<BODY background="paper.gif" link="#23238e"> <h1><center>The Art of the Ancestors</h1></center> <h2><center>By [ALAIN LOCKE]</h2></center> <HR> <center>Click on an icon to view a full-size image.</center> <HR WIDTH=60% ALIGN=center> <a href="surgr673.jpg"><img height=153 width=109 src="surgr673.gif"></a> <a href="surgr674.jpg"><img height=153 width=109 src="surgr674.gif"></a> <a href="surgr675.jpg"><img height=153 width=109 src="surgr675.gif"></a> <hr> FROM one of the best extant collections of African art, that of the Barnes Foundation of Merion, Pennsylvania, come these exemplars of the art of the ancestors. Primitive African wood and bronze sculpture is now universally recognized as "a notable instance of plastic representation." Long after it was known as ethnological material, it was artistically "discovered" and has exerted an important influence upon modernist art, both in France and Germany. Attested influences are to be found in the work of Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Archipenko, Lipschitz, Lembruch and others, and in Paris centering around Paul Guillaume, one of its pioneer exponents, a coterie profoundly influenced by the aesthetic of this art has developed.<p> Masterful over its material, in a powerful simplicity of conception, design and effect, it is evidence of an aesthetic endowment of the highest order. The Negro in his American environment has turned predominantly to the arts of music, the dance, and poetry, an emphasis quite different from that of African culture. But beyond this as evidence of a fundamental artistic bent and versatility, there comes from the consideration of this ancient plastic art another modern and practical possibility and hope, that it may exert upon the artistic development of the American Negro the influence that it has already had upon modern European artists. It may very well be taken as the basis for a characteristic school of expression in the plastic and pictorial arts, and give to us again a renewed mastery of them, a mine of fresh motifs, and a lesson in simplicity and originality of expression. Surely this art, once known and appreciated, can scarcely have less influ- ence upon the blood descendants than upon those w ho inherit by tradition only. And at the very least, even for those not especially interested in art, it should definitely establish the enlightening fact that the Negro is not a cultural foundling without an inheritance. A. L.<p> <hr> <h4>The <i>Survey Graphic</i> Harlem Number (March 1925)</h4> <a href="contents.html"><b>Return to Contents</b></a> <script src="http://www.lib.virginia.edu/libtools.js" type="text/javascript"></script></BODY>