BOOKS PILAT 138 LEFT: Statue, Marquesas Islands. This post, once part of a temple or a priest’s house, represents the god Tiki, creator of the earth and the oceans. It was brought to Europe at the end of the nineteenth century by Edouard Petit, governor of the French establishments in Polynesia and a witness to Paul Gauguin’s last days there. It was probably collected in Taiohae, and it is the most beautiful Marquesan sculpture known. It marked the entry to a taboo place, a holy structure. Made with non-metallic tools (and thus dating to before the fi rst contact with English and Spanish explorers), it obviously has tremendous age. The hard wood attests to this, weathered as it is by time, rain, and the sun, even though it was protected under a roof. Its classic shape with an oversized head with immense eyes and beautifully elongated ears, its compact body with a narrow waist, the elegant curvature of its back, and the short and dynamic legs are all characteristics of prototypical Marquesan art. Ah, how beautiful the blade-shaped medial crest that runs from the hips to the genitals is! There was a Marquesan statue of approximately the same size in Pablo Picasso’s collection, but it was of far lesser quality than this work. There is a photo of Guillaume Apollinaire sitting in Picasso’s apartment with that statue at his feet. The object is also illustrated in Karl von den Steinen’s magnifi cent work Die Marquesaner und Ihre Kunst. It was the most beautiful object of its kind known at the time. The artists of the past created a style that has never been equaled, and—even if I contradict myself—this sculpture is a masterpiece. ADAM, fi g. 144. LEFT: Scepter fi nial, Woyo, DR Congo. The art produced on Africa’s Atlantic Coast, which was visited early on by European navigators, refl ects the encounter between the arts of Europe and Africa. From the coast of Guinea to those of Angola and the Congo, African artists integrated the naturalism of Christian art into their own works. This is particularly true of Kongo art and of the art of the neighboring Woyo. Their art became increasingly naturalistic over the centuries. This royal ivory supports this point eloquently. Its feminine tenderness is enhanced by the smooth surface of the ivory that the years have patinated. The gesture of the right hand grazing the cheek adds even more suppleness to this sculpture of a kneeling fi gure. The African artist has succeeded here in his integration of realism into his own tradition. ADAM, fi g. 57.
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