Yale Art Gallery –
African Art
On my third visit to the Yale Art Gallery it was sunny,
with only a few clouds in the sky, the breeze help a chill the bespoke the rain
to come. The first thing I noticed walking into the African art section was
just how colorful everything was. In fact the very first thing I saw was a ‘drawing’
of a bird that was done with beads and was very colorful.
The Yale Art Gallery’s
mission is to perpetuate understanding and love for art and how art can and
does affect societies. They strive to achieve active learning about art and to
stimulate the creative process through this gained knowledge. The Gallery was
founded in 1832, when a gentleman by the name of John Trumbull donated more
than 100 paintings to Yale College. The Gallery’s main building though was
built in 1953 and was one of the very first designed by Louis Kahn.
A lot of the art held an alien interest to me, it was all
just so different then what I’m used to seeing and dealing with, it fascinated me.
A lot of the pieces were either made of wood or reeds, or even grass, but also
many used beads and fabric, or even ivory. It was very bizarre for me to wander
around, and interesting because of the differences in culture I could see in
them. Many of the depictions of women had bare chests, where in “modern” areas
that would be considered risqué or even pornographic, there it is just normal
and it is not connected with sexuality the same was the modern world connects it.
The piece I liked the
most was a Carved Relief in a tusk with the use of pigment. It was carved in
the late 19th to early 20th century; it was found by the
Loango Coast. It is a swirling carving of people, men and women, that at the
top seem to be very poor and the farther down you look the richer they get and
at the bottom is a beast of burden.
This carving was created during the beginning of
Modernism. “In art Modernism explicitly rejects the ideology of realism, and
makes use of the works of the past, through the application of reprise,
incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms.
Modernism also rejects the lingering certainty of Enlightenment thinking, as
well as the idea of a compassionate, all-powerful Creator” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism).
Over all I thought this
trip was an interesting look into social differences. I also liked looking at
the different ways that the African people expressed themselves creatively. I appreciated
the skill with which they developed there carving techniques, and the wonderful
colors they adorned there art with.
The last carving is a wonderful piece... You said that it was created at the beginning of modernism, implying that it was part of the modern movement... actually modernism embraced "primitive" art. In rejecting western norms about God and power, artists like Picasso actively sought out inspiration from African masks and African culture.
ReplyDeleteCool I wasn't aware of that. I was struggling to place what movement this belonged to but the date's the museum gave for it coincided with the Modernism so I amused it was some how connected to it.
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