languagewithall that this implies-thepossibilityto describe it in a systematicway, to translate ts 'propositions,'ndto interpretits 'texts.'"To do this, Szombati-Fabian nd Fabianproposeto view popularpaintingas avisualcommunicativeprocess in which art"is languagein the metaphorical ense, that isa

discourse,"n which the

producersand consumersof

popularpaintingreflect on their

currentsituation. The authorsshare with the symbolic classificationperspectivethe as-

sumptionthatculturalsystems,especially art,serve to create orderfrominchoateexperi-ence. Further, hey set out to establish how the residents of Shabaclassify the variousgenresof popularpainting. Szombati-Fabian ndFabiancontentrate n one of these gen-res, Colonie Belge, which centers on the depictionof an Africanprisonerbeing floggedby his African guard while a white administratorooks on. The authorsanalyze thesepaintings from a formal perspective, showing how the use of color and foregroundingcontribute o the essentialpolitical statementof this genre, thatthe little man is as muchoppressedunderthe Mobuturegimeas he ever was under he Belgians.

Szombati-Fabianand Fabianinsist on looking at popularpaintingas a formof com-

municationrather hanas an "ethnographicomainin a structural ystem." Thepaintingsare said to be intimatelylinked to a narrativeandare seen as visual stories which makepeople reflect on theirlives. This generationand transformationf experienceis the es-sence of popularpaintingas process.

The contributionof thisarticle is thatit shifts the focus fromstructureo process. Asthe authorspoint out, the structural nd symbolic classificatoryapproaches"reify"oppo-sitions, like natureandculture.While this type of approachmay succeedin revealingre-lationships not immediately observable,"it fails "to anchor its series of systems ofsignificationeitherin individualrealizations(e.g., the creationof a painting)or in socialprocess (e.g., urbanlife in Shaba)"(Szombati-Fabianand Fabian, 1976: 16). It is thisvery anchoringof culturalsystems in individualdecision-makingandin social process-

es-in parta blendingof the best of the Boasianand Durkheimianapproaches-that hassuchpotentialfor Africanartstudies.

The visual communicationsapproach o the studyof Africanartraisestwo criticalis-








doing nTabwa ulture.It alsobringus tothesecondmajorssue: o whatextents artanindependentystemof communicationndto whatextent s it dependentn and nterre-latedwithother ystemswithina culture?

Anthony orgehas dealtwiththisquestion s well ina seriesof articles elatedohisfield research mong heAbelamof New Guinea 1966, 1973,1979).Thisis a differentquestionrom he one raisedbyFernandez, damsandKaepplerboutwhether ifferentdomains reorganized y similarprinciples;atherhisissue revolvesaroundhenatureof meaningand whether t is communicatedn purelyvisualgroundsndependentfother ystems,primarilyanguage, utalsogesture,musicandso on.

Basedon his experiencen New Guinea,Forgeargues hatvisualsystemsareself-contained, otdependentn orderivative f language;heyarenot"illustrationsf whatis beingsaid."Infact,theyareof sucha different ature hat heyareessentially ntrans-latable nto language. To assumetranslatabilitys to be veryWesternn orientation(Forge,1973:187):

The ethnographerof course comes from a culturein which from the earliest years pic-tures aremeant to mean somethingin words,andethnocentricallyassumesthat secureic-

onographies,absolute translatabilitybetween verbal and visual systems, is a featureofhumanculture. There is, of course,no a priorireason why this should be so, indeed noone suggests that all or any music shouldbe translatablento words,why should such an

assumptionbe made aboutvisual communication?

Indeed,Forge(1979:285) takesa veryextremepositionn thisregard,laiming hatnotonlyis visualartnon-translatable,ut f a member f a New Guinea ocietywouldeven

tryto maketheartistic

meanings xplicitn

words, thesystemwouldno longerwork.Thespecialemotional spectgeneratednthecreative ct andceremonialse"would edissipatednaconsciousdecoding f a visualmessage."

Given hisseparation,ow,then,can oneunderstandhevisualartsof NewGuinea?Accordingo Forge,Abelampainting s a self-containedystemconsistingof severalbasicformal lements("spiritace,""man's air," flying oxes"andthelike)whicharenamed, utthesenamesareof noexplanatoryaluewhatsoevers theirapplications toovariable.Thesegraphic lements,withtheiralternativemeanings, rearrangedn aes-thetically leasingwaysand attain heireffectivenessn emotionallyharged itualcon-texts Forge,1978:189):

... in an artsystem such as Abelamflat painting,elements, in this case graphicelementsmodifiedby colour,carrythemeaning. The meaningis not that a paintingor a carving sa pictureor representation f anything n the naturalor spiritworld,rather t is about the

relationshipbetween things. The meaningsmay well be at severallevels, thusthe bandsof paintingson a northernAbelam facade are paintingsof things, but they also have amoreimportantmeaningnot immediatelyaccessibleor containedmerelyin thenameof aclass of spirits;such meanings as the natureof man andthe natureof woman,relevanttothe access to supernatural ower, these lower level meaningsare, in short,cosmologicalandtheological.

Ultimately,hesemeanings re as patternedndunconsciouss grammarornative

speakers,andacquired njust the same way throughsocialization. It is a system that"ex-ists and operatesbecause it is not verbalizedandprobablynot verbalizable; t communi-








cates only to those socialized to receive it"(Forge, 1973: 191). As Szombati-Fabian ndFabian(1976:19) pointout, Forge'sview is pessimisticandnominalistic; t does not leavemuch hope for the ethnographerwho is not socialized in the culture ever to be able to

give more than a few combinatoryrules and general meanings.Whether or not one ac-cepts Forge'sassumptionsaboutthe natureof visual systems (which seem unduly pessi-mistic and rule out a priori inquiryinto the interrelationships f the arts) the questionsthat he raisesabout the sui generis natureof art areof real significance;it is thus surpris-ing thatthey have rarelybeen raisedsystematically n regard o Africanart.

Oneexceptionis Malcolm McLeod's(1976) articleon "VerbalElementsin West Af-ricanArt." McLeodquestionswhether it is not a Westernbias to assume that the catego-ry "sculpture"s in some way a unity. He suggests thatrather here aredifferenttypes of

sculptural ystems which differ along two dimensions:first, the degree to which they are

dependentupona verbalsystem of communication,and second, the extent to which theyexpressaxiomatic values in a final form.

Unlike Forge,who arguesthat visual systems areby nature ndependentandmustbeunderstoodtotally on their own terms, McLeod suggests that there may indeed be twodifferent kinds of systems. The first is essentiallythe type describedby Forge in whichthe meaning derives from the shape, color and rituals in which the objects are used;McLeod'sexamplesinclude the Asanteakua ba andfuneraryheads. But,he argues,thereare also systems in which understandingderives from the interplayof visual and verbalelements, systems such as Asante goldweights, Woyo pot lids, or sculptureused in the

Lega bwamiinitiations. As McLeodpointsout, the convergencebetweenvisual and ver-bal formscreatesa complex communicativeevent (1976: 91):

in theuse ofproverbsn associationwith magesa double ystemof abstractions beingmade: elationshipsf a certainypeareperceived s existingbetween hecreaturesr

thingswhicharethe elements'n theproverbs.. thesearegivenphysical xpressionnthecarving, ndthenbyreference ackto theproverbt is suggestedhat heserelation-shipsalsohold,ormayhold,orshouldhold nthesituationn which he mage s used.

