KUBA RULES

Kuba Art and Rule by Joseph Aurélien Cornet (1919 - 2004)
Formerly Institute for National Museums of Congo

The Kuba king presides over a conference, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photograph by Angelo Turconi.

If the king of the Kuba possesses absolute power, this power is effectively controlled, most especially by the senior officials and titleholders. The result is the importance and the frequency of conferences. In order to emphasize their independence, the titleholders never gather inside the palace, rather, they gather outside the enclosure. The large structure called nshool, which is visible behind the king, is the guardhouse or entry structure. At the time the photograph was taken the structures of the palace were not entirely completed. The king is the only one who has the right to a chair, everyone else is seated on mats. The king never speaks directly to the title holders, but has a spokesman, seated before him, who is one of a set of twins who hold this position. The titleholders are in a circle, each with his particular required costume, hairstyle, and accessories. Behind the king, a group of people from the court help with the meeting.

 

Kuba King in ceremonial regalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

The photograph was taken at the dance area of the royal village. For this ceremony, a particular costume was required that was not too somber. This was an opportunity to display a very beautiful belt made of leopard hide and richly decorated, called nkap, which in principle only the king can wear, but which in fact he can loan to a dignitary or a favorite. The second belt, the property of the notables, is called mwandaan, and has two large knots on the front; it is the “secret belt.” If, during a meeting, the king says something that displeases the titleholder, they shake the belt. To refuse certain secrets, the king says: “Do not make me untie my belt.” The headgear is also a royal headgear, made of leopard skin, called ipul.

Kuba King in working costume, Mushenge, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photo by Joseph Cornet.

In a corner of the palace in Mushenge, capital of the BaKuba, the king formally receives visitors. This is why he is dressed in his most important regalia and is seated on the sacred platform. Here, the regalia is complete, a rare occurrence, because it weighs about 80 kilograms (176 lbs.). The part that is most noticeable here is the belt. This is the nduun belt, which is said to be made of pounded bark and which reminds the Kuba of the time long ago before raffia fiber existed. For the king, the modest belt is transformed into a long, rectangular belt, covered with cowrie shells, and is especially heavy. This is the nduun Bushoong, the “belt of the Bushoong,” to whom the king is related. In front of the king, we can see some women from his family, who provided the chants for the ceremony. 

Kuba titleholder tshik'l, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

Among the nobles who surround the king, called “the uncles of the king,” the second rank is made up of those who are given the title tslhik’l. In addition to the king's collar (made of long straight wool), his two major symbols or badges of office are the axe he carries on his leftshoulder and the headgear that is reserved only for him. This is generally in the shape of a Kuba hat, but is enriched with beads and cowries. It is surmounted by a tuft of red parrot leathers, and below by a tail that hangs in front of the face. The headgear is accompanied by a band of cowries across the chest. The white pigment on the forearm represents the tradition of rubbing oneself with kaolin for important ceremonies. In the corner of his mouth, the red parrot feather is a symbol of wisdom, and because it makes it difficult to speak, it is then a symbol of circumspection.

 

Kuba nyimbal'k (judge), Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

Among the Kuba, nephews or cousins of the king usually have limited power. This one is a nyimbal’k, a judge who presides after an accident occurs. After seeing him in his everyday dress, typically a European suit, one is astonished by his transformation by the wearing of traditional regalia. His wrapper is a foreign textile, and is not embroidered, except for the border. The collar is unique and is worn bandoleer style. He wears a single bracelet on his wrist. Only the collar of fur identifies him as a member of the royal family. Everything is carefully controlled and reflects his rank. Good taste, reasonable proportion, and a noble attitude are the perfect and most eloquent expression of the status of the wearer of this costume.

The Kuba king presides over a dance in his palace, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

Near the courtyard of the royal palace, seated on a throne placed on the old royal platform, with one section stripped of its leopard skins, the king appears wearing labot lapuum, one of his most prestigious and noble costumes. Seated around him are some members of his family, his wives and children. His senior wife is at the right, identified by her necklace and elaborate wrapper. The king's neck is adorned with a famous necklace of leopard fangs, one of only two that still exist. The royal skirt is white, contrasting with the red skirts of those around him. It is enormously long and is made of seventeen pieces of raffia. The king holds two horns, dating from the 16th century, at the time the costume was first worn by the founder of the dynasty, king Shyaam a-Mbul a-Ngwoong.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, dance of royal mask.

