Description:
standing figure with high topknot hairdo, hands at sides, string of beads around hips; woman
Label Text:
Blolo Bla (female) and Blolo Bian (male) figures were popular personal objects in the Côte d’Ivoire until the late 1960s. They may still be produced if a local client desires one, but they are more readily made for export as attractive traditional sculptures.
A longstanding belief in Baule culture is that difficulties in love and marriage may be caused by a jealous spouse in the otherworld. To appease a jealous spirit and find success in love, a client could commission an artist to make the most beautiful woman or man the client could describe. In defining his or her ideal partner for the artist, the client would personalize the sculpture to his or her own desires, ensuring that no other spirit spouse sculpture would look the same. In transferring one’s difficulties to a spiritual realm and solving them with a sculpted object, people could free themselves psychologically from whatever was holding them back as they sought love and partnership.
Susan E. Kart '96, Assistant Professor of the Arts of Africa, Lehigh University (2018)
Tags:
women Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2000.12.3 |