This kind of system, McLeod feels, is more complex and can convey many more mes-sages because of thepermutationshatcan occurin bothverbalandvisual systemssimul-taneously. The next step must be to analyze the actual events in which this interplaytakes place. Given that there is no one-to-one relationshipbetween proverbsor aphor-isms andthe visual imagesused withthem,thekey questionthenbecomes howparticular

meaningsareselectedandmanipulatedn specific contexts.McLeodmakes a furtherdistinctionbetween types of communication ystemsbasedon the relativedominance or dependenceof the images on othercodes. He distinguishesbetween "statement"rt and "process" rt, the formerbeing a system in which the imageis dominantand "sayseverythingwhich needs to be said." This type of imageryis pri-marilyassociated with the glorificationor reinforcementof existing systems of authorityor with expressinggenerallyacceptedpropositionsaboutthenatureof manor society, themajorexamplebeing artsassociatedwith divine kingship. In his discussion of statementarts, McLeod essentially reiterates the ideas developedby Trowell,FraserandColeaboutthe nature,functionsand materialsof leadershiparts. Processart(McLeod, 1976:99), in contrast,refersto systemswhere the images are "part f a continuingseries of acts

and [are]made,modifiedor discardedover time." Processart is linked with othercodes,such as in didacticsystems, and so the image itself need have no permanence; t can be








discardedor renewedat will as partof the ongoing processesof transformation.The ex-

amplein this case would be Kongo nail figures. McLeod'sreturn o a Trowelliandichot-

omy does not adequatelyanswer the importantquestion that he asks. His dichotomy

confuses authority(more or less permanent hierarchicalstructures)with political pro-cesses (which are constantlyundergoing negotiationandredefinition)and makes the as-

sumptionthat statementarts reflectonly the formerstructure.In contrast, n heranalysisof the Saklavapalace, Feeley-Harnik 1980: 583) shows

that the most permanentand stable of all Saklavastructuress really an "architecturefsocial change,"a deliberateattempt o resolve tensions amongdomestic,local andpoliti-cal loyalties "bytransforming he local loyalties of 'kinsmen' havana)into the widerpo-litical loyalties of 'people'(olo), to changekinship intocitizenship." Artforms, thus,canbe used in the transformationof perceptionsaboutauthorityas much as in its mainte-nance. Nevertheless,theremayindeed be differentsystemsof visual artisticcommunica-tion at workwithin any one cultureand ultimately, f one could isolate them, it would be

possible to comparehow different visual systemsoperate n differentculturesand to seehow visual artsystems interactwith the verbalandperformingarts as well. Certainlythiswould be an importantdirectionto take, as both Biebuyck (1983) and Vansina (1984:126-28)pointout.

HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM

FranzBoas was a German-born thnologistwith museumtraining who was instru-mentalin developing this approach n Americananthropology.6Theoretically,Boas wasa majoropponent of the then-dominantnotion of cultural evolution on the groundsthat

there could not be one formulaapplicable to all cultures. He argued,instead, that it isnecessaryto carefullybuildupknowledgeof particular ultures n termsof theirenviron-ments and individualhistories,a goal that could only be accomplishedthrough ntensivefieldwork.

Boas' classic book PrimitiveArt (1927) was in large measurean attack on scholarssuch as Haddon,Stolpe,Holmes andRead,who advocated he evolution of artisticforms.These scholarssought to determinethe earliest formof design, whethergeometricor nat-uralistic,and its subsequentdevelopmentaway from or towardsthe Victorianideal ofnaturalism. As the focus of theirinterestwas on design, the primitiveartistbecame im-portantonly as a mechanism to explain the directionin which design evolved. The no-tion of scholars like Balfour that "slovenly execution brings about deteriorationof

pattern" Boas, 1927: 130) implied a difference between primitive capacities and ourown, which Boas rejected. Rather,he started romthepremiseof "the undamental ame-ness of mentalprocesses in all races and all culturalforms"(Boas, 1927: 1) so thatwhatis of importance s the specific context-geographical andhistorical-in which artdevel-ops (for a discussionof thisperiodin artstudies, see Gerbrands,1957:25-65).

The key to Boas' approachwas his notion of artas arisingfrom technicalskill andreachingculturallydefinedstandardsof excellence. A feeling of aestheticpleasurecamefromthis sense of masteryand virtuosityin attainingperfectform. The individualartist,then,was at the center of Boas' theory. He stronglyobjectedto the evolutionaryviewsof scholarssuch as Balfour,who claimedthattheprimitiveartist s a copier who, throughhis

sluggish imagination,"findsit easier to

copy thanto invent"(Boas, 1927: 156). Onthe contrary, or Boas the artistrarelycopies at all. Whatcreated imits to inventivenesswas style itself in the sense that each artistworked within a frameworkof conventions








(1927: 156).Boas' impactcame not only from his writings but from the directionshe set for his

students,many of whom were sent to do art projects.The results include some of the

most important arlystudies of NorthAmericanIndianart,such as Bunzel'sworkon Pue-blo potters(1929). Two of Boas' students,OlbrechtsandHerskovits,went to Africa. 01-brechtsmade a tripto FrenchWest Africa (1933) and thensent his own students,Maesenand Vandenhoute,to study the culturalposition of carvers in the Ivory Coast (Maesen,1960;Vandenhoutediscussed in Gerbrands,1957:78-93). Boas'otherstudent,Herskov-

its, did ethnographicresearchin the Fon Kingdomof Dahomey in the 1930s, which in-cluded a descriptionof the craft guild system (1938b) and a brief study of symbolism(1941). Herskovitswas very much influencedby Boas'views on artand he proceededto

develop them in regardto the African continent. Like Boas, he traineda generationofstudents who carriedout research on African art (see references for Bascom, Cordwell,

Crowley, d'Azevedo, Fernandez,Merriam,Messenger, Ottenberg,Schneider, Vaughanand Wolfe), some of whom have continuedthis interestthroughoutheircareers.

Herskovits'startingpoint (1945, 1959) was the Boasianinsistenceon theuniversalityof artisticactivity and the necessity of understanding rt within specific culturalcontexts

(1945, 1959). Herskovits (1959: 49) did not argue against evolutionism, which by the1940s and 1950s was not an issue in art studies, butratheragainstthe notion of "primi-tive mentality,"derived, he felt, from the ideas of the FrenchanthropologistLevy Bruhlas well as Jungianand otherpsychological theories. Applied to art, this entailed a viewof primitiveartists as conformist,irrationaland totally absorbedin religion. Herskovitsfelt that members of other cultures were no more mystical than we were and arguedin-stead for a multiplicityof artistic motivations(includingthe possibly hereticaleconomic

motive)and for the

capacityof artsto

changeand

adaptwithout

degenerating. Indeed,Herskovits(1959: 64-7) went beyond Boas' interestin culturaldynamicswithin specificregions to look at change in the broadestperspective,thatis, to focus on the forces of ac-culturationn situationsof colonial dominationand how theseforces affectedthe arts.

Like Boas, Herskovitsstressed the importanceof creativityand individualvariabilitywithinothercultures. For him (Herskovits,1959:51), creativitywas inherent n the veryprocess of artisticproduction:"Itseems inevitable that the artist,by the nature of his

gifts should in any society be to some degree an individualist. The very act of artisticcreationmakes it necessary to questionin some measurewhat has gone before." What

really interestedHerskovitswas the natureof artists n othercultures. Were theretypesof artisticpersonality? To whatextent was artisticcharactera result of personalmake-up

and to what extent culturalpatterning? The ultimategoal of art studies for Herskovitswas to find "the springs of individual inspirationand the cultural conditioning out ofwhich [African]art hasrisen"(1945: 58).

Boas and Herskovitsestablished a conceptual frameworkfor the understandingofAfricanart that led to a series of studies looking specifically at the topics of the artist,creativity,aesthetics,andchange.Theirapproachs evidenced notjust in thetopics inves-tigatedbut in the kinds of questions asked, and the assumptionsaboutwhat is importantto investigate.The majordifferencebetween the "generations" f Boas and Herskovitsandof theirstudents is that the former had an agenda which was to establishthe univer-sality of technical and mental capacities. Subsequentscholars did not have to fight thisbattle. Moreover,there was by then a body of literature albeit not a large one) which

brought o the fore the varietyandcomplexityof artisticexperiences in differentcultures.This led to questions aboutartand artistry hatwere beyond the scope of earlierinquir-ies.








cher (1976, 1984), Bascom (1973), Beier (1963), Borgatti(1979b), Carroll(1961, 1967),Chappel (1972), Dickerson (1979), Johnson(1986), Nunley (1979), Peek (1985), Rich-ards(1977) andThompson(1969) have studiedindividualartists,providingbrief life his-

tories,describingtheirpersonalities,andgiving some sense of how they were receivedbytheirpeers. With all this, however, therehas not been an extensive life history along thelines of the portraitof Nisa, a !kungSan woman (Shostak 1982), which gives us an in-depthunderstanding f what it means to be an artist n an Africansociety. As Biebuyckpoints out in his overview (1983: 105-10), thereis a need for more ethnohistory,autobi-ography,and studies of socializationprocesses.

