Negro Art in Belgian Congo

An African work of art is almost isolated from its cultural background. It has to be considered and studied without the help of little-known African history. The social, economic and religious evolution of the Dark Continent throws little light on the real meaning of such work. The only part of human knowledge to which the art historian can have recourse for information is ethnology. This is the chief reason why the study of African art has, for a whole century, been so strongly linked to this science.



Ethnology and aesthetics do not make a happy marriage. The ethnologist is not concerned with the artistic significance of the objects. He examines. He cares nothing for the spirit that pervades the statue or the mask he handles; and he remains indifferent to the feeling that inspired the work. Even the technique and the style employed by the artist are of no interest to him, if they do not allow him to ascertain so'me purely material facts concerning the evolution of culture or the degree of civilization attained by the craftsman.



And yet, during the whole period of discovery of Africa Tenebrosa, it was the ethnologist, and not the art scholar, who was the keeper and often the possessor of the treasures discovered by the explorer. Independent research was out of the question. The art scholar, unaware of the treasures that had perhaps been discarded, was forced to enter the museum of the ethnologist, to accept the latter's indoctrination, his classification in short, the learned man's opinion.



Science is not to be blamed for this astounding state of affairs.