I visited the De Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The Picasso exhibit was happening on the bottom floor so I decided to ditch the crowd and enjoy my first visit to the gallery. I started on the bottom floor with the ancient tribal artifacts from the Pacifics and Africa.
Primitive mediums were brilliantly crafted into functional and representational items.
The skull on the right is a commemoration to an ancient ancestor. The eye sockets and bridge of the nose are inlaid with colored shells. The nostrils are fashioned with decorative horn spears through the septum. Sharpen teeth and woven feathered headdress are indicators a warrior leader.
Other items in the gallery ranged from religious deit
ies, fertility gods, and ritualistic tools. Some sculptures were over ten feet in height. Primitive mediums were used in a various manner. Bone, feathers, precious stone, wood, pigment, blood, and eventually metal were augmented to create functional and representational items. One of my favorite pieces, that I unfortunately didnt get a photograph of was a human skull ewer. The elegant form was bronzed on the long upward curving handle and spout. The body of the vessel was created from the skull of a monk fused to metal with resin. A very eerie and impressive sculpture and allegory. The totems were also some of my favorite. The mysteriousness that surrounds the carved guardians its attention grabbing. Intricate carvings all over the the surface of wood create a swirling visual movement.
The sculpture and glass collection was very impressive as well. Telouley and Volkus work was represented in a sculptural section of the gallery for their amazing glass and ceramic work.
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