The other direction taken is sociological, to delineate the recruitment, raining,roleand social positionof the artistand,whereapplicable,the organizationof thearts in soci-ety (Ben-Amos, 1975, 1978, 1986; Brain andPollock, 1971;Bray, 1969;Crowley, 1973;Dark, 1973;d'Azevedo, 1973b;Dewey, 1986b; Hallpike,1968;Lloyd, 1953;McNaugh-ton, 1979a;Messenger, 1973;Neaher, 1976, 1979;Reinhardt,1975; Smith, 1986a;Vau-

ghan, 1973). A variegatedpicture of African artists emerges from all these studies:trainingcan be formalized or informal;skill is in some places considered n-born, n oth-ers acquiredthroughsupernaturalntervention;artistswork individuallyor in organizedgroups;they are highly respected in some cases, despised in others, seen as special insome, as just anotherhandy person in others. The varietyis bewilderingand even now,over ten years since d'Azevedo(1973c: 12) called for "further tudies thatwill focus onartistsemploying the same media in differentcultures or on a comparisonof the domi-nantexpressionsof artistryn a numberof societies of differenttypes," littlecomparativework hasbeen done.

Is therea correlationbetween any of these sociological variablesandartisticproduc-tion? In a study (1975) comparingcarvingin the

royalwoodcarvers'

guildwith that of

the organizationof palace pages in the Benin Kingdom,I suggest that therewas a rela-tionship among recruitment, rainingand attitudestowardcarvingon the one hand andstyle, composition and variationsin skill and appreciationof innovationon the other.Carvers rained n theguild, with its long periodof familialtraining, ack of internalcom-petitiveness,and strongreligious orientation,were much more conservativein style andapproach o innovationthanthe pages recruited rom a varietyof backgrounds,who weretaughtto carve as a pastime in a competitive settingwhere the goal was to curryfavorwith the king and chiefs. The carvingscoming fromeach of thesegroupsdiffer in com-position,style, andchoice of subjectmatter.

In a broadercomparativestudyof similarfactors,Kasfir(1985) analyzesthe degreesof

uniformityn

style andcontentand of innovation, firstin settingswheretraining s in-formalandevery male potentiallycan carve (as amongthe Idoma,Tiv, IgbiraandKala-bari), and then in settings where carving is a specialized skill involving formalizedtraining(such as the case of the Dogon, Senufo, Yorubaand Dan). Examiningseveralfactors, such as incentives for creativity,accessibilityof a touristmarket,economic re-wards for establishedcarversto takeon apprentices,andtypesof patronagerelationships,she suggests thatthere will be a greateruniformity n both style andcontentundera for-mal apprenticeship(as in the case of Kuba ndop figures) and much more variabilitywhere learningis informal,especially where thereis an entrepreneurialttitudetowardsinnovation(e.g., Tiv kwaghirgroups). These suggestionsare preliminary,but they cer-tainly point the way to the kinds of comparisonsthatare much needed at this point in

orderto understandbettertherelationshipof artisticproduction o sociological factors.A recent development within sociologically-orientedstudies has been the concern

with gender. Interesthas focused on womenartists(Aronson,1984;Jules-Rosette,1977),








on male and female creativity (articles by Ben-Amos, Daly, Eicher, and Erekosima,Dewey, Glaze, Perani,Smith and Wolff in a special 1986 issue of AfricanArts), andonthe social and ideological factorsaffectingthe strict differentiationbetween male and fe-

maleartisticactivities (Adams, 1980;Ottenberg,1983; andTeilhet, 1978).While the first type of study discussed-that of the single artist-ultimately derives

from Westernappreciationof the individualityof artists,the latter(in its most extreme

form)couldjust as easily be aboutfarmersor priestsin the sense thatthese are studies inthe sociology of a profession. Some kind of middle groundis needed,whereartistsareseen as artistsin their interactionswith each other, with theirpatronsand with the com-munityat large. To correctthis calls for more studiesof the socialization andtrainingofartists,analysesof interactionswithin workshops,secretsociety camps,or wherever art-ists interact with each other and with patrons,and inquiries into the visual conceptssharedby the artist and his community. A discussion follows of a series of key studies,selected not becausethey are examplesof the Boasianmodel, but becausethey areexem-

plarsof the kind of approachwhich can lead to an understanding f thesequestions.In his article on "Artistand Criticin an AfricanSociety"(1961), Paul Bohannande-

scribes the interactions hatgo on aroundTiv carvers at work. Bohannan'spurposeis toturnour attentionaway from the creativityof the single artist to the broadercontext inwhich artisticevaluation takesplace. In one vignettehe depictsan elderTiv carverbeingharassedby a youngerman insisting on more naturalisticbreasts on a female figure;inanother a bystanderinfuriatesBohannanby constantlyinterrupting he anthropologist'sinterviews with a calabashcarver to offer his own evaluations and relativerankingsofcalabashes. The Tiv are enthusiasticcritics andtheirongoing evaluationsplay an impor-tantrole in the process of carving. Importantas this articleis, it did not really stimulatefurtherresearch

along this line; althoughseveral scholars have pointedout the existenceof indigenouscriticsand the typesof contextsin which criticismtakesplace, none has ac-

tually analyzedthe situationper se.A similar acunaexists in thestudyof patronage although t has been well studiedin

the Europeancontext). In some of the literatureaboutartistsare glimpses of thiskind ofsocial relationship.Warrend'Azevedo,for example, paintsa vivid pictureof the interac-tion that takes place when representativesof the women's Sande society commission amaskfrom a male carver. Thereis an inherenttensionin the fact that here is a man dan-gerously close to women's secrets. The carverplays on the brink, hintingat unlawfulknowledge, actingreluctantor demandinganddefiant;the women act seductive,promis-ing himgreatsatisfactions. There are strugglesall along the line, notjust at thecommis-

sioningbuteven more as the workproceeds. The degreeandkind of inputin the choiceof designsand even the name given the mask is verymuchup for negotiation. Thejokesandsexual innuendoshide a very seriousstrugglefor positioningvis-a-vis the supernatu-ral (d'Azevedo, 1973a: 145-49). This is precisely the kind of informationneeded,but itmustbe developed and analyzedat length. A special issue of AfricanArts (1980) is thefirstconcertedeffort to deal withpatron-artistnteractionsn Africa. This collectioncon-tributesmuch needed informationabout the types of social obligations that obtain be-tween artist and patron, the nature of demands that can be placed, and the economicfactorsthatinfluencethe interactionsamongthe Akwete Igbo, Maconde,Isoko andNupe(Aronson,Kasfir,Peek andPerani,1980).

One of the most interestingandpotentiallyuseful studiesof patronage s HenryDre-

wal's "Art,Historyand the Individual" 1984), in which he arguesthat the understandingof artforms must include not only the relationshipsof artists andpatronsbut also thatofthe caretakersandinheritors, ndeed,a whole social networktiedby commonconcernsof







28 AFRICAN TUDIESREVIEW

descentand cult affiliation o specificobjects.Thus,as Drewalpointsout (1984: 87),"given his context,the studyof art in Africarequireshe examinationf objectsasevolvingcreationsof particularndividualswith clearlydefinedrelationshipso each

otherand o theartobjectovera periodof time." Drewalpresentsase studiesof severalobjects, howinghowa varietyof factors-personalmotivations,ndividualeactionsoevents, heresultsof divination-allaffectaestheticdecisionsandartisticusages. Whatis significantboutDrewal's pproachs that t integrateshe individualrtistic ecisionswithina socialmatrix.Ultimately, ccordingo Drewal(1984:98):

the examinationf individual ecision-makingrocesses angenerate ypotheses boutobservable umanbehavior-hypotheseshatprovidea closercorrespondenceetweenabstracttructural odelsandactualpracticesn aculture.Thesystematic tudyof indi-viduals discloseswhy certain hoicesaremadeandhowthesystemworks.

