Mumuye Statue, Early 20th C.

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Lot: 472

Mumuye Statue, Early 20th C.

Mumuye statue, Nigeria. Pps. S. XX. Made of patinated wood on a base. 130 cm high (without base).

The "janari" statues represent tutelary ancestors who watch over the well-being of family clans and people of high social rank. Always in a sacred place, closed to ordinary people, each clan hid "janaris" from 35 to 185 centimeters tall with magical-religious functions in the hands of individuals of the highest social status such as the lord of thunder, the lord of lightning, healers, fortune tellers, blacksmiths, the rainmaker, etc. They used them in rituals to consolidate their prestige.

In an agricultural society the main concern is rain. The Mumuye attribute maximum powers to specialists in rituals for controlling lightning and thunder. Standing out among all the powerful fetishes capable of causing rain, they use a thin iron ingot whose sinuous shape describes the movement of lightning and the serpent (powerful symbol of water). The most energetic "janari" receive magical treatment with white talc around the eyes and red powder inside the ear to keep them alert, sharpening these senses, and imitate the shape of the arms and legs of the powerful rain fetish described above. . It is believed that this peculiar shape endows them with the "contained energy" of lightning and disposes them to act in aid of their owners. Not in vain, among the multitude of functions of the Mumuye statues is to protect properties and crops from thieves and invaders.

The word "janari" transcribes and alludes to another of the properties of these statues "capable of speaking" questioned by the diviner. After receiving the juice of the medicinal plant called "gadele" in the mouth, they can reveal the identity of the person wanted for having committed a crime.

On an artistic level they are schematic carvings. "Stick" sculptures that freely represent the main tribal features of the Mumuye, using only games of shapes in which geometry builds volume, full of creativity, light and shadow. In short, pure forms that did not go unnoticed by the attentive eyes of great sculptors such as Giacometti, in which the figurative gives way to an interior lyricism, and where Henry Moore found the model to transcend Greek sculpture and the suffocating canon of the Academy. . After reading the statement "African artists truly conceive form in three dimensions" in art critic Roger Fry''s book Vision and Design, published in 1920, Moore made studies of the Mumuye figure on page 105 of the notebook. No. 3 reproduced here.

NICOLAS, A. "African faces, African figures". New York: Museum for African Art, 1997. P. 100. 130cm tall

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Object

Mumuye Statue, Pps. S. XX

Material

Wood

Country

Nigeria

Measures

130cm tall

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