Tribal Art

Gouro mask (N° 22881)

African Gouro mask from central Ivory Coast.
Between hemmed ears, feminine features, whose smile reveals the upper row of teeth, are painted in bright colors. An elegant flat-shaped accessory, adorned with carved patterns in relief, embellishes the braided hairstyle. Thanks to skillful modeling, the realism of the expression is striking. Small erosions and accidents.

Among the group of Mande from the south, in the center of Côte d'Ivoire, on the banks of the Bandama, the Gouro are organized into lineages, and constitute the western neighbors of the Baoulé who borrowed several characteristics from their creations. Animists, since the 1950s, they have used a family of masks associated with the Zaouli dance. Like the African Goli masks of the Baoulé, the set of Guro masks, related to the geniuses of nature, comes in two zoomorphic masks followed by a third anthropomorphic, which is considered to be the wife of the zamblé< mask. /i>, the Gu. The Gu , whose function is apotropaic, represents a young woman endowed with the criteria of beauty specific to the Guro, in particular the facial scarifications and the filed teeth. It is while singing in honor of the zamblé that the Gu moves gracefully, following the sound of the flute. According to the authors Fisher and Homberger in "Art of the Ivory Coast", as soon as a mask seems to no longer arouse the interest of the public, it is abandoned for a new copy.