Drewal's approach,however, does not explain the link between these structuralmodelsandactualpractices,nor why the formershould be significantat all. Yet structuralprin-ciples are the "tools"used by personsin makingday-to-dayartisticdecisions, as Karpand

Maynard xplain (1983: 491):

Whats significantorunderstandingherelationshipetweentructurendagencys notso much he ogicalprinciple sthetransformationtundergoesn thehands f agentsas

theymovefromcontext o context .. [these ransformationsre]an elementn thepro-duction f orderedctivities ymembersf society.

To understandhow these principles operatein the context of art we will look at twostudies, both of which arise out of non-Boasianintellectualtraditions,while each pro-vides an importantperspectiveon the relationshipamongart, the individualand society.The firstis MichaelBaxandall'sanalysisof PaintingandExperienceIn FifteenthCenturyItaly (1972). In thisbook, the knowledgeandexperiencebothartistsandpatronsbringtothe creationand comprehensionof artworks is one of his mainconcerns. Baxandallin-vokes a particularkind of dynamic between the artistand his customer,each bringingparticular kills and sharedunderstandings o bear on the visual experience. The artisthad obe awareof thepatrons'ensibilities, tthesame imethat hepatron ad obe "onhis mettle"n viewingthepainting.Bothparties hared knowledge f meanings eadinto movement ndgesture hatderived romthedanceandfromtheverbalmagery f

preachersndorators. The skillswhichwereexercisedandappreciatedy theviewerwere extensions of the everydaytechnicalandsocial skills of thatsociety, drawn in largemeasurerom hedemands f 15th-centuryommercialife, suchas theability o gaugevolume.There s no directrelationshipetweencommerce ndartisticproduction,utrather, theprinciples f oneareconsistentwith theprinciples f theother.What elatesthem s not a commonnexus,but theapplicationf thesameskillsacquiredn everydaylife ... to theordering f two separate omains f socialexperience"KarpandMay-nard,1983:401). Baxandall'sexciting ideas could well be appliedto thestudyof Africanart;it would be possible to determine what skills of everydaylife are broughtto bear inpresenting and comprehendingart, what shared understandingsand expectationsexistwithin the culturefor properartisticform. All these are within the capabilitiesof social

researchandwould lend new insights.The second directionto pursueis the relationshipof artistsand theircontemporaries








to broadercultural modes and concerns, which is well broughtout in Szombati-Fabianand Fabian'sstudyof popularpaintingin Zaire(1976), discussedearlier.They view pop-ularpaintingas inseparable romthe contextof urban ife in Shaba.(A similarview is ex-

pressed in Hinckley, 1986, and Jules-Rosette, 1977, 1978, 1979.) Szombati-FabianandFabian see popularart as not just a reflection but an articulationof the ways in whichpeople come to understand theirpast and theirpresentsituation:artists not only expressbut bringto consciousness the tensions,pains andproblemsof life underthe Mobuture-gime. This is on one level what d'Azevedowas saying aboutthe artistbeing a mediatorbetween individualandcollective; the approachperceivesof the artistas an active formu-lator of attitudes and as partof a broaderculturalscene. Whatis suggestedthen,is thatto understandartists it is necessaryto look at several levels: the immediatedynamicsofinteractionsamong artistsand theirpatronsand critics as well as the ideological frame-work within which they operate, the common assumptionsand aspirations,the knowl-edge andskills sharedandexpressed.

Creativity

As mentionedearlier,Boas reactedstrongly against evolutionists like Balfourwhosaw the artist as essentially a copier. Boas claimed thatprimitiveartistsrarelyif evercopied butrelied on theirown virtuosity. Nevertheless,Boas did not consider these art-ists to be very innovative. He felt thatprimitivecultureswere conservativeandthatcrea-tivity was limitedby a numberof factors,foremostamongthesebeing the canonsof styleprevalentat the time (1927: 356). Although Boas' reasoningwas based on his under-standingof the natureof small-scalesocieties, his dichotomousview of tradition/culture

versus innovation/individualdid not move him far fromthe evolutionists andothers whoviewed primitive culture in a similar way. This conception of small-scale cultures asbeing conservativeand norm-boundprobably derived as much or even more from thefunctionalistparadigm;nevertheless, it influenced the approachto creativity of mostscholarsbeforethe 1950s andcontinuedto be held even after.

Daniel Biebuyck'svolume of essays Traditionand Creativity n TribalArt (1969) isthe majorforumfor discussion of this issue. In his introduction 1969: 1-23), Biebuyckposes the key question:"Howcan we deal with individualtaste, skills, and temperamentin communities that focus heavily on corporatesolidarity?"1969: 7) In a very Boasianvein, he delineates the limitations within which artistswork, such as the purposeanduseof objects, the kinds of demandsmade, the type of criticismlevied and its

impact,and

the statusand motivationof the artist. Societies, Biebuyck claims, vary in the rigidityand flexibility with which rules are made and sanctioned. Not all appreciate nnovationandnovelty to the samedegree.

Althoughthis is clearly an importantpoint, it was not takenup in researchfor over10 yearsuntil HarrySilver'sstudy(1981a) entitled"CalculatingRisks: the Socioeconom-ic Foundationsof AestheticInnovation n an AshantiCarvingCommunity." Silverelab-orates on Biebuyck's point by suggesting that there are specific socio-economicconditionsthatinfluence the degree and kind of innovativebehaviorcarversare willingto undertake. He relates innovationto social position and high ranking,which providesome carverseitherthe necessary security for takingrisks or the totalabsence of securitywhich

necessitates the same behavior,but the productionof differenttypes of objects.While it is difficultto judge to whatextenthis conclusionsaregeneralizable o artistsnotinvolved in a free marketeconomy, his proposal of correlationsbetweeneconomic and








social variables are of interest and add specific dimensions of comparabilityto Bieb-uyck's suggestions.

Biebuyck seems to be suggesting a continuumbetween traditionand creativity in

whichdifferentvariablesdetermine he relativepositioningof a culturealong thecontinu-um. The question is: do these two conceptsactuallystandin a relationshipof opposition?In his concludingremarks o this volume, Sieber (1969: 193) criticizesthe tendencyofscholarsto "establisheither-orcategorieswithoutadequatelyexploringthe alternatives."In actuality,the relationshipof creativityto tradition s not one of opposition,as Thomp-son's masterfulstudy (1969) of the YorubapotterAbatan demonstrates. In this article

Thompson ooks at the religious framework n which Abatan worksas well as herdevel-opmentthroughtime. He demonstrates orcefully that traditionand innovation"form nherworksa dynamicunity, thatis, herartis embedded n cultureand yet is autonomous"

(1969: 121). Indeed, the basic fallacy underlying he traditionversus creativitydichoto-

my is that we areusing

ourown culturalyardstick

o measure at whatpoint

aperceiveddeviationbecomes an innovation.