Photo by Angelo Turconi

At the death of a king, the affairs of state of the Kuba are entrusted to two or three important titleholders who become “regents.” Over a period of time, they assert some royal power. They retain this honor all the rest of their lives, along with some very important and valued privileges. Among the most important is the right to wear regalia that is very close in magnificence to the most beautiful royal regalia. This regent is called Kwete Mwana, since passed away. We can notice in this magnificent costume the headdress with a visor, which can also be seen on the royal sculptures, the collar of leopard's fangs, only the second of its type, the extraordinary richness of the wrapper (this one was ordered by the regent himself and took one year’s labor). The whole ensemble is made up of more than forty items, which take several hours to don. The regent is posed before a great woven mat.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, king in regalia.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

Each Kuba king owns two costumes called bwaantsh, one of which will be buried with him. Only the king is permitted to wear them. These costumes are an assemblage of all the most magnificent parts of prestige regalia numbering about fifty items. The only piece missing here is the great belt (which has nineteen rows of cowries and is four meters long). The sword and the scepter are the marks of supreme authority. The head gear is curiously in the form of a small house, the “house of the king.” On either side of the king, the senior wife and another important woman from the king’s harem, a woman of mixed African-European ancestry, are kneeling and participate in the courtly homage given by the people. Among the Bushoong, even commoners demonstrate a particular appreciation for jewelry as visible signs of prestige.

A dance of the principal royal mask, Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photograph by Angelo Turconi.

Of the two royal masks moshambwooy and bwoom, the former is the most important; its meaning is tied to the legend of the creation of the Bushoong people, because it is traced to the founder Woot. Each of the masks has its own personal name. Only the king may wear such masks in performance, unless he has specifically delegated the honor to someone else. These masks have their own retinues of chiefs and certain titleholders. The royal mask appears rarely: here it is seen at the performance area of the capital. The dance of the mask is accompanied by singing and the rhythm of drums. The movements are quiet and slow, with very complex dance steps, which interpret the texts of the songs. The spectators take pleasure in identifying the relationship between the steps of the dance and the text of the songs. The performer does not allow any part of his body to show, because he is supposed to have become a spirit. He even wears gloves and shoes that cover every inch of his skin.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, royal mask dance.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

The royal mask is dancing here in the royal harem, before the women of the palace. That is why he is accompanied by the wives of the royal family. They are wearing their beautiful skirts with wavy edges (these are called ntshak). When standing in profile, we can see the projections on the upper part of the headgear that give the mask its proud appearance. The mask's name is Lapukpuk. It dates from the 19th century, and was restored in the early years of the 20th century. The main costume is not a skirt but a tunic that covers the entire body, decorated with tiny black and white triangles. The ornament that bounces around his neck is a sort of stretched gourd, covered with cowries. The mask itself is considered to be blind, therefore a few objects made of plant material are always attached to the performer, and serve at times to guide him.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, dance of bwoom mask.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

The bwoom mask is a helmet mask. The mask is blind, usually carved mostly of wood, and the performer can bend back his head so that he can make out the limits of the dance area; in fact many performers see out through the nose. He also wears a tunic—the only surviving example that is old—but freshly cut leaves are attached to his belt. This mask, of superior beauty with regard to shapes and proportions, replaces the mask called Lwoop lambwoom, which was carved at the beginning of the 19th century and masterfully restored a hundred years later by an artist (it is in the museum in Kinshasa). This mask is made of leather, a material reserved for the use of the king. The masks beard is decorated with cowries, also only for the king. The neck is particularly rich in cowries and beads, which is customary for masks of this type.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, royal mask dance.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

This is a rare photograph of two royal masks, moshambwooy and bwoom, performing together before the king and a group of titleholders in the palace enclosure. The action of the mask kneeling before the king makes it possible to see the ornaments on the back: beneath the richly ornamented collar of the mask can be seen a large metal disk, a lantshaang, whose origin has apparently been forgotten; and the mikyeen, a large black ornament made up of nine bands decorated with beads, with a round shell at the top. The choreography of the dance must adhere to a series of customs. If the performer makes a misstep, the entire audience makes fun of him. A slave must gather up of the bits that fall from the mask costumes, because these are sacred entities; another carries a pole topped with a bundle of magical materials.

Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, royal mask dance.

Photo by Angelo Turconi.

Between two segments of the performance in the dance area at Mushenge, the moshambwooy and bwoom masks rest for a moment. On the former, we can admire the great white beard, symbol of the wisdom of this most senior of masks; the latter allows us to take a close look at his tunic covered with cowries and the long strands of raffia that are used to help direct the dance of this blind character. Everyone wears traditional dress with the typical Kuba hairstyle, the laket woven partially with raffia, the type of palm tree visible in the background. Between the two masks, a titleholder gives advice and directions to bwoom. This is the sculptor, Lyeen, one of the last great sculptors working under the king's patronage, himself the son of a king as is made clear by his particularly elaborate and beautiful skirt. This type of spectacle has become very rare in recent years.

