Human world
Senufo, Côte-d’Ivoire, before 1968. Accession Number 1968.71.3
This pulley holder would have been used with a narrow strip loom. Its design is probably purely decorative and shows a buffalo mask.
“I often used to pass … a curio shop called “Le Père Sauvage”... There was a whole corner of little wooden statues of Negro origin. I was astonished to see how they were conceived from the point of view of sculptural language. … Compared to European sculpture, which always took its point of departure from the description of the object, these Negro statues were made … according to invented planes and proportions.”
Henri Matisse
Lagoons, S E Côte-d’Ivoire, about 1905
Accession Number 8.11.05.23
This figure from the Lagoons region of S E Côte-d’Ivoire may have been made as a spirit companion figure or as diviners’ helper.
European colonial attitudes during the late 19th century viewed other cultures, particularly African, as unevolved. Seeing themselves as highly evolved, Europeans claimed moral and cultural superiority. But as knowledge of European atrocities against Africans became widely known, some Europeans began to question the moral and cultural superiority of the ‘civilised nations’.
Artists like Picasso and Matisse became interested in African artefacts during the first decade of the 20th century. They were astonished that such objects, generally detested or thought valueless, revealed complex sculptural ideas that suggested new ways of making images. They drew inspiration from African artefacts in order to revitalise European art with new visual, psychological and spiritual meaning.