Several studies suggest thatthere are ways to deal with creativitythat do not involve

imposing one's own definitions on other people's work. This entails shifting the focus

awayfrom theromanticview of the lone creativeindividualacceptingthe limitations m-

posed by his society or fighting againstthemand looking at the process of creationandthe indigenous conceptsof what innovation entails. JaneGoodale andJoanKoss (1967)try to set up a frameworkfor understanding reativebehaviorcross-culturally,utilizingthe Tiwi of Australiaas an example. They identifyspecific behaviors and attitudesthatcharacterizecreativitybased on the work of the psychologist JeromeBruner.These in-clude an initialseparationof the artistfrommundaneactivities,a channelingof impulses

into culturallyacceptableformal arrangements,periods of quietude or incubation whenthe artist selectively corrects the original image, and of contemplationand inspirationprior to the enactment of the art. Goodale and Koss see these as stages in a processwhich can be observedand, more likely, inferredfrom the behavioranddiscussions ofTiwi artists. Although psychological processes are notoriouslydifficult to interpret nother cultures, not to mention one's own, nevertheless, behavior can be observed-isolation,contemplation,pace of work-and joined with local explanations o arriveat anotion of processesinvolved.

However limited the informationon indigenousnotionsof creativityis in general, itis particularly o for Africa. My own preliminary esearch(1986) suggests thatthereis apattern n Africa of linkingdivine creationto artisticcreation,a linkagewhich is often ex-

pressed in languageitself, the same verbbeing used for both processes. In manymyths,primordial reation s presentedas an essentiallyartisticact:God is a molder,carver,pot-teror builder. ArensandKarp(n.d.) in a discussionof creativityandpowerfind a similarpatternof associations between creativityand "fashioning." Although little has beenwrittenaboutthis to date, it is clearthatconceptsof creativityare crucialto the verydef-inition of art.Certainlywhere thereare no concepts of art or artistthatexactly overlapour own, theremay indeed be concepts of creativitythatare keys to indigenousevalua-tionsandexpectations.

As JanVansinapoints out (1984: 138), innovation s prizedin manysocieties;forex-ample, among the Kuba the inventionof a new decorativedesign was so valued thatitthereafterwas calledby thenameof its maker.Yet analyses of indigenousconceptsof in-novationareveryrarein the literatureon Africanart. One exceptionis C. O. Adepegba'sstudy of "Ara: he Factor of Creativityin YorubaArt"(1983). According to Adepegba(1983: 61), the noun ara, when used with da, the verb "tocreate," means "tocreatenov-








elties, performwonders, especially in the case of magical feats; make patternson anycraftobject;embellish, decorateor make acceptable,and set a fashion." By referringtohistoricalaccounts, proverbs and contexts of daily conversationsin which Yoruba ex-

claim over novelties, Adepegba groundsthe appreciationof creativity n Yoruba ife. Hesees it in particularas related to the competitive drive to be outstanding,distinctive,which informsYorubaapproaches o clothes,houses andotherartforms.

Aesthetics

The Boasianconceptionof aestheticswas firmlybasedin individual eelings andex-periences: the satisfaction of the skilled artistmasteringdifficultproblems,the pleasureof the viewer contemplatingperfectly achieved form (Boas, 1927: 349). These, heargued,hadto be universal. Like Boas, Herskovitswas an advocate of the universalityofartistic

expressionand

appreciation.But he noteda

conceptualandmethodologicalprob-lem that Boas had not: the absence of a culturaldiscourseon aesthetics. Accordingtohim (Herskovits,1959: 47), "Whatdistinguishesthe appreciationof art among smaller,nonliteratesocieties and in a great,highly specializedaggregate such as our own is thattheir standardsare not verbalized." In the same year, Sieber was to come to the sameconclusion with his notion of the "unvoicedaesthetic"(1959). Merriam(1964: 269)arguedagainst them that the idea of an unvoicedaesthetic was a contradictionn terms.He went on to comparetheWesternaesthetic(a compositeof six factors such as psychicdistance)with what he knew of the Basongye and theFlatheadIndians,as well as resultsof others'research. His conclusion (Merriam,1964a:269-70) was thatthe Westernaes-thetic was probablythe special productof a special culture,althoughthereare othercul-

tures that seem to share some Westernaestheticattitudes.The issues raisedby this debatewere theoreticaland methodological. Do othercul-

tures have an aesthetic?If so, and it is unvoiced, how can we ever hope to know it? Inhis seminalpaper "A StructuralApproachto Aesthetics: Toward a Definition of Art inAnthropology,"d'Azevedo(1958) attempts o deal with theseissues by formulatinga def-inition of aestheticswhich is applicablecross-culturallyandbehaviorablyobservable. Todo this, he explicitly develops the Boasian view of aestheticswithina culturalcontext.His portrayal(1958: 706) of the gracefulpresentationof papayasby a young girl to achiefs visitors is an example (anda useful one, precisely because he does not use sculp-ture)of his definitionof aestheticobjectsas thoseparticular bjectsor events that"areca-pable of being perceived as significant form-that is, they are capable of evokingsignificancethroughesthetic evaluationto which may be ascribed an affective aspect ofenhancementor enjoymentanda rationalaspectof ideation." Lookedat culturally, hesevalues arenot intrinsicto the objectsbutarepartof socio-cultural ystems.They arecru-cial to affective experiences, that is, experiencesof the "especiallymeaningful,the newinsight,the consciousunityof feeling, or the shock of recognitionemergingfromthecor-respondencesperceivedbetween the qualitiesof an estheticobject and theiraffinites tothesubjectiveexperienceof the individual"d'Azaledo,1958:708).

This attemptto arrive at a cross-culturaldefinitionof aestheticswhich does not startfrom our preconceivednotions of appropriate estheticobjects is a useful one. Certainlystudiessuch as RobinHorton'son the Kalabari 1965b) andJamesVaughan'son the Mar-ghi (1973) indicate that

typesof

sculpturewhich

we wouldautomaticallyconsiderto beof aesthetic importanceare not so considered in these cultures,the focus of aestheticelaboration and criticism rather being placed on performances. Nevertheless,








d'Azevedo'sapproachhas not hadthe impactit should. Indeed,one finds few referencesto this type of experience at all in the literatureon Africanart. Elsewhere, among theAika of PapuaNew Guinea, Erik Schwimmernotes (1979: 289) that the key aesthetic

notion is tunga javotoho, "throatgood," something that is so good that it seizes yourthroat. In searchingfor conditionsthat arousethis feeling, he finds themin the contextofAika dancecompetitions. Studies of African aestheticshave not started romthepointoffeelings states or qualitativeexperiences. As Ottenbergpoints out (1971: 17),

The study of the emotionalelement in aestheticsis perhapsthe most difficultareaof allto work in, except in a very gross manner.The feelings of artistsandof viewers arenot

easily reducibleto scholarlylanguage.The anthropologist,whose business it should be towork in this area n his studyof cultures,has generallyavoidedit.

To date there have been a numberof field studies of Africanaesthetics(Abi6ddin,1983; Bohannan, 1956; Boone, 1986; Borgatti, 1982; Brink, 1981; Chappel, 1972 and

1977; Child and Siroto, 1965; Cole, 1982; Cole and Aniakor, 1984; Cordwell, 1952;Crowley, 1958, 1966, 1973; Dewey, 1986b; Drewal, 1980; Fernandez, 1966; Lawal,1974; McNaughton, 1979b; Messenger, 1958; Ravenhill, 1980; Schneider, 1956 and1966; Silver, 1983; Thompson,1968, 1973a andb; Vandenhoute,1945;andVogel, 1979and 1980). In the main these studies have workedwith two distinctnotions of whataes-theticsentails,each of which leads to differentresearchmethodsanddifferent(butsome-times overlapping) results. The first approach considers aesthetics to consist of thecritical standardsapplied to a particular et of events or objects, most commonly sculp-ture. These standardsare obtainedthrough he normalcourse of interviewsand observa-

tions, throughsituationsin which local people are askedto evaluatephotographs Childand Siroto) or a row of sculptures(e.g., Crowley, Vogel, Fernandez,Thompson).Fromthe statementsa series of criticalstandardsare deduced. In the main,the listingof thesecriteriawith some cultural explanationis considered sufficient, althoughin one studyVogel (1979) comparesthe standardsof two cultures, the Baule and the Yoruba. Shefound a numberof similarities,such as the appreciation or shininess, smoothnessandyouthfulness,as well as for skillful controlof formand line. The meritof this approachis its attemptto go beyond individualcultures,but the problemis that,withoutinforma-tion on the broaderculturalbackgroundof these two groups,does one know that theseformalqualitiesareconceptualized n exactly the same ways andmeanthesamethings?