Women's dance in the royal court, Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Photograph by Angelo Turconi.

The women's dances in the royal palace are elaborate and refined, very slow and carefully choreographed, both in gesture and in step. The women's choir accompanies them, with the rhythm accentuated by the sound of gourds struck on the sand. The participants carry richly decorated flywhisks, which they wave dramatically. The first three performers have particularly spectacular costumes. These performers include two of the king's aunts and his most senior wife. One can identify three different types of women's skirts, each of which identifies the social rank of the wearer. The metal anklets symbolize nobility. These details contrast markedly with the simplicity of the women who follow dressed in simple raffia skirts dyed red with tukula powder, and without anklets. The women gesture symbolically.

Ceremonial presentation of the muyum (title holder) to the council, Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Photograph by Angelo Turconi.

The current king of the Kuba belongs to a second royal dynasty. There are, however, some relics of the first, especially in the person of a titleholder called muyum, who, in his tiny territory, hardly larger than a small village, exercises certain exceptional privileges. The king must honor him, because he possesses some of the objects that validate rule which are essential to the kingdom. The two meet at the royal enthronement, and then must never encounter each other, except in the greatest secrecy. The court of the muyum has all the features of the king's own court, especially in the costume and identity of the important titleholders. He can be seen here, during a ceremony, wearing the costume of the moshambwooy mask and receiving the respects of a commoner woman, with his slave seated at his feet.

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African Influences in Modern Art

 
Comedians' Handbill, 1938
Paul Klee (German, 1879–1940)
Gouache on newsprint; 19 1/8 x 12 5/8 in. (48.6 x 32.1 cm)
The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984 (1984.315.57)
© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

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African Influence in Modern Art
Source: Met Museum

During the early 1900s, the aesthetics of traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art. In France, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and their School of Paris friends blended the highly stylized treatment of the human figure in African sculptures with painting styles derived from the post-Impressionist works of Cézanne and Gauguin. The resulting pictorial flatness, vivid color palette, and fragmented Cubist shapes helped to define early modernism. While these artists knew nothing of the original meaning and function of the West and Central African sculptures they encountered, they instantly recognized the spiritual aspect of the composition and adapted these qualities to their own efforts to move beyond the naturalism that had defined Western art since the Renaissance.

In the contemporary postcolonial era, the influence of traditional African aesthetics and processes is so profoundly embedded in artistic practice that it is only rarely evoked as such.

German Expressionist painters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner of Die Brücke (The Bridge) group, based in Dresden and Berlin, conflated African aesthetics with the emotional intensity of dissonant color tones and figural distortion, to depict the anxieties of modern life, while Paul Klee of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) in Munich developed transcendent symbolic imagery. The Expressionists' interest in non-Western art intensified after a 1910 Gauguin exhibition in Dresden, while modernist movements in Italy, England, and the United States initially engaged with African art through contacts with School of Paris artists.

These avant-garde artists, their dealers, and leading critics of the era were among the first Europeans to collect African sculptures for their aesthetic value. Starting in the 1870s, thousands of African sculptures arrived in Europe in the aftermath of colonial conquest and exploratory expeditions. They were placed on view in museums such as the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris, and its counterparts in cities including Berlin, Munich, and London. At the time, these objects were treated as artifacts of colonized cultures rather than as artworks, and held so little economic value that they were displayed in pawnshop windows and flea markets. While artworks from Oceania and the Americas also drew attention, especially during the 1930s Surrealist movement, the interest in non-Western art by many of the most influential early modernists and their followers centered on the sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa. For much of the twentieth century, this interest was often described as Primitivism, a term denoting a perspective on non-Western cultures that is now seen as problematic.

The Stylistic Influences of African Sculpture

Modernist artists were drawn to African sculpture because of its sophisticated approach to the abstraction of the human figure, shown, for example, by a sculpted head from a Fang reliquary ensemble (1979.206.229), and a reliquary by an Ambete artist (2002.456.17). The provenance of the Fang work includes the collection of London-based sculptor Jacob Epstein, who had Vorticist associations and was a longtime friend of Picasso and Matisse; the Ambete reliquary was once owned by the pioneering Paris dealer Charles Ratton and then by Pierre Matisse, a son of the artist.

