Seeing the spirit: The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts - African American collection, Richmond, Virginia - Advertising Supplement: Virginia

American Visions, June-July, 1994 by Henry Chase

Gazing at the maternity figure carved early in this century by an unknown Kongo artist, a 14-year-old junior high school student said, "I see both my past and my future in this piece." In fact, the wooden sculpture that seized the young man's attention speaks to our past and our future. For while the work overtly proclaims that its subject is family, the family to which it alludes is much broader than just the mother and child so gracefully carved. The figure is an nkisi, or power statue, a spiritual totem whose cavities in the head and back were once filled with special substances that imparted curative blessings or protective powers to the whole community.

Kneeling, the woman appears to be presenting the child to some lordly individual or otherworldly being; one art historian has suggested that she kneels in front of a "mystic mirror," trying to visualize the solution to some community problem, possibly one concerning the vulnerable. Whether she looks to an elder, a spirit, or a mystic mirror, it is likely that it is the ancestors from whom she seeks an answer.

Look carefully at the figure: Around the mother's navel is a lozenge-shaped scarification--the Kongo cosmogram that symbolizes the cycle of life, from birth through maturity to death and rebirth. The cosmogram reinforces the belief that "family" includes generations no longer among the living as well as those not yet born--and by extension, the entire community of which they are part.

If, as the popular African proverb tells us, it takes a whole village to raise a child, then the maternity figure speaks across time, reminding us that the well-being of each child is directly tied to the well-being of its embracing community. Whatever the interpretation, the Kongo craftsman's creation provokes thought as well as awe, and thus typifies the African Collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Begun in 1977, the collection has grown steadily into a treasure of more than 300 objects from a wide range of cultures on the African continent. From the powerful wooden statues of the Kongo to the stunning gold jewelry of the Asante, selections from this trove have been on view in the museum's African Gallery since 1987, but from fall 1994 through spring 1995, almost the entire collection will be displayed in a special exhibition, "African Art: Spirit of the Motherland."

Seen in its broad sweep, the collection simultaneously puts to rest the misconception that Africa consists of a single, uniform culture and underscores the truth that Africa's many distinct styles of visual and performing arts share a common impulse, a belief that family and community are defining features of humanity.

Initiation--a process of confirming belonging--is a critical aspect of African cultures, as is evident in the museum's holdings of sculpture and masks. "Flute With Standing Figure"--from the Nuna, or Dafing, culture of modern-day Burkina Faso--is a particularly beautiful rendition of an instrument integral to initiation rites, where they are often passed from one generation to the next. While drums and other musical instruments are played only by members of a special caste, any male in the community may play a flute in public. At funerals, they are played to represent the voices of the ancestors: As most of the languages spoken in Burkino Faso are tonal, the flute can imitate human speech as well as "sing" songs of praise for spiritual guides, warriors or champion cultivators.

"African Art: Spirit of the Motherland" will feature other examples of Africa's musical instruments, including a stunning ivory horn from the Mende people of Sierra Leone that is sounded not in a performance or ceremony, but to announce the presence of a paramount chief. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum will present an African music series that features a sampling of the continent's varied musical traditions.

Along with figurative sculpture, masks are central to a portrayal of transcendent creativity in Africa. At initiations and at celebrations giving thanks for the harvest or for royal generosity or recalling the worthy deeds of deceased members of the community, masks are danced to the pulsing rhythms of drums, slit gongs, rattles, and xylophones.

Just as our assumptions about art can mislead us into thinking that a piece of sculpture is nothing more than a beautiful object, our conceptions about masks can get in the way of understanding Africa. African masks do in fact hide the identities of those who wear them, but the masquerade is more significantly intended to reveal an omnipresent reality not otherwise seen. Generally speaking, the mask exposes the presence of a natural or ancestral spirit.

In the case of masks representing ancestral spirits, those who came before are understood to be very much a part of the community today. This preoccupation with the ancestors is an affirmation of the ongoing cycle of life and an honoring of tradition and wisdom, not a morbid fascination with the dead. To uncover the context and meaning of the museum's masks, "African Art: Spirit of the Motherland" will show videotape programs of actual ceremonies employing masks in their intended ritual functions.