The Colonial School

There was a time--and it was not so long ago--when the first word in a standard English-Swahili phrase book was "boy" (meaning an African of any age), and one of the first sentences to be mastered was, "Boy, fetch my boots." But under the noses of the colonials, the natives were taking a subtle revenge. Last week the Chicago Natural History Museum put on display 31 primitive sculptures from what might be called "the Colonial School"--a school of art dedicated to the proposition that the master race is slightly ridiculous.

The show was the idea of Phillip Lewis, the museum's curator of primitive art, and the 31 pieces came from some 500,000 objects in the museum's collection. "Primitive art in general tends to be rather static," says Lewis. "But when these craftsmen were given the impetus of a new people, they were released from the static view of their own society. There is no question that the colonists had an impact upon their art." Lewis believes that some of the sculptures may have been made to be sold to the whites, but if the show proves anything at all, it is that the urge to satirize is the same the world over.

The craftsmen were rarely violent and seldom vicious: for all their burdens, they tended to look upon their foreign masters with both humor and indulgence. It was the strange habits of the white men that intrigued them. Hats and shoes were something new, so one Madagascan artist sculpted a colonial wearing nothing else. In the Congo, an anonymous sculptor did a thick-lipped white sailor guzzling a mug of beer. The sailor wears a cap, a striped shirt, and seems properly in uniform--except that he is naked from the waist down.

The people of the Cameroons apparently had stronger feelings about the Germans. One black ceramic soldier, jaw jutting and hands on hips, looks so much like the universal master sergeant that one can almost hear the orders he barks.

A hawk-nosed, bearded officer in an absurd helmet gives a wild salute in a marvelous parody of Prussian militarism. A bulbous official with his face painted red rides by on the most overburdened of horses. His face is turned upward, his eyes blind to the two natives trudging at the horse's side.

Of all the colonies, Madagascar seemed to have had the most fun with the colonials. In one sculpture, four small natives are seen carrying a litter on which a French official sits calmly reading; the colonial stiff upper lip has never been done better. Another artist portrays an official's wife in a way that Madame would never have imagined herself. She is shown staring vacuously from under a parasol--the eternal Mrs. Blankbrain herself.

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