In 1960 Eberhard Fischer, then a nineteen-year-old student at Tübingen University, traveled with his stepfather, the eminent anthropologist Hans Himmelheber, to Liberia. There they spent two months in the northeastern part of the country in the Dan towns of Nyor Diaple and Nuopie. These towns were then situated in a back-of-beyond area of Liberia, inaccessible except by footpaths. Himmelheber had previously studied the southwestern Dan in these locations. However, on this trip, which was financially supported by the German Research Council, his plan was to expand on his previously published studies of Dan religious and magical practices.
In a fascinating and well-written epilogue to Dan Artists—The Sculptors Tame, Si, Tompieme and Sõn: Their Personalities and Work, Fischer vividly describes their preparations for this trip, and how, prior to it, he shifted his own focus of study from Gothic language to anthropology. In the summer of 1960, before the trip, Himmelheber had invited Fischer to attend an International Anthropological Congress in Paris. There Fischer met leading ethnologists of the time, including Margaret Mead. He also met Charles Ratton, who by then was an internationally known art expert, dealer, and collector. Trained at the Ecole du Louvre, Ratton became a leading figure in what was then identified as the field of “primitive art.” Yet Ratton, who was originally trained in the arts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, pioneered a shifting away from this perception of the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The scope of his career was broad and included friendships with the Surrealist artists André Breton and Paul Eluard, photographic collaborations with Man Ray, and efforts with Jean Dubuffet to define Outsider Art. He also financially supported Himmelheber and his work in Africa for many years.
Fischer’s role on this trip was that of photographer and filmmaker. Specifically, Himmelheber wanted him to produce a saleable film of mask carvers and mask performances that could help recover some of the travel and other costs. Over a two-month period Fischer photographed, filmed, and documented four Dan carvers as well as dances with masks that they had produced. He later published his findings and photographs in an extensive article in Baessler-Archiv, N.F. (1963), published by the Berlin Ethnographic Museum.
In his epilogue to Dan Artists, Fischer explains that his 1963 German-language article is cited in bibliographies and referred to in studies focused on African artists. However, he concludes, correctly, that its publication in a limited-circulation German-language research journal restricted access to it by subsequent generations of readers. Dan Artists, therefore, is a re-publication of Fischer’s original 1960 field research and photographs, amplified by material obtained during a few subsequent field trips. It is a beautifully produced book.
Although the essence of this volume consists of field studies conducted more than half a century ago, its value has only increased over time. For change at all levels of life has profoundly affected even once very isolated corners of the world. Thus, what Fischer documented in text, film, and photographs so many years ago represents an important historical landmark now presented in a form that is easily accessible. Some may incorrectly assess this effort as a form of salvage ethnography in which what was observed and documented in the past is presented in a timeless ethnographic present. Such a conclusion would be wrong, especially as the author clearly sets the content of his book in the distant past, and comments on the inexorable changes that have taken place over time in the area where he conducted his studies.
Following the introduction, Fischer presents a fascinating and informative section on Dan artistry. This provides the necessary background for understanding the following four sections, each of which is focused on a specific artist. As Fischer explains, Dan art encompasses masks (gue) that “are based on dreamlike apparitions”—spirit beings not seen by ordinary people. In highlighting the four Dan artists—Tame, Si, Tompieme, and Sõn—the author focuses on the creation of deangle (smiling) masks, which are a hallmark of Dan artistic creation. For each artist Fischer provides rich autobiographic backgrounds, descriptions of their workshops and carving methods, and details of the forms they sculpted. All of the four profiles are greatly enriched with color and black-and-white photographs.
The descriptions of carving techniques and the basic instruments used, as well as details about post-sculpting surface treatments, will greatly interest most readers. It is also noteworthy that sculptors at that time assisted in the public performances in which their masks were featured. Fischer provides some excellent photographs to illustrate this practice in which the carvers often assumed the role of musicians. Also included in the four artist profiles are examples of their sculptures that are now in museum or private collections.
During his subsequent 1963 trip to the Dan, Fischer expanded on his 1960 observations and also collected 350 ethnographic objects for the University of Basel which became part of the ethnographic collections of the University’s Museum der Kulturen. The author spent most of his career as an art historian and ethnologist carrying out field research in India, for which he was awarded the civilian honor of Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2012. He also served as Director of the Museum Rietberg from 1974 to 1998.
Dan Artists is an outstanding publication that documents in exquisite detail the sculpting techniques, sculptures, and lives of four Dan artists more than half a century ago. Richly illustrated and accompanied by a thirty-two-minute color film, it represents a vital historical record that will be of great interest to a broad audience of scholars and general readers interested in the arts of Africa.
