THE INNER EYE
109
together the villagers, these masks served to reinforce
and enhance social cohesion. They were
always created adhering to the same sculptural
conventions and were used by the Punu, the
Vuvi, and the Nzebi. The study of these masks
by Charlotte Grand-Dufay7 also refl ects a process
of diffusion that defi nes a cultural area.
Through the works it presents, Native Forests
explores artistic correspondence and evolution
by defi ning the main recognizable and recurring
styles of the arts of the peoples of this region.
Works that defy regional stylistic categorizations
and that display distinctive and specifi c
qualities are emphasized in order to underscore
the notion of fl uidity and the importance of external
infl uences and the dynamic history arising
from contacts and exchanges between the different
peoples of the region.
Finally, the choice of the exhibition’s title,
Les forêts natales, Arts d’Afrique équatoriale
atlantique (The Native Forests: Arts of Atlantic
Equatorial Africa), alludes to a verse from
a poem called Les Fenêtres (The Windows)8
by Guillaume Apollinaire, who, beginning in
1906 or very early 1907,9 advocated giving a
central place to the arts of Africa and Oceania
and championed the idea that so-called “exotic”
masterpieces should be considered in the same
way that the most beautiful examples of Western
statuary are.
NOTES
1. One of the oldest Kota reliquary fi gures in the collection
of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac
(71.1886.77.2) was acquired in situ by Joseph Michaud,
a member of Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza’s second expedition
(1879–1882).
2. From Les forêts natales, Arts d’Afrique équatoriale atlantique,
Actes Sud/Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac,
Paris, 2017.
3. Ibid.
4. In 1972, Louis Perrois presented a doctoral dissertation in
ethnology at the Sorbonne published in Paris and titled
La statuaire fañ, Gabon.
5. Ouvertures sur l’art africain. Exhibition presented at the
Musée des Arts Décoratifs from May 13–June 29, 1986,
and organized by the Fondation Dapper.
6. Ibid., p. 2.
7. Ibid.
8. The poem Les Fenêtres was written to illustrate the catalog
for an exhibition of thirteen paintings by artist Robert
Delaunay at the Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin in 1913.
9. L’art chez les sauvages devait fi gurer dans une Encyclopédie
des Beaux-Arts illustrée sous la direction de Guillaume
Apollinaire, monographie des arts et des artistes
de toutes les époques et de tous les pays, undated
handwritten monograph (1906 or early 1907) donated
by Apollinaire. BNF, manuscript department.