Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

LaGamma, Alisa (2004)

This title is out of print.

Read online

Download PDF

Watsonline WorldCat

Publication Details

Description

Idealized pairings have been an enduring concern of sculptors across the African continent. This universal theme of duality is now examined in a handsome book that presents African sculptural masterpieces created in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. Drawn from twenty-four sub-Saharan African cultures, including those of the Dogon, Lobi, Baule, Senufo, Yoruba, Chamba, Jukun, Songye, and Sakalava, the sculptures tell much about each culture's beliefs and social ideals. These artistic creations are astonishingly rich and diverse forms of expression. An essay written by Alisa LaGamma discusses thirty works, all of which are illustrated in colour. This book is the catalogue for an exhibition on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword

Acknowledgments

Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture
Alisa LaGamma

Exhibition Checklist

Works Cited

Related Titles

Titles by thematic category (38)

African Art (General)

Titles by author (21)

Alisa LaGamma

Related Content

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (2)

Essays (2)

Couples in Art

Divination and Senufo Sculpture in West Africa

Exhibition

Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

Idealized pairings have been an enduring concern of sculptors in many sub-Saharan African cultures. This exhibition examines the theme through approximately sixty works of sculpture in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork, dating from the twelfth to the twentieth century. The sculptures on view were created by artists from thirty different regional traditions, including the Dogon and Bamana of Mali; the Senufo and Baule of Côte d'Ivoire, the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Mangbetu and Zande of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sakalava and Vezo of Madagascar.

Among the exhibition's highlights is the Primordial Couple, a freestanding wood sculpture of a seated male and female couple created by a Dogon master. Dating to as early as the sixteenth century, this masterpiece is one of the most beloved icons in the Metropolitan's African collection. Given the work's scale and complexity, scholars have suggested that it was created to honor a Dogon elder. The figures are eloquently unified by the male figure's gesture, reaching his right arm around his partner's neck and resting his hand on her breast. This seminal work gives expression to the idea of man and woman as an elemental unit of life, and served as a bridge between the Museum's permanent collection and the works on loan for the exhibition...

Plan Ahead

MetPublications