Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1916 (Heft 48))

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He had recourse to fetiches; in earliest stages some stone or stock of wood. As he evolved
he increased the efficacy of these by fashioning them into forms of his own devising. Such are
the objects here shown; they are fetiches.
Characteristic of all is the purely objective way in which the carver approached his sub-
ject. He set out to make his public see just what he saw in the object. But the way in which
he saw it was entirely opposed to the photographic way. It was not representation, as in the
case of white savage art; it was rather what we call today the caricaturist’s way.
If he wished to objectivize the fierce bulging of the eyes, he makes them protrude like
pegs; if a covert expression of the eye, he parts the closed lids by a decisive slit. Note, again,
in one face the power expressed by the massive protuberance of the features and in another
the refinement, actually subtle, obtained by varying the surfaces of the planes. And in almost
every case it is not representation, but suggestion, that secures the objective reality. Here
is the essential difference between this art and that of white savages.
In a word, the main characteristic of these carvings is their vital objectivity, rendered by
means that are abstract. This or that objective fact has been, as it were, drawn out into con-
structive prominence, and has been given such a shape as would most decisively emphasize it.
Another feature of these carvings which must not be overlooked is their decorative char-
acter. It was necessity in the first place that prompted the making of these fetiches. They
were needed for the preservation of the race. But by this time the instinct to beautify the need-
ful things of life had been evolved. One can discover it in the details, added for no other pur-
pose than that of ornament, as well as in the treatment of the hair, and of the surfaces generally.
It is impossible, for example, to believe otherwise than that the carver was satisfying his
instinct of beauty when he sloped down the contours of one face and curved the lips of another.
Over and over again there are details of form and surface that are replete with aesthetic feeling.
And one other characteristic among many more that could be mentioned distinguishes
these objects. To a greater or less degree all are expressive of movement, be it but the opening
or shutting of the eyes. A feeling for the static does not belong to the savage. He is ever on
the move, encountering the changes of the seasons and weather. To him life is movement,
which, by the way, brings his primordial instinct into touch with modern philosophy as well as
modern art.
J. Edgar Chamberlin in the “N. Y. Mail”:
We do not think of the wild African tribes as great sculptors, but the exhibition of their
work which Mr. Stieglitz has been holding at the Photo-Secession gallery proves that they are
real artists, expressing a definite idea with great skill—inherited, traditional skill. Their use
of the rich, dark woods of Africa, the exquisite, almost unbelievable beauty of the patina they
put on these wood sculptures, are remarkable. Forms are rude and conventional, but the
expression is quite as successful as that of the archaic Greek sculptures.
Several large, rude heads and faces, probably originally collected either by the French
government or some of its representatives in the French Soudan and Senegal, show exactly
where Picasso got his inspiration for his “Mile. Pogany,” or whatever her name may be. She is
here to the life, but in ebony. These negro sculptors represented human faces and heads in
this way because they knew no better way; but knowing no better way, they achieved a con-
siderable expression in spite of the limitation. Enamored by their success, Picasso has adopted
their limitations—and produced a merely curious, not an admirable, result, like the negroes’.
Every one should see these African carvings. They are one of the few very real things
now visible in this town.
Elizabeth Luther Carey in the “N. Y. Times”:
One is tempted to think that the Primitive, the first barbarian moved to express himself
in terms of art, has never existed. The further back we go the further he recedes until suddenly
we come to something that looks so “modern” as to seem of today. The Post-Impressionist and
the Congo savage have much in common, as the exhibition of African carvings at the Photo-
Secession Galleries clearly demonstrates. The quality they share most obviously is the tend-
ency to emphasize significance at the expense of representation. If an eye bulges make it bulge
more; if a chin retreats send it back as far as it will go or obliterate it altogether; if arms are
long make them like those of an ape. Certain of the carvings are, however, obviously of a
much more advanced stage in art than others. One head, polished and black, with a red


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