The Fang sculpture exemplifies the integration of form with function that had created a centuries-old tradition of abstraction in African art before the European colonial period. Affixed at the top of a bark vessel where remains of the most important individuals of an extended family were preserved, the sculptural element can be considered as the embodiment of the ancestor's spirit. The representational style is therefore abstract rather than naturalistic. The abstract form of the Ambete piece goes even further to serve its function. Because the figure is the actual receptacle for the ancestral relics, the torso is elongated, hollow, and accessible from an opening in the back. The exaggerated flatness of the face in these reliquaries, and its lack of affect, typify elements of African aesthetics that were frequently evoked in modernist painting and sculpture.

Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris

Matisse, an inveterate museum browser, had likely encountered African sculptures at the Trocadéro museum with fellow Fauve painter Maurice de Vlaminck, before embarking on a spring 1906 trip to North Africa. Upon returning that summer, Matisse painted two versions of The Young Sailor (1999.363.41) in which he replaced the first version's naturalistically contoured facial features with a more rigidly abstract visage reminiscent of a mask. At about the same time, Picasso completed his portrait of the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein (47.106), finalizing her face after many repaintings in the frozen, masklike style of archaic sculptural busts from his native Iberia.

In the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1913), Stein wrote an account of Matisse's fall 1906 purchase of a small African sculpture, now identified as a Vili figure from the Democratic Republic of Congo, at a curio shop on his way to visit her home. Since Picasso was present, she recalled, Matisse showed the sculpture to him. Picasso later told curators and writers of the pivotal visits he subsequently made, beginning in June 1907, to the African collections at the Trocadéro, famously describing his revulsion at the dimly lit, musty galleries but also his inability to turn away from his study of the objects' inventive and elegant figural composition. The African sculptures, he said, had helped him to understand his purpose as a painter, which was not to entertain with decorative images, but to mediate between perceived reality and the creativity of the human mind—to be freed, or "exorcised," from fear of the unknown by giving form to it. In 1907, after hundreds of preparatory sketches, Picasso completed the seminal Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting to whose faceted female bodies and masklike faces some attribute the birth of Cubism and a defining role in the course of modern art throughout the twentieth century. He continued to make major paintings, sculptures, and sketches of mask-faced figures composed of fragmented geometric volumes throughout the Cubist period, including Bust of a Man (1996.403.5), from 1908, Woman's Head (1996.403.6), from 1909, and the 1909-10 Woman in an Armchair (1997.149.7).

A younger member of the School of Paris, painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani, was a key contact between the School of Paris and the Futurist artists based in his native Italy. He was singular in his adaptation of stylistic influences primarily from the Baule of today's Ivory Coast (1978.412.425). Modigliani made sketches of the elongated faces of Baule masks and figures, heart-shaped and narrowing to a point at the chin beneath a small mouth placed unnaturally low on the face. He later adapted this distinctive facial style in a series of sculptures including the 1912 Woman's Head (1997.149.10); and later retained it in paintings such as the 1917 Reclining Nude (1997.149.9). Constantin Brancusi, Modigliani's friend and Montparnasse studio neighbor, embraced African art because it, like sculpture of his native Romania, was directly carved from wood. Having trained with Rodin, then perhaps one of Europe's most prominent sculptors, Brancusi at times rejected the master's bronze casting technique due to its expense and its remove from the direct hand of the artist, in favor of carvings from wood and, as in Bird in Space (1996.403.7ab), from marble.

*N.B.  Curator and art historian Gus Casely-Hayford reveals the influence African art had on well known European artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.






Modernism in America

Matisse and Picasso were key figures in the spread of interest in African-influenced modernism among the avant-garde in the United States. In 1905, the American artist Max Weber moved to Paris and studied painting with Matisse. By 1908, Weber, a frequent guest at the Sunday evening salons hosted by Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, had visited Picasso in his studio, where he may have viewed Picasso's extensive collection of African art. After returning to the United States, Weber wrote to photographer Alfred Stieglitz about the African influences that he had observed in the work of Picasso and other Paris-based modernists; and Weber's own paintings featured mask forms rendered in an increasingly abstract style. Stieglitz later presented the first Picasso exhibition in the United States at his small gallery, named "291" for its Fifth Avenue address, and then worked with Mexican artist Marius de Zayas on a 1914 exhibition which was among the first in the United States to present African sculpture as art. A 1923 exhibit at the Whitney Studio Club, a precursor of the Whitney Museum in New York, was among the earliest to present Picasso's paintings together with African sculptures.

