african sculptor

Name : bamoun

Réf: BMN04

Importation: Cameroun

Size: H60cm L30cm

weight: 4500Gr

Description:

Art objects were symbols of position in the hierarchy; the number of art pieces, the materials from which they were made, and their iconography changed progressively as one descended or ascended the social ladder.
Competition among sculptors was often great, for the artist's "office" was not hereditary. Sculpture's goal was to commemorate and celebrate the royal ancestors of the present fon. In the fon's palace, next to the ancestral figures and the masks, one would also find headdresses, beaded thrones, bracelets, necklaces, pipes, leopard skins, elephant tusks, swords, commanders' sticks, fans, dishware, horns, and terracotta bowls. A large number of prestigious items of paraphernalia were produced within the Grassland area, including large house-posts, door and window frames carved with human and animal figures, thrones, stools and tables decorated with small heads and figures, large bowls, carved horns for royal feasts, anthropomorphic terracotta and bronze pipes. Musical instruments such as anthropomorphic and zoomorphic drums, as well as metal gongs, were played during royal and state ceremonies. Bamum social life was oriented toward the conquest of surrounding chieftaincies, and forays were made into neighboring lands: from this stems a warrior mythology and an abundance of material symbols of strength. The Bamum produced large and smaller sized figures encrusted with beads and cowries. The northern part of Cameroon has been Islamized and has no sculpture; on the other hand, the savannas of the west, the Grassland, are composed of three ethnic groups with ancestors in common.