African Masters: Art from the Ivory Coast is a volume of essays by art historians that accompanied an exhibition of the same name in 2014 and 2015 that originated at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich and ended at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. The exhibition contained some two hundred sculptures judged to be the masterpieces carved by master sculptors in the Ivory Coast. As Fischer explains in the introduction to the volume, Dan carvers with exceptional carving skills were known by the title “master” (zo) and were commissioned to sculpt objects for patrons who greatly valued them. He further notes that their works “stand out clearly from the mass of similar but rougher, less interesting, and average secular and religious items” (14). A number of these objects are illustrated in this volume.
Although the works of these master carvers can be admired and appreciated, little or nothing is known about most of them, since the majority of these works are anonymous. There are a few exceptions. Fischer himself worked with a number of master Dan carvers and his stepfather, Hans Himmelheber, documented the sculptures of a famous Yaure artist, Kuakudili, photographed him in the Ivory Coast in 1934, and collected some of his masterpieces. Nevertheless, for most of the works discussed here the artist is unknown. It has long been thought that artist anonymity in the field of African art was the result of the movement of objects through several hands in a commercial chain that eventually led to Western ownership. While this no doubt was an important factor in rendering African carvers anonymous, there are several other reasons for the anonymity, as discussed by Fischer in several chapters and by Monica Blackmun Visonà in a chapter titled “Artistic Creativity and Anonymity in the Lagoon Region of the Ivory Coast.”
Fischer, citing Till Forster, relates that among the Senufo, carvings are rarely attributed to an individual. Rather, they are ascribed to a workshop known for producing certain wooden objects. Visonà explains that healers who present wooden figures to their communities claim that they are of supernatural origins. Some healers commission figures from carvers who know how to sculpt a figure in a certain manner in order to attract a supernatural being. Other healers claim that a guiding spirit has led them to a distant place where they purchased a figure and never asked for the name of the artist. The names of artists are also kept secret out of concern that a rival group or individual might later attempt to commission a similar, but more imposing, carving from the same artist in order to outshine the original.
Visonà explains that because of the anonymity, new names have been invented for artists, based on the shared formal and stylistic features of their works. These names include Master of the Round Face, Master of the Rounded Shapes, Master of Crowns, Master of Parasols, and Master of the Triangular Nose. For some works illustrated in this volume, a place name is used as an eponym such as Master from Totokoro and Master from Essankro. Other works are attributed to the names of Western art dealers or collectors, including Ascher Master (named for Ernst Ascher, a well-known art dealer), Himmelheber Master, Vérité Master (named after Pierre Vérité, a Parisian art dealer and collector), Kamer Master (named after Henri Kamer, an art dealer and collector), and Vlaminck Master (named after Maurice de Vlaminck, a noted French painter and collector). While the use of substitute names based on assumed geographic locales or shared formal and stylistic features seems acceptable, one might well object to the practice of imposing the name of a Western owner on a masterwork since it effectively equates ownership provenance with creation origins. Also, many African objects have a history of serial owners, and the selection of one for such naming seems arbitrary.
Eberhard Fischer has contributed three chapters to this volume: “Guro Carvers,” derived from his 1983 fieldwork in the Ivory Coast; “Dan Master Carvers of the Twentieth Century,” an expansion of the account given in Dan Artists; and “Metamorphoses—From an ‘Exceptional Object’ to an Internationally Traded Work of Art.” This third chapter is particularly fascinating, as it traces the life history of a mask made in 1976 by Si, a carver known to Fischer, until its final destination in a dealer’s shop in Italy.
Lorenz Homberger, the curator of African Art at Museum Rietberg, has contributed an excellent overview of Ivorian art in his chapter, “The Cultural Diversity of Côte d’Ivoire.” Bernard de Grunne, a highly respected art historian, discusses Baule art in a chapter titled “About the Baule Style and Its Masters.” The importance of Senufo workshops is presented in excellent detail by Homberger in “Artists in Senufo Workshops.” Daniela Bognolo, an ethnologist whose work focuses on the cultures of the Volta region, has contributed a very detailed and insightful chapter titled “The Art of the Lobi—African Masters and Their Forms of Expression.” The final chapter, “Modern and Contemporary Artists from the Ivory Coast,” written by Visonà, discusses four contemporary Ivorian artists and illustrates a number of their works.
African Masters: Art from the Ivory Coast represents a major contribution to our knowledge of the artists and art forms of several groups in this part of Africa. The individual chapters are well written by respected scholars who have conducted field studies among the people they discuss. The book is illustrated with color studio photographs of some two hundred objects. In addition, field photographs by various scholars enhance most of the chapters. Comprehensive in its scope, well organized, and engagingly written, this volume will have great appeal for all who are interested in the arts of Africa.
