On "Style Determinants in African Sculpture" by Paul S. Wingert, (Spring, 1972)

Abstract

my position on the collecting of contemporary African art. Contrary to popular belief, there is no sharp break in African art somewhere about the beginning of this century. Innovation in the form of looms from North Africa or chair forms from Portugal are probably ancient in traditional African art, and nailheads, brass wire, beads, cloth, metal sheeting, champleve, and many other materials and techniques have been added through the years to produce those objects we treasure so much. So how can we act as if this tradition stopped suddenly about 1900? It did not, and the Yoruba like bright trade enamels for polychroming much better than the previously available softer colors we prefer. Who are we, who understand their religion vaguely if at all, to dictate their choices in religious arts? To pick and choose objects we admire from exotic cultures and epochs without thought to their meaning or cultural context is to reduce connoisseurship to mere dilettantism. The history of art is not a vast smorgasbord of unpatterned variety. It has patterns and directions, and the charting of these through the study of all the arts (including those despised minor arts so admired by Africans) nally suggest hat I should clarify y pos tion on the ollecting of conporary African art. Con rary to pular b lief, there i no sharp break is the responsibility and the pleasure of any true connoisseur. In Africa today, many innovations re taking place, not the least of which is the increased production of graphic art. There is no need to buy gross airport art, nor even the forced but interesting Makonde pieces Mr. Hersey finds so repellent, because in almost every sub-Sahara and supra-Limpopo African city today there is something beautiful for every taste and pocketbook. And these artists are the direct descendants of those masters whose works have given new dimensions to our lives. To ignore or belittle their efforts is not only unjust, it is shortsi hted-in a class with our starving Mozart, Schubert, and van Gogh, to name but a few. DanielJ. Crowley University of California, Davis