STATUAIRE FAN GABON

Description

Morphological Analysis of African sculpture is an old idea: Carl Einstein, in 1915 the suggested and used it to reflect on the negro aesthetics. He wanted to reach behind a coherent set of forms, realities to reveal the original environment of works. Although few developed results were published, the purpose of this research is twofold: first determine the ‘special stylistic trends‘ (if any) in the corpus fan before us; then study these styles by connecting the ethnographic context. The first step is the aesthetic as it deals with only forms and even archaeological, given the age of some parts: the “byeri” fan are hardly used nowadays because the fan art is a lost art, or rather a dead art, frozen in a now irreversible immobility. The second approach is ethnological ‘insofar as it attempts to relocate the styles in a lived reality certainly gone but we still remember. The scientific study of the style of ritual statuary Fang of Gabon is not revolutionary, nor in its purpose nor in its method. It was carried out on 272 objects from parts from many public and private collections or photographs. Two stays 20 months in Gabon discovery of language and in situ verification will be required for Louis Perrois to justify in terms of fan and Gabon Ethnography two complementary research phases ethnomorphologique method, namely:

1- The morphological study based on observation and rigorous analysis of each piece and to break down the ‘Byeri’ three main building blocks are the proportions of the trunk in relation to the total height of the associated part to those of the head and neck.

2- ethnological study, based on the field survey and a literature search, comparing the morphological identification information obtained according to a classification and a specific coding based on the details recorded on each ‘Byeri’ for grouping the main ethnic styles (Betsi and Ntumu) affinity and compare them.

Note, however, that the study of fan statuary – excluding masks – if it can be considered relatively complete morphologically, does not pretend to be on the more general aesthetic. Only the first systematic approach to the problem: it should be supplemented by a larger study of aesthetics fan universe is multifaceted (music, literature, pace among others) and should be considered as a logical whole. However, the confrontation of a large number of homologous parts and their detailed study the establishment of a reference catalog that could serve as a basis for a more general order investigations (both a plan of ethno-aesthetic Gabonese that African art whole) and developments that have no place in the deliberately limited scope of this work.