How to Look at a Baoulé Sculpture: Figures, Spirit Spouses (blolo bla / blolo bian) and the Aesthetics of Being Seen

In central Côte d'Ivoire (in West Africa, French-speaking, the world's largest cocoa producer), the wooden figures carved by the Baoulé (often written Baule in English) are among the African sculptures most often seen in Western museums. Yet the calm, upright figure you see in a museum case was usually never meant to be "displayed". Understanding its place in everyday life first, and only then looking at its form, lets you see it more deeply.

"People of wood": what spirit spouse figures are

The Baoulé call carved human figures waka sran, roughly "people of wood". One important category is the spirit spouse figure. According to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Baoulé thought holds that there is a spirit world, blolo, parallel to this one, in which every person has a partner of the opposite sex; if neglected, this partner may cause trouble.

An exhibition catalogue from Penn State University adds that when someone faces difficulties with marriage or having children, a diviner may advise them to commission a figure of their otherworld partner.

The figure is an intermediary between the person and the unseen spirit. Its owner tends it and makes offerings regularly, hoping for help with love, health, wealth, crops and more. The Penn State catalogue also notes that the figures were usually darkened to entice the spirit to dwell inside, and that the owner's children sometimes helped to clean and look after them. UMMA adds that the spirit's appearance is sometimes revealed in a dream to the owner, the diviner or the carver, who then carves it.

Note that spirit spouse figures look very similar to figures of another kind, nature spirits (asie usu). Without original documentation they are often hard to tell apart, and museums themselves frequently list both possibilities.

Beauty through Baoulé eyes: appearance as virtue

The "beauty" of these figures is not decoration: it is the key to whether they work. Museum descriptions broadly point to a set of shared features:

• An elaborate, towering hairstyle
• Symmetrical, finely worked markings (scarification) on the face and body
• A calm, composed expression
• A long neck and strong calves, symbolising industriousness and health

UMMA stresses that in Baoulé thought, outer beauty also expresses inner morality, signifying a respected person who contributes to the village. So what you see is not a realistic portrait of a particular individual, but an "ideal person at the peak of life".

How they were "seen": originally private

The Seattle Art Museum explains that each spirit spouse figure belonged to an individual's private shrine, usually set up in a corner of the owner's bedroom for private reflection and care.

Susan Vogel, a scholar of Baoulé art, has divided the Baoulé ways of "seeing" art into several categories: masks at public festivities are "watched" in motion, whereas spirit spouse figures and family gold belong to things that may only be "glimpsed" and are normally kept hidden. In other words, sitting in a brightly lit case for close inspection is almost the opposite of their original situation.

So when you admire a Baoulé figure, keep two things in mind at once: its formal beauty is a deliberately pursued ideal, and it originally belonged to a single person rather than existing for public viewing.

One line for Asian readers

Think of a Baoulé figure as an "ideal self-portrait" addressed to an unseen partner: it is beautiful and composed because here, beauty is itself a responsibility and a promise.

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References: University of Michigan Museum of Art — Male Spirit Spouse Figure (blolo bian); Penn State, African Brilliance — Catalogue 27; Seattle Art Museum — Seated male figure; Baltimore Museum of Art — Asie usu or blolo bla; Jouvert (NC State) — Viewing Baule Art