The problemof broadermeaningis not confinedto this one studybutpermeatesall

the studiesthatevoke critical statementsout of context.The very act of doing so revealsthat the underlyingassumptionof the methodologyis the Western notion that isolationfromcontext(in a line up of figures)is suitableandeven necessaryforobtainingaesthet-ic judgments.The choice of objects is also Western-in the main it is representationalsculpture.Vansina(1984) points out how problematic hese typesof "beauty ontests"arein termsof the samplesof personsused, thetypesof objectschosen, andthenatureof therelationshipof theparticipantso theseparticular bjects.

The most interestingstudiesof aestheticevaluationarethose thatprovidea sense ofthe social context, such as Bohannan'sarticleon Tiv carversandcritics. Otherssimilarlyprovide contextual information;Thompson (1973b: 21), for example, delineates thetypesof circumstances n which one can findevaluationsbeing madeamongthe Yoruba:festivals, commercialtransactions nvolving sculpture,admonitionsof masterto appren-tice, and mutualcriticismamong sculptors. Similarly,in a fascinatingarticle,CatherineDaly, JoanneEicher and Tonya Erekosimaprovide a view of the critical contexts for








dressing in Kalabariculture (1986). From an early age childrenobserve and overhearconversationsaboutproperattire. Much attentionis paid to planninga costume,tying iton, matchingcolors, choosing accessories. Before leaving a compound,both men and

women check with female elderson the appropriatenessf theirattire. It is in this kindofdiscussion thatwe begin to find out how aestheticcriteriaarelearned,negotiatedandap-plied.

The second approachstartsfrom terms andconcepts in the local language: s thereaword for beauty?What kinds of words generally are used to make evaluations and inwhat contexts are they used? How do they relate to broaderculturalconcepts? MichelLeiris andJacquelineDelange (1968: 30-48) were very concerned to show that the con-

cept of beautyexists in Africancultures,and cite numerousexamples from francophoneAfrica of words for beautiful, pleasing, prettyand so forth that they consider proof ofaestheticconsciousness. One of the first scholars to examine the context of use of aes-thetic terminologyis Harold Schneider(1956, 1966). He found that the Pakot verballydistinguish between objectsthatare useful and those which area pleasing embellishmentwith no utilitarianaspect. He proceededto examine to what kindsof objects these termsare applied, showing where there were disagreementsand variationsamong the Pakot.While the Pakot view of beauty coincides with Europeanstandards, hey apply it differ-

ently-only to embellishments,to decorationsor partsof objects, not necessarily to thewhole object. Schneider saw his taskessentiallyas classificatory,findingthe sorts of ob-

jects to which the termsapplied.Dennis Warren and J. Kweku Andrews (1977) go even farther than Schneider, to

show how individual terms can be arranged nto some order.Using a linguisticallyde-rived approach, hey are able to work out a taxonomyof Akan createdobjects. Whatis

interestingaboutthe Akan

system is thatthe most basic categorization s not by materialor functionbut ratherby process of manufacture forged items, woven items). Furtherclassification, in descending order,is by material or activity involved (entertainmentnthe form of drama, tems forgedfromiron), typesof items or audiences(plays for adults),and lastly specific types of items (woven designs). After establishingthe domainsusedby the Akan,Warrenand Andrews thenprovideexamplesof evaluativetermsemployedin each of them. Unfortunately,as they point out, these statementsare based on theirown knowledge of the language ratherthan actual recordingsin context. Ultimately,then, this methodologydoes not promotemuch understanding f actualusages, althoughit does give a very good sense of how Akanconceive of theirworldof materialculture.

So farthe results of studyingAfricanaestheticshavebeen meageranddisappointing;

the analyses seem curiouslyflat compared,for example, to studiesof Africanritualsym-bolism or cosmologies. In a thoughtfuldiscussion of "Anthropologyand AfricanAes-thetics"Ottenberg 1971: 3) suggests some reasonsfor "this ack of understanding f theAfricanpoint of view despite the rich abundanceof materialwhich mightbe analyzed."He suggests that the studyof Africanarthas been in the handsof Westernscholarswhohave gatheredobjects out of context and used Western-derivedcategories of analysis.Theenormousdifficulties of fieldwork,Ottenbergcontends,addanotherdimensionto theproblem,as few outside observershave the skills and trainingto understand nd analyzethe totalityof aestheticexperience in Africa,which includesnotjust sculpturebutmusic,dance and costume. Agreeing with Ottenberg'sanalysis, one could go even fartherandsuggest that the reasonfor this lack of progressis thatwe have been workingwithin one

particularype of aestheticframework o gatherdatafrompeople who may well be work-ing withinanother.

In his book Aesthetics and Art Theory (1970), Harold Osborne characterizesthe








types of approaches hathave been used historicallyto understand he arts. His delinea-tion is not based on philosophicaltheoriesbut rather he kinds of interest"manifestedbysocial practiceand conceptions and by the fluctuationsof taste as well as the ways in

which people have been accustomed to talk about artand artists"(1970:17). Using hismodel, which is essentially culturallybased and thus appropriateor social scientists, itbecomes clear that the scholars thathave been discussed-Boas, Herskovits,d'Azevedo,as well as those only referred o such as Mills and Maquet-approach art fromthe view-

pointof aestheticexperience,thatis, contemplationsof things for their own sake andthe

heightenedawarenessthat this brings. Accordingto Osborne(1970: 50), this is the view

underlyingformalistic theories of art that have dominated n the West for the last 50 or100 years,and it certainlyhas dominatedthe social approach o the artsin Africa,both intheoreticaldiscussions and actualfield investigations.

Yet the datacollected in the field nearlyalways include material hat is not formallybased. For example, when Cole (1982: 175) talks about the

Igbo adjectivemma,he ex-

plains that it "cansignify goodness (moral), usefulness (functional),beauty (artisticor

physical), enjoyment(as of a performance), uitability(as of an occasion or time)or fit (agarment'fits'well)." Vansina(1984: 132) indicatesthat this is very general:"Inmanycultures 'beautiful'was renderedas 'good'. We saw thatthe link was so strong in somecultures that 'badthings'could not be expressed in art." He concludes (1984: 133) "Iflinks betweenbeautyand the tenor of a cultureare to be exploredfruitfully, heymustex-

pressly be found probablythroughthe analysisof aestheticcriteriaand theirlink to ethi-cal criteriain a given community." Similarly,Ottenberg(1971: 9) sees "profoundand

interestingdeas embeddedin Africanaestheticbehaviorwhichreflectconceptsof the na-ture of manand the universe,values and tradition."But neitherVansina nor Ottenberg

explainswhy this shouldbe so.The answerlies in the fact that Africanaestheticsystems, at least in so faras we nowknow them,arenot of the formalkind,butratherreflectwhatOsbornecalls a "pragmaticapproach o art." This approach nvolves a practical nterest n thepurposeswhich worksof artareconsidered or intended to serve and the effects which arebelieved to flow fromthem. The criteriawhich Osborne(1970: 18) finds germaneto thepragmaticattitudeareof particular ignificance:"thevalue of the purposeserved or thoughtto be servedby aworkof art;the effectiveness of the artwork or thispurpose;and the qualityof its work-manship."The kinds of purposesvaryandcan include edification,propaganda, ommu-nication of moral values, expansion of experience and so on. Looking closely at thereportsof aesthetic notions among the Yoruba,Igbo, Baule, Pakot, Bamana,Chokwe,

Wolof andAkan,one finds clues thatthe core of theiraesthetics is moralityandeffective-ness. Indeed,WarrenandAndrews(1977: 10) explicitly state that"theaestheticvalueofa given Akan artpiece is frequentlybased on the functionalandsymbolicaspectsof thatwork."We have alreadyseen therangeof meaningsassociated with the Igbo wordmma.McNaughton(1979b: 42) points out that for the Bamana,clarity,purity,straightforward-ness, and discernibilityare key aestheticvalues which are also appliedto humanbehav-ior. LeopoldSenghor (citedin LeirisandDelange, 1968:40) claims:

The truth s that the Africanlikens 'beauty' o 'goodness'andespecially to 'efficacy.'Takeforexample theWolof of Senegal. Herethe words tar andrafetareapplied,preferably oman; where works of art are concerned, the Wolof uses the terms dyeja,yem, and mat,

which I would translateas 'suitable', whichmeasuresup to . . .' or 'perfect'. Masks and

poems arebeautifulif they induce the desiredeffect on thepublic-sadness, joy, hilarity,








orterror.. agood deed s oftenspoken f asbeautiful.

