Afro-Brazilian Art

Abstract

AbstractTo discuss the African influence on Brazilian visual arts, Carneiro da Cunha starts historicizing the African peoples from which enslaved men and women were brought to Brazil between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, later focusing on the evolution of African sculpture and the main elements of African art. In its second part, the article addresses the art created in Brazil when it was a Portuguese colony, discussing Black or Mestizo skills and genius at the service of visual arts projects and canons with a White worldview, but also African themes, symbols, or images present in the material culture of many Brazilian sociocultural realms. Defining Afro-Brazilian art as mostly related to Afro-Brazilian religions, the author presents a chronology of its first collections and discusses its relation to syncretism, cultural meanings, and stylistic continuity, analyzing Afro-Brazilian ritual statuary: Sango axes, Ibeji images, Gelede masks, and mainly Esu figurines. In the essay’s final part, the author discusses the continuity of African formal conventions in naturalist art, focusing on Antônio Francisco Libsoa’s work, and analyzes the emergence of Black artists and themes in the 1930s and 1940s art. An appendix briefly presents body art, clothing, jewelry, metal utensils, basketry, pottery, tannery, and decorative art.Keywords: African artAfrican sculptureAfrican diaspora artAfro-Brazilian artAfro-Brazilian jewelryAfro-Brazilian religionsAfro-Brazilian cultureBrazilian modernismBlack art Notes1 This is currently the most important site for the study of the Prehistory of humanity. Found there are traces of the cultures that have lived there from the beginnings of humanity to the present day. The oldest layer contains the most primitive artefacts imaginable: crudely hewn Olduvai stones. Also discovered there were various Australopithecus remains, an intermediary between apes and humans. However, the Leakey family’s most important discovery was the remains of a primate more human than the ones previously known, walking erect on two feet, little different to man today, although with more archaic hands, a below-average stature and a less-developed brain than our own. This fossil man is situated between the Australopithecus and the Homo Erectus of the East and Africa. Everything points to him being the author of the aforementioned stones and Leakey called him Homo Habilis. This species, along with such artefacts, has only been found so far in Black Africa, where humanity appears to have emerged from, around two million years ago.2 The term “bantu”, which characterizes a linguistic family, was for a long time used to designate a human group with shared physical traits, or a type of life based on agriculture or even a philosophy.3 Frank Willet, “African Arts and the Future: Decay or Development?” in African Themes: Northwestern University Studies in Honor of Gwendolen M. Carter, ed. I. Abu-Lughod (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1975), 72.4 The masks of the Gelede society are used among Western Yoruba in celebrations designed to appease the witches. They are used as headdresses and therefore the eyes, perforated, are not designed to allow sight and will instead be positioned higher up.5 Editor’s note: on Frobenius, see “Ancient and Recent African Art”, trans. Claudia Heide, Art in Translation, 1, no. 3 (Summer 2009), 189–197, original German: “Alte und junge Afrikanische Kunst,” Die Kunstwelt, 1912, vol. 2, number 2, pp. 97–114).6 C. Thurstan Shaw, Igbo-Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria (London: Evanston, 1970).7 F. Willet, 1975.8 It is worth remembering here that Naturalism and Stylization would be the two dialectical movements in this art form, sometimes merging, giving continuity to the Naturalist style, but at other times remaining diametrically opposed.9 Henri Frankfort, La Royauté et les Dieux (Paris: Payot, 1951), 432.10 Paul Bohannan and Phillip Curtin, Africa and Africans (New York, NY: Garden City, 1964), 81–2.11 Cyril Aldred, Old Kingdom Art in Ancient Egypt (London: s.ed, 1949) 1–312 Coordinators note: these items could not be included by the author.13 In the lost-wax technique, the rough shape of the desired object is sculpted in clay and this is covered in a coat of wax. The details are sculpted and decorations applied in wax. The combination is covered in clay again and, once dry, heated from top to bottom so that the wax melts and falls, leaving an empty space, into which the molten bronze is poured. Once the bronze has solidified, the mold is broken to obtain the piece.14 See F. Willet, 1975, fig. 161, p.17015 