The Portrait in African Art. Report on a Series of Experiments

Abstract

Himmelheber’s article is an exploration of mask styles in African art and whether some masks could be said to resemble portraiture from a Western European perspective. Himmelheber is challenging Douglas Fraser’s assertion that African artists were unable to reproduce the likeness of persons by carrying out an experiment in various villages in Ivory Coast. The experiment was to ask four different artists to produce a carved wooden mask resembling his face. Himmelheber describes the artistic process of carving in great detail and then, breaking down the possible Western and local influences on the style of the mask, makes a judgment on whether they bear a marked resemblance to his face and features.

KEYWORDS:

• African art
• Ivory Coast
• carved masks
• portraiture

Notes

¹ Carl Einstein, La sculpture africaine, translation of Afrikanische Plastik (1921) by Thérèse and Raymond Burgard (Paris: G. Crès, 1922), 13–15 and 22; Jean Laude, “Problèmes du Portrait: Images Funéraires et Images Royales,” Journal de Psychologie normale et pathologique 62, no 4 (1965): 401–20; Babatunde Lawal, “The Living Dead: Art and Immortality among the Yoruba of Nigeria,” Africa 47, no 1 (1977): 50–61; Michèle Coquet, African Royal Court Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), ch. 2; and Alisa LaGamma, Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011).

² Douglas Fraser, Primitive Art (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 24–5.

³ Jean M. Borgatti, “African Portraits,” in Likeness and Beyond: Portraits in Africa and the World, ed. Jean Borgatti and Richard Brilliant (New York: Center for African Art, 1990), 29–83.

⁴ Hans Himmelheber, “Das Porträt in der Negerkunst. Bericht über eine Versuchsreihe,” Baessler Archiv Neue Folge, Band XX (1972): 305–306. English translation: “The Portrait in African Art. Report on a Series of Experiments” by Richard George Elliott in this article.

⁵ Ibid., 305.

¹ Hans Himmelheber, Negerkünstler [African artists] (Stuttgart: Strecker und Stroder, 1935), 51ff.

² Hans Himmelheber, Negerkunst und Negerkünstler [African art and artists] (Braunschweig: Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1960): 46 and 48.

³ Hans Himmelheber, “Wunkirle, die Gastlichste Frau; eine Würdenträgerin bei den Dan und Guere” [Wunkirle, the most hospitable woman; a notable of the Dan and Guere peoples], Basler Beiträge zur Geographie und Ethnologie Ethnologische Reihe, Band II (1965): see figures 52, 53.

⁴ Eberhard Fischer, “Künstler der Dan. Die Bildhauer Tame, Si, Tompieme und Sohn—ihr Wesen und Werk,” Baessler-Archiv 10 (1963): 161–263 and figure 12.

⁵ Eberhard Fischer, “Selbstbildnerisches, Porträt und Kopie bei Maskenschnitzern der Dan in Liberia” [Self-portraiture, portraiture and copy in the work of the Dan carvers of Liberia], Baessler-Archiv 18 (1970): 5–41.

⁶ Julius Ernst Lips, The Savage Hits Back; or, The White Man through Native Eyes, translated by Vincent Benson (London: Lovat Dickson, 1937). Cottie A Burland, The Exotic White Man: an Alien in Asian and African Art (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1969).

⁷ See the picture of a mask and model in my book: Hans Himmelheber, Eskimokünstler [Eskimo artists] (Eisenach: Erich Röth, 1953), illustration no. 18.

⁸ See my article: Hans Himmelheber, “Die Technik des Vergoldens bei den Baule” [The Baule gilding technique], Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde Dresden 28 (1968): 83–90.

⁹ Translator’s note: This must be February 8 because “day two” was February 7.

¹⁰ Frank Willet, African Art (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 92.

¹¹ Douglas Fraser, Primitive Art (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 22–24.

¹ Hans Himmelheber, Negerkünstler: Ethnographische Studien über die Schnitzkünstler bei den Stämmen der Atutu und Guro im Innern der Elfenbeinküste (Ergebnisse einer Forschungsexpedition) (Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder, 1935), 51.

² Ibid., 52.

³ Himmelheber, Negerkunst und Negerkünstler, Figure 30.

⁴ Ibid., Figure 29.

⁵ Eberhard Fischer, “Selbstbildnerisches, Porträt und Kopie bei Maskenschnitzern der Dan in Liberia: Notizen zum Schaffensprozess traditioneller afrikanischer Kunsthandwerker,” Baessler Archiv Neue Folge 18 (1970): 15–41. English translation: “Self-portraits, Portraits, and Copies among the Dan,” in Iowa Studies in African Art, ed. Christopher Roy, vol. 1 (Iowa City: University of Iowa, School of Art and Art History, 1984), 5–28.

⁶ Fraser, Primitive Art, 23.

⁷ Susan M. Vogel, Baule: African Art, Western Eyes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 141.

⁸ Borgatti, “African Portraits,” 35–7 and 45.

⁹ See the fine catalogue by Angelika Böck and Stefan Eisenhofer: Stille Post. Versuchsanordnungen in Kunst und Wissenschaft: Angelika Böck und Hans Himmelheber, with essays by Clara Himmelheber, Reinhard Spieler, and Tobias Wendl (Munich: Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, 2004).

¹⁰ Nii O. Quarcoopome, Through African Eyes. The European in African Art, 1500 to Present (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 2010), 168.