The best example, however, comes from the Yoruba. In his importantcatalogue

Black Gods andKings, RobertThompsondiscusses how command,composureandchar-acterare centralto Yorubaculture and art (1971: P/1). Two studiesby Yorubascholars,Babatunde Lawal (1974) and Rowland Abi6ddin 1983) explore in detail the third ofthese, character iwa), in relationshipto beauty (ewa). Thatrelationship s encapsulatedin a proverb:"characters beauty." Accordingto Lawal, the Yorubadistinguishbetweenan outer beauty-surface quality-and an inner beauty-intrinsic worth or character.The iwa of an object is its functionalutilitywhile that of a human is his/herinherentna-tureandmoralcharacter. Outerbeauty is recognizedas superficialandoften misleading.Innerbeautyis relatedto wisdom, sanityandgood health. The critical standards hatYo-rubaapply in aestheticevaluations are both formaland moral as they relate to character,natureandessence. Thatis, those very characteristics ike symmetry,clarityof mass andline, and straightnessthat scholars see as manifestationsof a formalaestheticare betterunderstoodas linked to essentialontologicalnotions of natureandessence. This does notmake themany less aesthetic,butaestheticin a differentway. If what I amarguing s thecase, then studies of Africanaesthetics cannot stop at formalevaluations,or even at un-

derstanding omethingof associatedculturalvalues, but must also investigateethics and

ontology, conceptsof goodness andof the essential natureof humansandtheirworld.

Art and Change

Boas saw cultures as constantlychangingin responseto theirown internaldynamics

or to borrowingand diffusion. Herskovitssharedhis view but, havingworkedin Africaand the New World, was more interestedin the impactof culturecontact. Along thisline, he wrotea book aboutacculturation 1938a) andedited an influentialvolume of es-says with Bascom entitledContinuityand Change in AfricanCultures(1959). His atten-tion was drawnto the enormousimpact of Europeancontact on Africanculturesand tothe varietyof responses and ways of accomodatingchange. With all culturesbeing af-fected, the key question became one of degree (Herskovits and Bascom, 1959: 2):"Wherenew influences impingeon any society, a studentof cultureis at once confrontedwith theproblemof how muchof thepre-existing body of customandbelief is discarded,how muchmodified,andhow muchis retained."

In regardto art,Herskovitstook a rather conoclasticview. In the midst of laments

over the death of traditionalart, in large measurepromptedby the erosionof its source,religion,Herskovitsarguedthat artwas actuallyalive and well. TraditionalAfricanart,he claimed,was always as much secular as religious,as muchmotivatedby economic assacredfactors. In fact, this was whatwas saving it: "The raditionof carvingfora markethasallowed the African to slip withoutpsychologicaldifficultyinto the new situation hatconfrontshim"(1959: 65). Under these new conditions,the arts may vary in quality,assome artistsare betterthanothers,"but t is only in degreethattheydifferfromwhattheydid, not in kind"(1959: 67). For his students,at least, Herskovitssucceeded in establish-ing the studyof changingartforms as a legitimateenterprise,andBascom (1976), Cord-well (1952, 1959), Crowley (1970), Merriam(1974) and Sieber (1962a) all investigatedthisphenomenon.

A number of other scholars have analyzed change as well-Ben-Amos (1976a,1977), Dilley (1986), Elkan (1958), Etienne (1980), Imperato(1971), Jules-Rosette








(1978, 1979), Richter (1978, 1980), Silver (1979, 1980, 1981a and b), Swiderski (1979)and Warrenand Andrews (1980)-revealing certainpatternsof socio-economic change.A majorfactorin artisticchange appearsto be the shift in patronagefrom a commission

system to an open market. This change began in the colonial period,when governmentadministrators isrupted he traditionalpatronagesystem by modifyingthepolitical struc-

ture,removingtraditionaleaders,addingmore amenableones, and so on. Duringthe co-lonial period and after independence, governments often were instrumental in

establishing new institutionalframeworksfor the arts, such as cooperativesand officialschools. Richter (1980: 112) points out, for example, that the governmentof the IvoryCoast set up the Office Nationalde l'Artisanatd'Art n orderto encourage ndigenousartsandattract ourists.

While traditionalpatronagehas declined in many areasdue to social, economic and

religious changes (Biebuyck, 1976; Chappell, 1973; Fouchier, 1983; and O'Hear,1986),there are new patronsamong resident whites, Peace Corps, tourists,and an emerginglocal middle class. For Delores Richter(1980: 3-5) the important hangeis not theemer-

gence of outgrouppatrons-she rightlydemonstrates hat thispracticehas a long historyin Africa-but ratherthe shift to full-time dependenceon the market.With this comes ahost of new institutionsand new relationships. Artists move away from theircompoundsto work in sheds, workshopsand schools. Apprenticescome to them fromdifferenteth-nic backgrounds,with varyingdegreesof experience, and a new system of trainingmustevolve. In these workshopsandcooperatives, people must develop patternsof social in-teractionto cover theirown relationships,no longer basedon kin or residence, and mustalso learn to deal with a whole series of new economic bonds with shop owners,middle-

men,directcustomers,dealers,contractorsandlorrydrivers(Ben-Amos, 1971).

Both HarrySilver (1981a) andRichter(1980) note a very interestingrelationshipbe-tween the position and experience of carvers and their willingness to innovate. Both

found, in Ghana and the Ivory Coast respectively, that carversbreak down into three

types: first, at the lowest socio-economic level, are the hacks and teenagers,who makethebulk of poor qualityitems. They lack skill andtrainingandso stick to a few standarditems which they sell on the tourist market. In the middlerangeare the well-trainedbutnot well-situatedcarvers, who do competentwork but are not in such a good economic

positionthatthey can afford to innovate. They produceitems forboth the traditionalandtouristmarkets,but stay within a limited range of carvings. At the top are the carverswith "impeccable ocal reputations,"who are well-off financially. In Ghanathey own

shops and cocoa farms. These carversproducethe important raditionalarts, like para-

phernalia or Poro in the Ivory Coast. They have the time to work slowly, to produceawide rangeof items, and to take on those carvingsthat are more difficultand culturallyvalued.

These changes in the production,organizationand distributionof art have an enor-mous impacton the formsthemselves. In dealingwith these forms,scholarstendto oper-ate with an implicit typology which distinguishes between distinct artisticproductions,mostcommonly traditional,popular,elite andtourist. The distinction s usuallybased onforms, materials and patrons. Normally a scholar will deal with one of these at a time,seeing them as essentially distinct phenomena. In reality,however, these may not be sodistinct. Certainlythe descriptionsby Silver (1981a) and Richter (1980) show that thesame artistsmay work in morethanone mode. Silver, for example,talksaboutthe high-est rankingcarversmaking,on the one hand,regaliafor the Asanteheneand,on the other,"indigenousinnovations,"that is, culturallyrecognized forms like akuaba or proverbscenes in a naturalistic tyle as well as depictionsof modernscenes like soccer games and








we must ook at thedressused n Baulestatuaryrtassymbolic f achangingtatus ys-tem.Theemulation hichbroughtbout changen Baule ashion,withattendantculp-turalaestheticswas an emulation.. of the newurbanAfrican.Thusa Baulestatue n

modemgarb s neither replica f aEuropeanortheexpressionf awishforaEurope-an otherworld over,butrather desire hatthe 'Baule' therworld overexhibit hose

signsof successorstatushatcharacterizeWhite-orientedrdominated orld.