Particularly detailed on the Yoruba are the studies of Robert Farris Thompson (e.g. R.F. Thompson, 1971)16 Hans Himmelheber, 193517 Paul Bohannan, “Artist and Critic in an African Society” in Anthropology and Art ed. Ch. Otten (New York, NY: The American Museum of Natural History, 1971).18 William Fagg, Tribes and forms in African art (London: s.ed, 1965).19 Robert Farris Thompson, “Black gods and kings Yoruba art at UCLA,” Occasional Papers of the Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology University of Los Angeles, no.2, 1971 and “Yoruba artistic criticism,” The Traditional arts in African societies 1 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 19–61.20 N.B. the seed of this direction already existed in European art itself with artists such as El Greco, P. Della Francesca and others, and with Russian and Greek iconographers.21 At the same time, the Europeans were unaware that this art was highly disciplined, conventionalised through long training periods in the workshops of the masters where young artists spent an average of five years copying and reinventing ancestral works. Contrast this works, therefore, with the Afro-Brazilian ones which are, as Arthur Ramos sagely noted, “free, sentimental and human” (A. Ramos, 1949, p.107 and 197).22 Carlos Ott, “A pintura na Bahia, 1549-1850,” História das artes na cidade de Salvador (Salvador: s.ed, 1967): 103–5., Hannah Levy, “A pintura colonial no Rio de Janeiro,” Revista S.P.H.A.N., (Rio de Janeiro, 1942), 10, Marieta Alves, História das artes na cidade do Salvador (Salvador: s.ed, 1967): 61, Francisco Marques dos Santos, “Artistas do Rio de Janeiro colonial,” Estudos Brasileiros 3 (1938), Antonio da Cunha Barbosa, “As artes plásticas no Brasil em geral e no Rio de Janeiro em particular,” Revista do I.H.G.B. 61 (1898), Nair Batista, “Pintores do Rio de Janeiro colonial,” Revista S.P.H.A.N. 3 (1939), Clarival do Prado Valladares, “O Negro Brasileiro nas Artes Plásticas,” Cadernos Brasileiros 47 (1968): 97–109.23 C. Valladares, 1968, p.10424 Sacred stone(s) incarnating African divinity, kept in the shrines (pegi) of Afro-Brazilian houses of worship. Usually, it is beneath a wooden frame, covered with expensive cloths, brocades, etc. with all the appearance of a Catholic tabernacle.25 Examples of such statuary in C. P. Valladares, Valladares, “A iconografia africana no Brasil,” Revista Brasileira de Cultura 1 (September, 1969): 37–48., Valladares, “Aspectos da iconografia afro-brasileira,” Cultura 6, no. 23 (1976): 64–77.26 Luís Saia, “Escultura popular brasileira,” Gazeta de São Paulo (1944): 62.27 Ibid.28 Nina Rodrigues, Os africanos no Brasil, 4th Ed. (São Paulo, Cia. Ed. Nacional, 1976), 170.29 These were ‘paid slaves’, who occupied a special position within the urban slavery system. When self-freed and in Western Africa, they would assume important social positions in what came to be known as the ‘Brazilian communities’.30 Dr P. da Costa, 1900, 93 (Cited in N. Rodrigues 1976, 170).31 N. Rodrigues, 1976, p.17132 Robert Conrad, Os últimos anos da escravatura no Brasil, 1850-88 (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1975), 36033 Carlos Moura, Rebeliões na senzala (São Paulo: Zumbi, 1959).34 A practical distinction, but which does not correspond with our point of view, which will hereupon be expressed.35 C.P. Valladares, 1968, p.10036 P. Bohannan, p.197137 Illustrative parallels of this are the Japanese gardens, particularly Zen-Buddhist temples where the spatial organisation on this basis of natural elements – stones, sand, trees, roots, water – aesthetically offer the Buddhist worldview, or likewise the Ikebana floral arrangements, which work the same way.38 Dennis Williams, Icon and Image (London: Allen Lane Penguin, 1974), 95–6.39 This study was later republished in N. Rodrigues, 1976, pp.160–17140 Artur Ramos, “Arte negra no Brasil,” Cultura Year 1, no.2 (Jan/Apr 1949): 188–21241 C. P. Valladares, Revista Brasileira de Cultura, 1 no. 1 (1969):37–48.42 Particularly C.P. Valladares, 1976, p.68 onwards43 Roger Bastide, Le candomblé de Bahia (rite Nagô) (Paris: La Haye, Monton, 1958).44 Pierre Verger, “Notes sur le culte des Orisha et Vodoum à Bahia, la Baie de tous les Saints au Brésil et l’ancienne Côte des Esclaves en Afrique”, Mémoire de l’IFAN 51 (1957).45 Ordep Serra, Na Trilha das Crianças: Os Erês Num Terreiro Angola (Brasilia: University of Brasilia, 1978).46 C.P. Valladares, 1976, pp.75–747 Fagg and Margaret Plass, African Sculpture (London: Studio Vista, 1973), 107.48 Ibid., 74.49 Coordinator’s note: on the photo from the National Museum, given as African, no documentation of origin or provenance exists. It was