AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	33. Visualizing Africa, from there to here, between now and then.
Paper ID	440
Author(s)	Langenohl, Kathrin
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	The watercolour paintings created by the hunter and tailor Tshelantende (Djilatendo) in the 1930ies in Belgian Congo are representing an African art tradition which started off as local mural painting, a newly emerging type of art in the colony which depended on the plastering of walls. Tshelantende’s figurative drawings on the outside of his house attracted the Belgian colonial officer Georges Thiry. Due to his initiative, the motifs were transferred to paper and sent to Brussels, Belgium, stored until today in the archives of the Bibliothèque Royale Albert I in Brussels, the Musée de l’Afrique Central in Tervuren, Belgium, the Iwalewa-Haus in Bayreuth, Germany, as well as in private collections. The watercolour paintings of Tshelantende are often considered to be the beginning of a modern art development in the Belgian colony – regarded from a European point of view which focused on the arrival of the paintings in Europe (Périer 1948; Beier 1989; Cornet, De Cnodder, Dierickx, Toebosch 1989; Njami 1997) and on the fact that these works of art started an African tradition of paintings ”to be hanged on walls”. This paper will concentrate on the qualities of the paintings and the notion of modernity within their context of origin. Tshelantende’s topics range from purely abstract designs depicting the ornamental traditions of the region (Kuba, Lulua) to figurative scenes illustrating fables as well as daily life in Belgian Congo. In his ornamental compositions, Tshelantende followed the familiar rhythm of continuity, repetition and disruption whereas in his figurative scenes, he experienced an artistic liberty outside the restrictions of traditional standards. The mural paintings opened up a new space for visual articulation reflecting daily colonial life and portraying the qualities of the colonizers through the eyes of the African beholder. Those of Tshelantende’s (and his companions’) paintings that had been sent to Brussels were supposed to be presented in the context of contemporary European art – explicitly not in an ethnological museum – and acknowledged as African art, side by side with masks and sculptures. This attempt failed because the European public in the 1930ies was not enlightened enough to receive these paintings on a level of equality. My paper is based on my publication “„Repeat When Necessary“ – about the Relation of Tradition and Modernity in the Paintings of Tshelantende (Djilatendo), Belgian Congo” – which is only available in German under the title: „Repeat When Necessary“ – zum Verhältnis von Tradition und Moderne im malerischen Werk Tshelantendes (Djilatendo), Belgisch Kongo, Beiträge zur afrikanischen Kunst, Band 2, Lit Verlag, Münster 2003.

“Repeat When Necessary” - The Watercolour Paintings of Tshelantende (Djilatendo), 1930ies, Belgian Congo