History of the Ascendency of the Lunda Kingdom
Luba (Baluba) Ethnic group of present-day Zambia and Zaire. The Luba are regarded as one of the earliest peoples to practice Ironworking in Central Africa. Their ancestors were farmers who, as early as 400 CE, inhabited the Lake Kisale region of Katanga.
Oral tradition mentions Luba Chiefs in Malawi and Zambia, but very little is known about their early history.
The area in which the Luba lived was well suited to the growth of powerful Chiefdoms. The copper mines of the Katanga region were nearby; the soil was fertile and good for growing crops, especially cereals; nearby woodlands provided hunting grounds; waterways were an excellent source of fish; and ease of movement through the savannah stimulated trade.
The Luba were an agricultural people whose communities slowly grew into small trading and farming chiefdoms.
Between 1300 and 1400 they came under the sway of the Nkongolo Dynasty, which, in turn, was conquered in the early 1400s by Ilunga Kalala, whom oral tradition describes as a fierce hunter.
Ilunga Kalala expanded the kingdom’s boundaries and took control of the Katanga copper mines and the trade routes to East Africa. Later in the 15th century, members of the Luba aristocracy left the kingdom and moved west, where they centralized their power among the Lunda people, beginning the ascendency of the Lunda Kingdom.
The Establishment of the Lunda Kingdom
The Lunda Kingdom Monarchy was taking shape in Austral Equatorial Africa by 1450, along the upper Kasai River.
Some histories place the foundation of the Kingdom of the influential Bantu-speaking Lunda around 1450, when members of the Luba aristocracy - disappointed in their failed attempts to gain power in their own land - moved south-west into Lunda territory. Other accounts point to an earlier starting date for the Kingdom but note that the Lunda state remained a loose confederation and did not develop strong centralized government until about 1450.
The Luba newcomers married into the families of the Lunda Chieftains. Initially they made no major changes in Lunda political structures; they simply collected tribute from their Lunda subjects. In time, however, the Luba Chiefs began centralizing their authority, paving the way for the emergence of the Lunda Empire that became a major regional trading state from the 16th through the 19th centuries.
Administratively the Lunda Kingdom practised “perpetual kingship,” whereby a new king assumed the identity of the one he replaced. In essence, the successor to the title became the previous king. Through perpetual kingship, alliances and agreements could remain in force from generation to generation because they were made by the “same” king.
Tchokwe (Cokwe, Ciokwe, Bajokwe) Bantu-speaking Central African people. A mixture of many indigenous and immigrant peoples, they trace their origins to the Mbuti, hunter-gatherers who came under the demonstration of agricultural by Bantu-speakers about the sixth or seventh century. Around 1500 the Tchokwe came under the rule of the Lunda Kingdom when a disinherited Lunda Prince moved west into the area in southern Austral Equatorial Africa. Conquering the people in his path, the Prince created a Kingdom for the Tchokwe people.
HISTORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
On a contemporary map of Central Africa, three national, colonial-drawn borders artificially cut through the savannahs where the Tchokwe (also Cokwe, Tshokwe, Tutshokwe, Quioco, Bajok) people live in southern Zaire, northeastern Angola, and northwestern Zambia. Every year, many families, travelling along footpaths to visit relatives on the other side, cross back and forth across these often invisible boundaries.
Approximately 900,000 Tchokwe live in Moxico, Lunda Norte and South Lunda another 800,000 in Congo (formerly, Zaire), and 100,000 in Zambia. (See Bastin, 1966). All of these present-day Tchokwe (singular Kachokwe) trace their origins to Lunda nobles once living in the Nkalaany Valley of western Shaba, in today’s Republic of the Congo.
According to oral history as recounted by Lunda and Tchokwe peoples alike, the Lunda nobles began moving out from the Nkalaany Valley in the sixteenth century when Chibinda Ilunga, a Muluba hunter from the East, arrived in the Lunda court and married the Lunda queen, Lweji (Lima 1971, 41–65; de Heusch 1982, 180–82).
