Tomorrow the Russia–Africa summit opens in Saint Petersburg. We are turning towards Africa, as indeed the whole world is doing. We should not forget, however, that the steps we are taking require delicacy. There are many preconceptions that may be perceived as hurtful. That applies to national traditions and African art.
An exhibition of contemporary African art, “Inverted Safari”, is taking place in the Manege. The Russian Museum has the exhibition “Africa in Russian Art”. For the summit, the Hermitage is opening an exhibition of African sculpture. It raises a vexed issue: the beauty that we find in things that were not made for us. We perceive them as works of art. Yet African ritual sculpture, like articles from the religious life of other nations, was not produced for museums. Such pieces have a spiritual content. The ground is fairly shaky. We are beginning a discussion that ought to proceed sensitively.
Africa has changed. All our previous conceptions of it, even political ones are outdated. Africa is no longer somewhere exotic, not wretched colonies and not fighters against neo-colonialism. It is a new, highly complex reality. Within the African continent there are different countries with various political, economic and religious intertwinings.
Ethiopia and Somalia are a region connected with the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar and the eastern lands with Oman. Nigeria is an immense, economically powerful Muslim country, a leader of the cultural revival, the struggle for the return of national cultural treasures. Ethiopia is a buttress for Christianity on the territory of Arabia. It has always been its defender. Ethiopian forces landed in Yemen to protect the Christians. The Quran mentions the famous “Elephant Incident” initiated by the Ethiopian viceroy in Yemen.
African nations have an ancient history, and there are difficulties in their relations with European countries. That is bound up with colonialism and slave-holding. Everyone knows that slaves were taken from Africa. Their descendants live in a whole range of countries. It is a known fact that the African population was also involved in slave ownership, both as slaves and as slave-traders. Everyone is now apologizing for slave ownership. In the West, people are making films about European life in the 17th and 18th centuries where Black actors are taking roles of members of the nobility. Supposedly that was the case. We have no need of anything of that sort. We did have Abram Petrovich Gannibal [or Hannibal] – a Black Russian general. He was brought to Russia as a slave. That terrible business of slave ownership gave us the gift of [his great-grandson] Pushkin.
Gannibal was originally considered to have been a native of Ethiopia. Monuments to him have been put up there. Then Eritrea started to claim that he came from those parts. More recently, Cameroon has joined the argument. Various researchers, including ones of African origin, ascertained by studying documents that with a certain degree of probability Gannibal could have come from a princely line in what is today Cameroon.
Ethiopia and Yemen are connected by such a romantic figure as Arthur Rimbaud. The French poet wrote some amazing verses, but then gave up that occupation, went off to Yemen and engaged in trading firearms. He blazed a trail into Africa that was then followed by several remarkable Russian people.
The Russian officer Alexander Bulatovich served Emperor Menelik II and achieved some great victories for the Ethiopians. Later he departed for Mount Athos, where he became a hieromonk. Roughly the same African route was taken by Nikolai Gumilev. The Africa that we picture, its image, the description in our memory comes from Gumilev. He brought many things back to Russia, even Arabic manuscripts. In 2008, colleagues of ours from the Kunstkammer studying Gumilev’s collections made a journey along his African route. A film was made about it; scholarly papers and books have been published.
We have another great man who travelled in Ethiopia – Nikolai Vavilov. There he assembled part of his celebrated collection of rare examples of grain, cereals. The collection is kept in Saint Petersburg. It was saved during the siege and even shared with Ethiopia, where many cereal varieties had vanished.
The field of African studies in Russia is associated with the name of Dmitry Olderogge. A man with a European education, coming from a family of imperial and Soviet army officers, he was able to concentrate the development of African studies in this country, he created a university department, a section in the Kunstkammer, and directions in the study of Black Africa that remain relevant today. First and foremost, the study of languages.
Our contacts with Africa were bound up with political interests, but at the same time they furthered the development of Russian learning and culture.
An interesting topic is traditional African art and its influence on modern European art. One can debate about whether the Europeans tried to grasp its mystic, religious essence, or did they simply like its forms and use them to their own ends.
It all began with Matisse, with his Blue Venus, painted under an African influence. In Matisse’s Dance, too, the same thing is noticeable. Everyone is aware that Picasso had Rose and Blue periods. Before Cubism came a Negro or Black period. The story is well known. Under the influence of African sculpture, he produced pieces out of which Cubism was born. He sought form, played with flat surfaces, something characteristic of African sculpture. The Hermitage collection includes Picasso’s famed Three Women, Dance of the Veils and Farm Woman. Looking at them, one might well think of African sculpture. In the painting Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon he reproduced the faces of sculptures. Admittedly, Picasso does contradict himself. In some places, he said that he perceived the mystical spirit invested in these sculptures. They were made for religious rituals. In other places, he asserted that he did not experience anything of the sort.
There was a Russian contribution to the popularization of Russian art. It lies above all in Sergei Shchukin’s collection. He acquired African sculptures. We displayed them in the exhibition.
Immediately after the revolution, a book by the art scholar Vladimir Markov came out entitled The Art of the Negroes. That was one of the first works to examine African art as a creative tradition and not as ethnography.
We have still to discover, study and discuss African art. There are many contemporary African artists, some very good. The exhibition in the Manege provides an opportunity to see how the artists view their own traditions, to what extent those traditions form the foundation for their evolution. At the same time, what is called “airport art” also exists. Sculptures get carved to be sold to tourists in the airports.
The Hermitage has a stock of African art. We do collect it. It has been displayed in the General Staff building for a long time now. Two years ago, during the pandemic, we held the exhibition “Masks of Africa”. It featured various types of mask from the Hermitage collection and the Kunstkammer. The mask is a stereotype for the perception of African art. On the one hand, that is correct: masks are used in rituals. On the other hand, though, that narrows our idea of African art. The time has come to put away the masks and move on. Dependent upon that, among other things, is how successfully we shall tackle the overall cultural task of developing ties with the African continent. Today, the whole world wants to develop relations with it. Not only because it has rich mineral resources, but also because it is a reserve of fresh energy for the development of humanity.
This material was published in the Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti newspaper No 136(7465) on 26 July 2023, under the heading Africa as a New Reality.