considered by Mariano Carneiro da Cunha to be Brazilian made.50 A. Ramos, Cultura, year one, no.2, 1949, fig.III51 N. Rodrigues, 1976, fig.12; A. Ramos, 1949, fig.V52 Edison Carneiro, Candomblés da Bahia, (Rio de Janeiro: Conquista, 1978), 56.53 An identical example of this hair can be seen in L. Frobenius, 1949, p.65, fig.10, last illustration, bottom right.54 Similar example with regards to the face found in Frank Willett African art, 1971, p.38, pr.23, second from the right.55 A. Ramos, 1949, pr.III56 An illustrative example of this can be seen in the set of sculptures which decorate the University of Ibadan (Nigeria). An axe, without a central figure and decorated with small phalluses is on display in the MAE/USP.57 A Shango (Odo Sango) ritual pestle, on display in the MAE/USP clearly shows this iconography.58 The MAE/USP also displays one of these specimens.59 It is important to clarify, however, that homosexuality is very rare amongst the Nago-Yoruba while, sometimes, institutionalized in other tribes from Northern Nigeria. These priests to whom we refer are usually married, with children and grandchildren, such as Babá Xangô of Oshogbo. On the other hand, perhaps in what we have just explored there lies the reluctance which R. Landes (City of women) and R. Bastide (Candomblé da Bahia) refer to of Brazilian men to ‘receive the spirit’, as that suggests taking on the opposite sex in their person. Some of the priests alluded to are considered the Orisha’s “wife,” such as the chief priest of Oxalufon of Ifon (Nigeria), who greets his king and his Orisha in dobalê, a typically feminine prostration, something unthinkable for a macho society like Brazil’s.60 N. Rodrigues, 1976.61 G. Ojo, African Notes 12, no. 2 (1972–1973): 25–55.62 the Portuguese term for the material representations of Afro-Brazilian religions’ entities that connect them and the devotees, which are called “igba” in Yoruba63 Leo Froebenius Mythologie de l’Atlantide (Paris: Payot, 1949), 26064 Mário Barata, “The Negro in the Plastic Arts of Brazil,” in The African Contribution to Brazil (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério das Relações, 1966), 37.65 It is worth remembering here that nudity is not an absolute criterion by with to judge if a sculpture is African or Afro-Brazilian, since there are many Nago-Yoruba statues which are clothed. Nudity in the case in question is ritual. In the ritual of Orò, from which women are excluded, the bearer of the Orisha is nude. On the other hand, the Nago-Yoruba had very early knowledge of weaving; there is even a myth in which Obatala is described as the one who raises the aurora of every day in order to weave clothes for his people (cf. R.F. Thompson, 1971, ch.16/ 1–2).66 For a more comprehensive description of Eshu statuary, see Joan Wescott, “The Culpture and my Thesis on Eshu-Elegba, the Yoruba Trickster,” Africa 32, no. 4 (1962): 336–53 R.F. Thompson, 1971, ch.4/1–4.n67 See illustration in L. Frobenius, 1949, p.229, fig.19.68 J. Wescott, 1962, p.33969 C. Frobenius, 1949, p.229, pr.19.70 In Laranjeiras, such iconography is attributed, however, to the Orisha Teo, according to the photographic archive of Beatriz Góis Dantas, who researched said Candomblé temple. From the same temple came examples with physiognomic features and facial scarification, but as the work is dressed and wearing a turban, hiding the sculpted details, it is impossible to draw any conclusions. The pieces representing Teo – with Eshu hair – and another Oya statuette, stylistically align with the Yemoya statuette analyzed by N. Rodrigues (op. cit. fig.9) and the axes analyzed by ourselves in this work, and therefore are very likely to have been made in Brazil.71 A. Ramos analyses this piece in Arte Negra no Brasil, 1944, p.202, fig.1172 Cf. note (1)73 A. Ramos, 1949, p.20274 See p.36 onwards.75 E. Carneiro, 1978, p.68.76 D. Williams, 1974, p.20 onwards77 An evocative display of this sculpture appears in Fernando Pereira’s film Bahia de Todos os Exus.78 F. Willett, 1975, pp.201–20579 See D. Williams, 1974, p.95.80 Id.81 Around the 1940s, for more details see Renato Ortiz, A Morte Branca do Feiticeiro Negro (Petropolis: Vozes, 1978).82 See Napoleão Figueiredo, “Os Caminhos de Eshu,” in 7 Brasileiros e Seu Universo (Brasilia: DAC/PAC, 1974), 94, figure G.83 Ibid., p.74.84 Haydée Nascimento, “Pesquisa de Umbanda e Candomblé na Cidade de São Paulo,” Cultura 6, no. 23 (1976): 208.85 There is a range of interesting and suggestive speculation, if not entirely proven, as to the exponential curve and its symbolism of expansion, set forth by W. Fagg in Tribes and forms in African Art (London: Passim, 1965).86 Frobenius, 1949, p.228 