As Ravenhillshows, and as Szombati-Fabian ndFabian(1976: 17) similarly ndicate,artis "acomplex process in which a society articulatesandcommunicates ts consciousnessof its origins, its past and its presentpredicament."To see it only as an expression, orworse,a survival of thepast, is to ignore its vital role in ongoingculturalexperience.

All threemodels share a view of art as an integralpartof culture. What is distinctiveabout the Boasian-Herskovitsianapproach s, first, that it focuses on the dynamicsof ar-tistic

processes---creativity,aesthetic

experienceand

change (even thoughseen as dis-

tressinglylinear)-and, second, thatit concerns itself with understandingwhat art is as a

phenomenon. While both models consideredearlier makereal contributions,neitherad-dresses theissue of the intrinsicnatureof artnorfocuses on these typesof processes.

CONCLUSIONS

These models continue to influenceresearch n Africanarts well into the 1980s. Thefact that scholars continue to use them without questioning their implicit assumptionsmeans that their problems are perpetuatedas well, and this review has triedto indicatesome of them. The most pervasiveis the view of traditional ocieties as highly integrat-

ed, homogeneous,andslow to change. However, rather hanassumeintegration,we haveto investigateit. In any given culturetheremaybe severalvisual artisticsystemsexistingsimultaneouslyand the nature of theirrelationshiprequiresanalysis. For example,Wil-liam Fagg (1960) noted that in the Benin Kingdomthere is a clear distinctionbetweenwhat he called 'royal'and 'tribal'arts. However, he does not explainhow these systemsinterrelate. Are therecontexts in which they come together? Is therea sharingof sym-bolism? If not, whatis the culturalmeaningof this distinction? Whathappenswhen thesameartistsproducefor both? By concentratingon one artisticsystem,whetherbasedongeography(urbanversus rural)or on media (brasscastingversus woodcarving),we arenotaddressinghow these systems interact n actualpractice.

The same criticismholds for the studyof change. Instead ofassuming

thatAfricanculturesare slow to change, the question should be open to investigation. Janzen'sdis-cussion of the revolutionaryaspect of minkisi production n Kongo culture was men-tioned earlier. To add anotherexample, investigationsin the Benin Kingdomindicatethat a revolution in formsandiconograpytook placebetween 1690 and 1750 (Ben-Amos,1984). Further esearch n Africa will undoubtedlyuncoversimilarexamples.

During the course of this overview, I have tried to point to some directions thatmight fruitfullybe pursued. In conclusion, I would like to highlightfour areaswhichseem to be critical. Scholarsof artare reallyjust beginningto explore indigenous Afri-can concepts of creativity,aesthetics and performance(q.v. Adepegba, 1983; Abi6dlin,1983, andLawal, 1984; Drewal andDrewal, 1983). Yet, if we areever to be able to meet

Mudimbe'schallenge(1986) to disengageAfricanart fromWesterncategories,further e-searchinto indigenous concepts is essential. Certainly,Westerndichotomiesof aesthet-ics andfunction,traditionandmodernityhave not facilitatedunderstanding f indigenous








concepts.Second, if we aregoing to takeseriouslythe notionof Africanartas communication,

we mustlook carefullyat how the visual artsrelateto music, danceand oralperformance.

Biebuyck, Ottenberg and Vansina have already made this plea. Papers given byAbi6ddin,Arnoldi, Brett-Smith,the Drewals, Kazadi and Ottenbergat a conference in1980 on the Relationshipbetween the Visual and Verbal Arts in Africa were a step in the

rightdirection,butmuchis left to do.

Third, as social scientists we are committed to comparativestudies as one of themain ways to understandwhat variables are crucialin artisticcreation.In preparing his

overview, it was surprising to learn how little had actuallybeen done (q.v. Peek, Sieg-mann,Vogel). The cross-cultural studies of the 1950s were far too broad, and what isneeded now are small-scale analyses of specific geographicareas or particularmodes of

productionor patronage. Finally, differentparadigmsare necessaryand it is hoped thatthese kinds of studies-more emic, moreintegrative,andmorecomparative-will gener-ate the models so clearlyneeded.

NOTES

I would like to thank MarthaGephartand the members of the Joint Committeeon AfricanStudies of the SSRC/ACLS, especially ChristraudGeary and Ivan Karp,for theirsupportanden-

couragement. The burdenof guiding this paper along fell primarilyon IvanKarp,who did so with

good cheer and a wealth of excellent advice. SandraBarnes,RichardBauman,HerbertCole, War-ren d'Azevedo, James Fernandez, Patrick O'Meara,Simon Ottenberg, Arnold Rubin, BeverlyStoeltje,Bonnie Urciouli andJanVansinahelped in differentways, providingvaluablecomments,

criticism,and encouragement. Thanks also go to Eli Bentor and SuzanneGott, who did a valiantjob of checkingandtypingthe bibliography.

1. Hallen(1979) questionswhethersuch a systematicset of namedabstractionsn fact exists.His argumentis a serious criticism of Thompson but is not revelant to my characterizationof

Thompson'sapproach.2. Field research n Africabegan in the firstdecade of the centurywith the ethnographicwork

of Tessman(1913) on the Fang,TordayandJoyce (1911) on the Kuba,andFrobenius 1912-19) inIfe andotherpartsof Africa. These scholarsdeal with artbutonly as one aspectof a broaderdepic-tion of the life of the people concerned or the culturalhistory of the area. It was not until the1920s, and especially the 1930s, that artbecame a majorfocus of interest for researcherssuch as

VanWing in the Belgian Congo (1921, 1938), Rattray n Ghana(1927), Himmelheber n the IvoryCoast (1935) and Belgian Congo (1939), Griaule in Mali (1938), Bernatzik in PortugueseGuinea(1932), von Sydow in Nigeria (1938), Donner in Liberia(1940) and Vandenhoute n the IvoryCoast(1945). See Biebuyck (1983: 101-03), Gerbrands 1957: 66-121) andVansina(1984: 19) fordiscussions of thisperiod.

3. In Biebuyck's survey (1983: 99) of the field he explicitly does not "characterizeparticularmodels of approachor schools of thought." Gerbrands'1957 historicaloverview is useful butdoesnot take a conceptualmodels approach. Vansina(1984) andKasfir(1984) bothprovidetheoreticaldiscussions butconcentrateon arthistory.

4. Since this review focuses on researchfrom a social perspective,I will not discuss studieswhich aremorphological, stylistic, historical or technique-oriented.Nor will I include

essentiallydescriptiveaccounts,thatis, thosewhich do not rely on anyparticular onceptualmodel. Likewise,I will not refer to introductoryhandbooks,general surveys, and the like. Ratherthan attempt he







40 AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

impossible task of being comprehensive,this review will be selective, focusing on those studiesthat seem to exemplify best the models discussed. There have been, of course, other conceptualframeworksemployed in the analysis of African art, includingthe phenomenological(Armstrong,

1971), the generativelinguistic (Faris, 1972), the psychological (Ottenberg,1982), and the Marxist(Faris,1978). These approaches,while inherently nteresting,havehad less impacton actualartre-search,and thuswill not be discussed. One last caveat:lack of knowledgeof GermanandFlemishhasunfortunatelyprohibitedmy coverageof materials n those languages.

5. Fraserand Cole essentially set up a tripartite cheme of analysis,which includeshistoryinadditionto structureand function.The section on history is analytically separableand will not bediscussed here.

6. Kasfir(1984: 167-68) demonstrateshow the Boasian approachhad a strong impacton arthistoricalresearchas well, particularlyn termsof stylisticclassifications.

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