It's All about Art 2 - Art from Africa in Bode Museum

The Bode Museum is one of the five museums on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany.
It is the home for a collection of sculptures, Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque art.

It was designed by architect Ernst von Ihne and completed in 1904. Originally called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after Emperor Frederick III, the museum was renamed in honor of its first curator, Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956.

Wilhelm von Bode, who believed in mixing art collections and in this essence when I visited the museum it hosted a collection of African art that was in the same place with the regular exhibitions.

It was very interesting to see a Gothic sculpture next to an African mask for example. The pairing of works from Africa and Europe reveals their interrelationships, such as historical contemporaneity, their iconographic and technical similarities and common artistic strategies.

Let’s see some of the works. This dude comes from Congo, it’s called mangaaka and was used to maintain justice and order in Yombe region north of the lower Congo river. At the same time, it was meant to fend off evil and support social order at a time of traumatic upheaval caused by European invaders.

Masquerades often transcended the boundaries of human and spiritual realms and provided a setting for rites of passage. The masks embody powerful nature spirits. They were probably mounted on a wall at the community’s initiation camp. Masks displayed along with sculptures carved inside the camp singaled that the initiation was almost complete and the initiates would soon be reintegrated into society.

This is a reliquary bust of a male saint. I chose a close caption to focus on the eyes and the look of the subject. They are supposed to contain sacred relics and amplify their powers.

This is a memorial sculpture of a King or a person of importance. One could say it is an Expressionist masterpiece. Masterpiece maybe yes but not expressionist. It comes from Cameroon and dates back to the 19th century. The figure was carved to honor its subject as the embodiment of ideal qualities such as fierceness, power and authority.

These were some of pieces of art that come from Africa. In a next post we will see the rest of the works presented at Bode Museum.

And until we walk again the path of art …
Be healthy , Smile and Steem !