Baule Male Statue, Ivory Coast

Bernd Muhlack, Kiel
Private American Collection, acquired from the above

Since the first publication of several Baule sculptures in Carl Einstein's seminal book Negerplastik in 1915 (see plates 53-57, 60, 89, and 93-95), Baule art has been at the core of Western appreciation of African art. The Baule style is seen as one of the canonic African art traditions and its art historical significance is rivaled only by few other cultures such as the Fang (Gabon), Dogon (Mali), Kongo (Western DRC) and Luba/Hemba (Eastern DRC).

In her landmark publication Baule: African Art, Western Eyes, Susan Vogel (1997: 26 and 28) notes: "While the relative naturalism and consummate workmanship of Baule objects were praised at the outset, today these objects are appreciated for their subtle rhythms and a beauty that stops short of sweetness. To the Western eye, an essence of Baule style is a balanced asymmetry that enlivens while suggesting stability and calm. [...] To an art historian, the most consistent feature of Baule art, and one expressed across the wide variety of Baule object types, is a kind of peaceful containment. Faces tend to have downcast eyes and figures often hold their arms against the body, so that Westerners might feel that the mood of much classical Baule art is introspective."

As LaGamma (2000: 23) explains, from "a Baule perspective, human experience evolves out of and remains inextricably tied to the ancestral world (blolo) - referred to as 'the village of truth' - which controls and determines the fate of the living.  Blolo affects the quality of harvests or the availability of game as well as the physical well-being and fertility of members of the community.  The underlying causes and solutions to collective and individual difficulties that arise are relayed by diviners.  This information [was believed to be revealed to the diviners] by the omniscient gods and ancestors within blolo through various methods, such as dreams, dances performed while in trance, and several divinatory instruments [...].  Diviners commission[ed] figurative works as a means of attracting [the attention of bush spritis, called asye usu] and bringing them out of the bush and into the village.  The sculpture is described as asye usu's 'stool,' because the spirit uses it as a resting point.  Such works represent idealized male or female figures in their prime, which the asye usu consider desirable forms to inhabit." 

Artists commissioned with the creation of sculptures used in divination had to follow closely the instructions of the diviners who might have been told certain details about the figure's required physical appearance, posture, scarification marks, jewelry and hairstyle by the asye usu bush spirit itself, often during a dream.  According to LaGamma (loc. cit.), the "level of artistry directly affect[ed] their owner's ability to prophesize by seducing nature spirits and inducing them to divulge insights into the human condition."  And Vogel (1997: 221) continues: "The largest, oldest and most elaborate Baule figure sculptures are made as the loci for gods and spirits that possess their human partners and send messages through them in trance state."