Ref: pa-162
width: 168 CM
height: 109 CM
Bogolan from Mali. Cotton decorative canvas.
Bogolan, or bògòlanfini in Bambara, is a Malian fabric dyed using a technique used in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal. It refers to both the fabric and a particular style of dyeing.
The fabric used is a more or less thick cotton canvas, spun and woven on site and with a width varying from 5 centimeters to a dozen (and even more now) centimeters and sold in rolls. These strips are sewn edge to edge by hand to form pieces of fabric of varying dimensions. A tailor can then cut a suit from this piece before the bogolan artist begins his work.
It has four main shades: brown, black, beige and light yellow.
After a basic dye obtained by soaking in a decoction of African birch leaves or n'galama (common tree of the Combretaceae family, also part of the African pharmacopoeia) and drying flat in the sun, the artist structures his drawing with fermented mud (bogo) with the help of a calame or a brush. For the “red” parts (which range from rust to brown), a decoction of mpecou bark (a tree widely used in pharmacopoeia) is required. Forgotten for some time, this same decoction will give a khaki dye.
Subsequently, obtaining the white parts of the bogolan piece is no longer done by rubbing these parts with soap. A mixture of laundry powder, chlorine and shea soap serves as a powerful bleach.
While wax displays flamboyant colors, bogolan combines shades of brown and presents more sober shades such as black, white or ocher, obtained thanks to a mixture of soda, cereals and peanuts.
The bogolan is meaningful by nature. The chosen drawings are in fact readable as the identity mark of a population, of a village, but also of a particular artist, so much so that a woman will certainly be able to recognize her own bogolan productions. Like any African art object, the bogolan is a powerful object: being in fact dyed with earth, it is considered to be imbued with vital energy. In addition to its use as a textile in the manufacture of men's tunics and women's tied loincloths, it was attributed therapeutic virtues and it was thus wrapped in circumcised young people and excised girls. Traditionally, this fabric has a protective value for those who wore it. Depending on the shape or color of the patterns, they could protect hunters, pregnant women, the elderly and infants...
african art african tribal arte africana afrikanische kunst
Item delivered with an invoice.
After a basic dye obtained by soaking in a decoction of African birch leaves or n'galama (common tree of the Combretaceae family, also part of the African pharmacopoeia) and drying flat in the sun, the artist structures his drawing with fermented mud (bogo) with the help of a calame or a brush. For the “red” parts (which range from rust to brown), a decoction of mpecou bark (a tree widely used in pharmacopoeia) is required. Forgotten for some time, this same decoction will give a khaki dye. The bogolan is meaningful by nature. The chosen drawings are in fact readable as the identity mark of a population, of a village, but also of a particular artist, so much so that a woman will certainly be able to recognize her own bogolan productions. Like any African art object, the bogolan is a powerf