Dan Maou mask, Ivory Coast Late 19th - early 20th... Lot 15

Dan Maou mask, Ivory Coast Late 19th - early 20th century Wood, black pigment H. 25 cm - L. 15 cm "It is reasonable to think that a man is not a bird; however, this mask [...] seems to say the opposite, so naturally does the beak fit into the shape of the face." (Diamantis Thémélis, L'art africain ou La parole double des choses, In Arts d'Afrique Noire, [s. l.], n. 118, p. 21-29, 2001). Dan Maou masks are without doubt one of the most accomplished sculpted forms of the union between man and animal. The beautiful, regular oval of the face, framed by linear incisions reminiscent of traditional Diomandé scarification, is home to delicately shaped naturalistic features - a rounded forehead, large slit and crinkled eyes, a fine nose, all sublimated by a glossy, deep-black patina. The zoomorphic character of the entity is expressed by the power of the bifid beak projected into space. Ambivalence and hybridity are recurrent principles governing the arts of sub-Saharan Africa, in a universe where, to achieve the supernatural, "tribal speech unites certain opposites in the objects it creates". The contradictions of the universe are translated into images and tangible plastic solutions. "This tension is universal, as much as the beauty of form can be; it is rooted in the most archaic - and therefore fundamental - properties of the human soul.