A Yaure mask,a pointed mouth beneath a slender nose with prominent nostrils, high arched brows, the eyebrows and the nose are connected in the middle by three scarification marks, pierced crescent-shaped eyes, scarification marks of varied forms on the cheek and on the temples, a vertical ridge in the center of the forehead, the mask is wearing an intricately incised coiffure, the mask is pierced through at the rim for attachment; aged patina, traces of age and ritual use.

The Yaure are regarded as a subgroup of the Baule people in Ivory Coast. Their masks can, however, usually be distinguished from those of the Baule people because they show a typical zick-zack-line that runs around face and is carved out from the same piece. This is characteristic of the masks of the Yaure.

Yaure masks are linked to men's associations organizing funerals to honor the spiritual power of the deceased. The masks come out for a single occasion, death, this disturbance of order that needs to be restored. Alain-Michel Boyer compares them to "dynamic forms located at the point of articulation of life and death"(«formes dynamiques situées au point d’articulation de la vie et de la mort»). The Lomana mask, accompanied by incantations, dances by grazing the body of the deceased, ritualistically transforming him or her into an ancestor who is supposed to help and protect his or her descendants. Masks are considered among the Yaure people to be very powerful and dangerous objects. Women are not allowed to see the masks and it is impossible for men to approach them outside the ritual context; moreover, they are subject to numerous prohibitions, sexual, choreographic and aesthetic.

Lit.:Les Yohouré de Côte d’Ivoire. Faire danser les dieux, Lausanne, Ides et Calendes, 2016. Traduction américaine de Jane Todd, The Yaure of Côte d’Ivoire, Make the Gods Danse, Geneva-Cape Town, Cultural Foundation Musée Barbier-Mueller, 2016). Arts de la Côte d’Ivoire. Autour des Yohouré, Genève, Musée Barbier-Mueller, 2016.Susan M. Vogel: Baule: African Art Western Eye, 1997; Eberhard Fischer/Lorenz Homberger: Afrikanische Meister. Kunst der Elfenbeinküste, Zurüch 2014.

sold

Height: 37 cm
Weight: 700 g