African Art as Philosophy – Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude (The Africa List) Hardcover – 10 Jan. 2012

My daughter is an artist and I believe she has enjoyed the book thoroughly. I have not read but she carried it around and she had since introduced it to her colleagues. That speaks volume.

Big 5 stars rating for this book, a great addition to my Bergson collection, and a great value for hardcopy book. Leopold Senghor had an important life, he was a philosopher and poet, as well as a politician serving as Senegal’s President. His life began in 1906 and ended in 2006. Dr. Diagne’s book shows how Bergson’s influence spread far and wide, in particular, it reached an eager audience in the African diaspora. Local thinkers there were struggling with the negative consequences of the physical and cultural dominance of European countries after their invasion and colonization. This book has plenty of insightful nuggets: a lengthy quote from a Picasso letter describing the impact of African masks on his artistic vision, introductions to thinkers I had not encountered before this book purchase: Cesaire, Guillaume and Munro, Frobenius, and Levy-Bruhl are just a few.“Art is a means of knowledge.” This insight from Senghor utilizes Bergson’s idea of intuition. Bergson claims in Creative Evolution that two forces are present to our consciousness and pre-consciousness: intuition and intellect. Intellect utilizes space via quantified measurements and mathematical formulas to predict and control natural phenomenon via technology. Senghor calls this “eye-reason.” Art that uses proportion and mathematical golden ratios becomes “real” art or the only art that well, counts. If “eye-reason uses space, intuition uses time. Time has to be lived, experienced, and felt by a being. It isn’t points on a line. Time is the source of freedom and intuition. Bergson admits “intuition” is too wobbly for what he is after, I think it is an unfortunate choice. I like Senghor’s description better, he calls Bergson’s intuition “embrace-reason”. I wish Bergson had run with the German term “Fingerspitzengefuhl”. This means something you instantly know because you feel it on in the tips of your fingers, a sharp but not word based insight. Picasso’s experience of masks at the Trocadero is an example of artistic intuition. This is something that he knew before he thought about it: artistic knowledge. From page 50:“When I went to the old Trocadero, it was disgusting. The flea market. The smell. I was alone. I wanted to get away. But I didn’t leave. I stayed. I stayed. I understand that something very important what is happening to me, right? The masks weren’t just like any other pieces of sculpture. Not at all. They were magic things”.There are a couple of items which I really wish the book had included, although I wouldn’t want to lower my rating. There are a few examples of both Senghor’s poetry and examples of African arts as knowledge. I would have liked to see pictures of what the author thought “plastic” sculpture is. Also ,the book smelled terrible when I opened the Amazon packaging, but the smell soon dissipated. I certainly hope the workers at the printing company have tolerable conditions, and the smell was picked up in shipping and not at the printing press. Note that this book contains lots of terms, book titles, and quotes that belong in the rubbish bin of history, are offensive, or are clear oxymorons. If you can see past all that, Senghor offers a hopeful vision of how artistic knowledge can help different cultures appreciate each other’s differences, and I appreciate Dr. Diagne’s book.