German Expressionism

Artists in Germany between the world wars worked extensively with African compositional devices as they rejected naturalism as inadequate to their project of representing the anxiety, dislocation, and utopian fantasies of interwar German society. Paul Klee developed a distinctively individual abstract style while teaching at the Bauhaus. Mystical connotations are evoked, in paintings like his 1923 Ventriloquist and Crier in the Moor (1984.315.35) and the 1938 Comedians' Handbill (1984.315.57), by massed signlike forms. Some scholars have suggested affinities between these works and masks of the Bwa culture of modern Burkina Faso and geometrically patterned fabrics from the Bambara of Mali.

Ex-Dadaist George Grosz masks the melancholy figures crowding his 1931 Berlin Street (63.220) in a more generalized style, which became influential for his students after he emigrated to New York, where he taught at the Art Students League. Max Beckmann overlays memory, nightmare, and dream in his allegorical 1949 triptych Beginning (67.187.53a–c), completed after he, too, relocated to the United States.

The Mature Work of Matisse and Picasso

The work of Picasso and Matisse continued to reflect the influence of African aesthetics well into the mid-twentieth century, and important aspects of this later influence have been disclosed by recent scholarship. Some of Picasso's most significant early sculptural work, and his monumental 1930s busts of his young mistress Marie-Thérèse, have been linked, respectively, to Grebo and Nimba masks in his collection of African sculpture. Matisse, whose family had been weavers for generations, owned several Kuba cloths (1999.522.15) from Central Africa, as well as opulent fabrics from North Africa and eastern Europe.

Kuba cloths had been shown in early African art shows in Paris that Matisse may have attended, and several remained in his collection at his death. These handcrafted nineteenth-century fabrics from the Democratic Republic of Congo were woven from raffia palm fibers and used in dowries; the larger ones served as festive attire at funerals. Matisse's correspondence indicates their inspiration for the paper cutouts, such as the 1951 Snow Flowers (1999.363.46), that were his final major works. These collages blend Matisse's vivid color palette with the allover patterning of the textiles to produce abstract floral forms free-floating in space, creating perspectival shifts between foreground and background. After hanging panels of the Kuba textiles across his studio walls, Matisse wrote in letters to his sister that he often looked at them for long periods, waiting for something to come to him.

Legacy for Postwar and Contemporary Art

By the early twentieth century, African American modernists had joined other American artists in exploring the formal qualities of African art. In 1925, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, black philosopher Alain Locke argued that African American artists should look to African art as a source of inspiration. A variety of influences informs the work of artists such as Elizabeth Catlett (1999.529.34) and Romare Bearden, who came of age in the aftermath of this important period in black cultural history. Bearden studied under George Grosz in New York; in The Woodshed (1970.19), from 1969, he composed Dadaist-inflected collages from materials including fragmented photographs of African sculpture. This method was elaborated in The Block (1978.61.1–6), an epic-scale celebration of everyday life in a Harlem neighborhood.

The Afro-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, who was closely involved with the Surrealists in Paris, and whose dealer was Pierre Matisse, painted hybrid figures, such as in the 1942 Goddess with Foliage (2002.456.32), blending an uncanny Surrealist sensibility with African figural styles and references to spirituality. Several members of the postwar Abstract Expressionists, including the sculptor David Smith and the painter Adolph Gottlieb, were known to have viewed and collected African sculpture as their abstract styles evolved.

In the contemporary postcolonial era, the influence of traditional African aesthetics and processes is so profoundly embedded in artistic practice that it is only rarely evoked as such. The increasing globalization of the art world, which now includes contemporary African artists such as Malian photographer Seydou Keita (1997.364) and Ghana-born sculptor El Anatsui (2007.96), renders increasingly moot any term that assumes a distinct divide between Western and non-Western art. The Primitivist worldview is being relegated to the past. It is in efforts to understand the full spectrum of the aesthetic foundations for early modernism that an investigation of African influences in modern art remains relevant today.

Denise Murrell Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

Citation

Murrell, Denise. "African Influences in Modern Art". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm (April 2008)

Further Reading

FitzGerald, Michael. Picasso and American Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

LaGamma, Alisa, ed. Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007.

Messinger, Lisa Mintz, Lisa Gail Collins, and Rachel Mustalish. African-American Artists, 1929–1945. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.

Matisse, His Art and His Textiles: The Fabric of Dreams. Exhibition catalogue. London: Royal Academy of Arts,, 2004.

Rewald, Sabine. Twentieth Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989.

Rubin, William, ed. "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art. 2 vols. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984.

Vogel, Susan M. Primitivism Revisited: After the End of an Idea. New York: Sean Kelly Gallery, 2007.