onwards87 Juana Elbein dos Santos, Os Nagô e a morte (Petropolis: Vozes, 1975), 240.88 R. F. Thompson, 1971.89 Ibid.90 J. Wescott, 1962.91 Edmund Leach, “Magical hair,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute 88, no. 2 (1958): 147–65.92 C. P. Valladares, 1976, p.68–69; Mário Barata, 1966, p.3593 See R.F. Thompson, 1971, ch.14, fig.2, X 65–8244 and Henry J. Drewal “Gelede Masquerade: Imagery and Motif,” African Arts 4, 4 (1971): 18, fig.15.94 See the first part of this work (section 2)95 Ibid. Section 3.96 See Herbert M. Cole and Doran H. Ross, The arts of Ghana¸1977, p.63 et passim., fig.88 and 116 among others. This knot also appears in the handles of Etruscan and Greco-Roman pots, from the classical period, often joining a black head and a white; see Frank M. Snowden Jr., Blacks in antiquity, 1975, p.65, fig.38; p.233, fig.92. Meanwhile in Egypt it appears tying the belts of the deities, similar to the ‘knot of Isis’: see G. Posener, 1959, p.190.97 Only a small area of the Yoruba region worships the Gelede, whose origin is Ketu, in Dahomey.98 Ulli Beier, “Gelede Marks,” Odu 6, no. 11 (1958).99 Lídia Cabrera, Yemayá y Ochún (Miami/Madrid: Libreria & Distribuidora Universal, 1974), 30.100 Margaret T. Drewal and Henry J. Drewal, “Gelede Dance of the Western Yoruba,” African Arts 8 no. 2 (1976): 44.101 Pierre Verger collected a series of these myths in which one can clearly observe this contrast: see P. Verger, 1965, pp.219 and 239.102 See E. Carneiro, 1978, p.65.103 See section 10 of this work.104 Willett, Ife in the History of West African Sculpture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1967), 20.105 Mário de Andrade, “O Aleijandinho,” Aspectos Das Artes Plásticas No Brasil (São Paulo: Martins, 1965), 44.106 Id., p.42.107 Id., p.43.108 Mário de Andrade picks up the theme of primitivism again, however, and gives it a new focus, but now from the perspective of an aesthetic primitivism linked to popular art and nationalism.109 Mário de Andrade, 1965, p.35110 Id., p.41111 See the first part of this work, section 3112 G. Bazin, 1963, p.36113 L. Saia, 1944.114 Id., p.17 onwards.115 G. Bazin, 1963, p.95116 Rodrigo J. F Bretas, “Traços biográficos relativos ao finado Antonio Francisco Lisboa (O Aleijadinho),” Revista do Arquivo Público Mineiro 1 (1896): 169–74.117 Mário de Andrade, 1965, p.46.118 W. Fagg and M. Plass, 1973119 “But our century did not invent most of these styles, any more than Linnaeus flora and fauna. Rather they owe to be regarded as modes which have always been available to the conceptual artist (much as the classical or neo-classical architect draws at will on the Doric, the Ionic or the Corinthian order) and which have been placed at the disposal of Europe once more by the liberating effects of the modernist revolution.” W. Fagg and M. Plass, 1973, p.32.120 See the first part of this work, section 3.121 The J. Elbein dos Santos film Orixá Nilu Ilé, 1978) shows some of these staffs which perfectly illustrate what we have said. See also M. Leiris and J. Delange, 1967, p.220.122 See M. Leiris and J. Delange, 1967, p.231, fig.263123 E. Carneiro, 1978, p.18124 M. de Andrade, 1965, p.45.125 See p.16 and onwards.126 N. Rodrigues, 1976, p.251 et passim.127 Alfredo Bosi, “As letras na primeira República,” in História geral da civilização Brasileira (9), ed. B. Fausto (Rio de Janeiro: Difel, 1977), 316: “The viewpoint was that of more informed and refined intellectuals who proposed to unravel the poetry of the origins, of the wild and cosmic substrate of a race.”128 A publication by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Quem é Quem Nas artes e Nas Letras do Brasil,” published in 1966. Of a total of 298 names, from 1945 onwards, only 16 were Black or mulatto artists.129 For a more complete array of Black and mestizo artists from this period, see C. P. Valladares, 1968, p.107 onwards.130 Id., p.107131 “Speech by Rubem Valentim,” Brasilia, December 1974/January 1975. Xeroxed copy.132 For a more in-depth analysis of bodily arts in Africa, see L. Leiris and Jacqueline Delange, Afrique noire, Paris, Gallimard, 1967, p.52 onwards and pp.117–61. Collection l’Universe des Formes.133 . There was also a belief that they “brought luck” to the house.134 the Portuguese term for the material representations of Afro-Brazilian religions’ entities that connect them and the devotees, which are called “igba” in YorubaAdditional informationNotes on contributorsMariano Carneiro da CunhaTranslated from Portuguese by Andrew McDougallOriginally published as “Arte afro-brasileira,” in História Geral da Arte no Brasil (2) ed. W. Zanini (São Paulo: Instituto Walther Moreira Salles, 1983).