Course: Art of Africa > Unit 3
Lesson 6: Mali- A race against time: manuscripts and digital preservation
- Abdoulaye Ndoye, Ahmed Baba
- Seated Figure (Djenné peoples)
- Seated Figure (Djenné peoples)
- Lost History: the terracotta sculpture of Djenné Djenno
- Great Mosque of Djenné
- Couple (Dogon peoples)
- Mask (Kanaga) (Dogon peoples)
- Ritual Container (Dogon peoples)
- The Artist Project: Willie Cole
- Kòmò Helmet Mask (Kòmòkunw) (Bamana peoples)
- Male and Female Antelope Headdresses (Ci wara) (Bamana peoples)
- Mother and Child & Seated Male with Lance (Bamana peoples)
- Guancho Diarra, woman’s wrapper (bògòlanfini)
- Photographic postcards of West African masquerade
- Seydou Keïta, Untitled [Seated Woman with Chevron Print Dress]
- Malick Sidibé, Nuit de Noël (Happy Couple)
- Malick Sidibé's Vues de dos: Getty Conversations
Seated Figure (Djenné peoples)
Met curator Yaëlle Biro on humanity in Seated Figure by the Djenné peoples of Mali and the Inland Niger Delta region.
This haunting figure huddles with its leg hugged to its chest and its head dropped on its knee. It simultaneously suggests the knotted tension of anxiety and the sublime absorption of deep prayer. Created over 700 years ago, in the Inland Niger Delta region of present-day Mali, this elegant work's intense emotional immediacy blurs the boundaries of time and place. This terracotta sculpture comes from a site called Jenne-jeno, the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa. Jenne-jeno flourished in the ninth century C.E., but declined and was abandoned by 1400. Items of cast brass and forged iron, clay vessels, and figures like this one survive. They testify to what scholars contend was a richly varied and highly sophisticated urban society.
A few controlled archaeological digs provide only the vaguest outlines of the original significance of the art of this time and region. Recovered terracotta figures are frequently quite detailed. They include jewelry, clothing, and body ornaments such as the parallel columns of bumps and circles on the back of this work. Sometimes they cover the entire body and seem to represent the pustules of some dreadful illness. Sculptures like this one may represent ancestors or mythic characters, or might have served as guardians. Here, the figure's shaved head and attitude of introspection resemble mourning customs still practiced by many cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. It is possible that the earlier peoples of the Inland Niger Delta had similar ritual methods to express grief over the death of loved ones.
View this work on metmuseum.org.
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- Was ritual scarification known to be practiced at this point? That seems like a plausible explanation for the welts on the back.(5 votes)
- I don't know the exact reason for the markings on the back of this individual figure, but I do know that in previous African cultures it was popular to cut and engrave ones self to the point where the scars would leave a design imprinted on the persons skin.(3 votes)
- What is the reason for this figure?(4 votes)
- (TL;DR: We don't know, but it may have served to commemorate ancestors or dead loved ones)
The description of the video reads:
"A few controlled archaeological digs provide only the vaguest outlines of the original significance of the art of this time and region... Sculptures like this one may represent ancestors or mythic characters, or might have served as guardians. Here, the figure's shaved head and attitude of introspection resemble mourning customs still practiced by many cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. It is possible that the earlier peoples of the Inland Niger Delta had similar ritual methods to express grief over the death of loved ones."(4 votes)
- Why is it named as "Bundle Of Emotions" ?(2 votes)
- Because it is supposed to portray many emotions within its likeness.(1 vote)
- Does this sculpture represent anything?(2 votes)
- Perhaps, but it is hard to tell. We might interpret something as meaning one thing when its original creators made it to symbolize a whole different thing.(1 vote)
- How many years ago was this statue built?(1 vote)
- We don't know when exactly, but since the speaker mentioned that the figure was built in the 13th century C.E., we can scientifically assume that this particular statue was made around 800 years ago.(2 votes)
- Why is the figure declined and abandoned?(1 vote)
- Does anyone know the dimensions of this sculpture?(1 vote)
- If we disappear who will keep our culture?(1 vote)
- Maybe the ruins of such monuments as the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore, and of the rest of our national landmarks. Who knows? Maybe in several thousand years they will be sites of archaeological digs.(1 vote)
- Peoples from ancient have that emotional thought?(0 votes)
- Naturally...why would they not have emotions? Emotions were a very early human evolution.(1 vote)
- So,which culture is this?(0 votes)