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[[image - sculpture]]
MOTHER AND CHILD, Baule Culture. Wood.

forms may appear to dominate the visual field.14 African sculpture seldom is naturalistic; it is more archetypal and generic. Robert Farris Thompson has referred to the tendency in African art to strike a balance between "absolute likeness" and "absolute abstraction" as "mimesis at midpoint."15 While Thompson's concept is useful, it does not deal with a related and perhaps more important identifying aesthetic tendency in African art, and that is the frequent utilization of extreme abstraction and subtle representational idioms in the same piece. No where in West Africa can the unique blending of representation and abstraction be better seen than in the bronze sculptures of ancient Benin. The relief plaques that were placed on the walls of the Oba's (King's) palace, the different objects cast for the royal altar, and commemorative figures of the Queen Mother reflect a compelling visual acuity and ability to reconcile realism with abstraction.

The African concern for stability and the creation of formal imagery mitigated against depicting dramatic movement in sculpture. However, few images within the corpus of African art could be said to be static or to lack vitality. A slight turn in the figure, or bending of the legs mediates the formality of the figure and gives it a dynamic quality. When solids and voids (openings) of a sculpture are conservatively rendered, the surface of the work may feature decorative patterns that suggest movement, thus compensating for the lack of vitality in the positive and negative space by creating a tension between the representational and the abstract idioms. It is my belief that this utilization of abstract and realistic styles in the same piece is most aptly reflected in the art of Africa and throughout the African Diaspora.16

Another aspect of the paradigmatic realism seen in African sculpture is the ubiquitous use of cylindrical forms. Cylindricality often was thought to be the result of the original roundness of the tree form, but Guyanese art historian, Denis Williams, suggests that it "is evidence... of a deliberate intellectual attitude to the treatment of mass."17 The African interest in stability and harmony, reflected in clearly adhered to schemes of representation, are manifest

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