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AP®︎/College Art History
Course: AP®︎/College Art History > Unit 8
Lesson 2: Central Africa- Portrait of King Mishe miShyaang maMbul (Kuba peoples)
- Power Figure, Nkisi Nkondi, Kongo peoples
- Female (pwo) mask (Chokwe peoples)
- Female (pwo) Mask (Chokwe peoples)
- Elephant Mask, Kuosi Society, Bamileke Peoples, Cameroon
- Fang Reliquary Figure
- Lukasa (memory board) (Luba peoples)
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Fang Reliquary Figure
The wooden sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum is a sacred guardian of a reliquary, protecting the remains of high-status Fang people. This figure, with its powerful musculature and calm demeanor, symbolizes strength and honor. It's an abstract representation, emphasizing spiritual ideas over naturalistic depiction.
Reliquary Guardian Figure (Eyema-o-Byeri), Gabon, Fang peoples, mid 18th to mid 19th century, wood and iron, 58.4 cm high (Brooklyn Museum) Speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Reliquary Guardian Figure (Eyema-o-Byeri), Gabon, Fang peoples, mid 18th to mid 19th century, wood and iron, 58.4 cm high (Brooklyn Museum) Speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Could this reliquary figure instead represent a dead or sleeping baby, with the enlarged head and herniated belly button, and the "muscular" arms and legs actually representing baby fat? On the other hand, the figure is elongated and is said to have what appears to be a significant amount of hair, so perhaps it is not a baby. I note that the speakers did say that it was not meant to be an accurate or naturalistic depiction.(5 votes)
- It is not used to represent a deceased child or person. It is used as a guardian of ancestral remains.(1 vote)
- Dr. Klemm mentions that this box may have held certain substances used in medicine. Do we have any idea of what herbs they may have used and what purpose they had? 0:40(3 votes)
- are the figures in the video wearing cloths(1 vote)
- No. They are not wearing any clothes because they are more like spiritual beings rather than actual people.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(gentle piano music) - [Beth] We're here in
the Brooklyn Museum, looking at a wooden sculpture,
a figure that preformed an important role, it guarded a reliquary. - [Peri] This figure is almost a talisman, in that it was intended to ward off those that might harm
the contents of that box. Or, as a warning to others who might come in contact with
it and be harmed by it, like uninitiated men and women. - [Beth] So, the contents of the box that this figure guarded
were sacred and powerful. - [Peri] They were usually
the bones of important members of society, important ancestors, along with potent substances like beads that they may
have owned and medicine. - [Beth] So, who constituted a great man for the Fang people? - [Peri] A very high-status noble person who had lived a long and good life. This would include
lineage heads, clan heads, special warriors, even craftsmen who were exceptionally talented, as well as women who had borne lots of healthy children. It's believed that the Fang utilized these reliquary boxes with remains,
rather than putting them into a more permanent
cemetery because they had been nomadic or semi-nomadic. They were probably maintained
by elder men in the community who would be in charge
of putting them together and consulting them when there was some great decision to be made. - [Beth] The figure
has an elongated torso, a large rounded head, eyes that look down, a closed mouth, the arms
are clasped together, but there's a sense of
very powerful musculature. So, there's a balance between a figure that has a sense of calm
and contemplativeness and at the same time,
real power and strength. - [Peri] It's almost as though
the figure has this coiled up energy, this vitality
that's ready to spring forth if it was needed, but otherwise retains a very calm dignified appearance. - [Beth] The top of the head is enlarged. - [Peri] For the Fang, we
see an emphasis on the head, particularly the coiffeur, and the tubular nature of
the limbs and the body. There's also an emphasis on
the herniated belly button which is of course
where the umbilical cord first gives life to humans
just as this reliquary is guarding the remains of the deceased who have returned back
into the spiritual world, waiting for rebirth. - [Beth] So, this particular
figure is a male figure, but the Fang also made
reliquary guardian figures who were female. - [Peri] These figures also
had a second life as puppets during young men's initiations. In other words, they were
brought out to educate young men about their ancestors and
help young men experience or be in the same place as
the essence or the energy of their ancestors who really
were the founding fathers, the lineage heads, of their ethnic group. While the face is very typically stylized, the hairstyle was popular when
this object was actually made So, we have these three
crests and kind of a duck tail in the back which is what
Fang men at the time, high-status men, were wearing. - [Beth] When we look
at so much African art, we're looking at art that is not naturalistic and intentionally so. The purpose of the object
was to express certain spiritual ideas and so we see abstraction. We see eyes that are reduced
to half-circular shapes, the cheeks forming these diagonal lines and a kind of reduction
to geometric shapes that our historians call abstraction. And we can also note that in the limbs which are very cylindrical and rounded. - [Peri] The artist could have very easily depicted a naturalistic looking figure, but they chose abstraction. This is a conceptual
piece, it's about the idea of a reliquary, the idea
of this guardian figure, rather than depicting an actual human or how they look in nature,
which was not of interest to this Fang artist. The wonderful tension in
this figure is the fact that he is suggesting one approach
with honor and respect with eyes closed and patience. At the same time, he is
suggesting his strength to ward off spirits or
humans that may want to disrupt the contents of his box. (gentle piano music)