DRAWING SHOOWA

Description

The Kasai velvet, embroidered Kuba territory, bear a complex geometric design, rich in many scholarly combinations. They are usually well represented in the ethnographic collections, especially those of the British Museum and the Tervuren Museum. One of Kuba tribes, the Shoowa, remained away from the concerns of ethnologists, and embroidery, unique creative practice was known only to a few collectors. Yet this tribe bringing the straight geometric design of equatorial Africa at the top : Plastic creation served by artists. The embroideries were once the work of pregnant women. They serve as dowry money and are a wealth. They can be stitched together to form ceremonial robes. They are offered to the dead. The Shoowa embroidery is essentially absent from public collections. It was never presented. It is, here, a set of the highest quality from important private collections. Georges Meurant is dedicated to the study of geometric design. He reconstructed morphogenesis that of Kuba through Shoowa embroidery that brings together the widest variety in expressions that reflect a mastery of optical phenomena such drawing feeds. This drawing belongs to a cultural moment whose traces remain in most societies, rooted in the Paleolithic to the Neolithic and developing the beginnings of basketry. The author focuses on reading this drawing in the direction of its layout. The meeting in this regard is that of a universal thought. It responds to a renewed interest that is emerging both abstract art for the discovery of deep cultural roots.