Discontented with his rule, the queen’s brothers decided to emigrate. The Lunda diaspora includes the following peoples, who all trace their ancestors to these emigrating chiefs: Tchokwe, Minungu, Lwena (also known as Luvale), Luchazi, Songo, Lunda Ndembu, and Lunda of Kazembe. One of the brothers, Ndumba wa Tembo, settled in Saurimo, Angola, and it was his maternal nephew, Mwachisenge, who was given the title of supreme chief of the Tchokwe.
This same title, “Mwachisenge,” together with a special bracelet (lukano), has been passed down through the generations from maternal uncle to maternal nephew, as a sign of the highest chief among the Tchokwe. The present-day bearer of the bracelet and Mwachisenge title lives in Samutoma village, of Shaba province in Congo.
Historical Expansion The Tchokwe have been known throughout history as independent, indomitable warriors, hunters, and traders. By the eighteenth century, the Tchokwe had established power over the matrilineal peoples around them and had claimed rights to the farming and hunting. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Tchokwe were known as excellent hunters and traders all along the trade route from Central Africa to the Angolan coast, where they traded with Europeans. They exchanged ivory, wax, and male slaves for European weapons, mostly guns. In raids on other peoples en route, they captured the men as slaves and integrated the women and children into Tchokwe society through marriage. Thus they assimilated other peoples and expanded throughout the area.
Not until the 1880s did the Tchokwe return to the Congo, when a group of Lunda hired Tchokwe warriors to fight for them in Shaba province. For a brief time, these warriors gained victories over the Lunda (1880–1887) and thus facilitated the Tchokwe expansion into Shaba as well. The Tchokwe continued to expand north and west out of Angola until the late 1930s (See Miller 1970, 175–201 for Tchokwe history).
Village Life and Social Organization Tchokwe independence and ease of assimilating other peoples can be attributed in part to their political and social organization. Tchokwe political power is decentralized. Though all chiefs recognize the title Mwachisenge as a sign of supreme chieftanship, Chief Mwachisenge of Samutoma is a ritual chief who has little practical influence over the lives of Tchokwe people beyond his own village.
Tchokwe villages are insular, socially cohesive units. Though matrilineal, the women move to the homes of their spouses after marriage. A group of brothers and maternal uncles, along with their wives and children, build a village together. Often small, ranging from forty to eighty people, these villages frequently move their locations in search of better fishing, hunting, gathering, or farming areas or to escape sorcery accusations or conflicts with relatives.
As subsistence farmers and roaming hunters, the Tchokwe are extremely mobile and thus, of necessity, live in very small villages. This kind of self-sufficiency enables the Tchokwe to maintain their language and customs as they move from one locale to another and from one country to the next. As a consequence, their way of life survives times of great upheaval and change.
Folklore and Fame The Tchokwe’s reputation among neighbouring groups in Central Africa differs somewhat from their reputation in the West. Their neighbours know them as great hunters, sorcerers, diviners, and healers; they both fear their sorcerers and visit their healers. In a similar vein, Africanist scholars remember the Tchokwe for their history as expansionists, for their assimilation of other peoples along the trade routes of Central Africa. In contrast, many Westerners, especially art connoisseurs, recognize the Tchokwe for their artistic traditions. They admire the remarkable masks, ancestor figurines, carved chairs, and divining baskets, which can be viewed in museum displays on African life and art throughout the world.
Travellers and researchers, from the early 1900s on, have collected and/or documented Tchokwe arts, that is, the more visible, striking features of Tchokwe life: the ancestor figurines (mahamba), carved chairs (yitwamo), and masks (akishi) from the mukanda initiations (Bastin 1961; Crowley 1975).
Early twenty-first-century researchers study Tchokwe life in greater detail, paying attention to local concerns and daily routines; they document and analyze artistic expression and ritual performances in the contexts of Tchokwe daily life. For example, such studies concern the practices of healers (mbuki), diviners (tahi), and sorcerers (nganga), and the lives of women and women’s initiation rites (mwadi) (See Bastin 1982, 1988; Fretz 1987; Jordan 1993; Kubik 1988, 1993; Sesembe 1981; Yoder 1988).
Unlike these more easily observed and transported objects, the verbal arts have been minimally described until recent times. For instance, the documents of Tchokwe tales (yishima) from the early 1900s, translated into Western languages such as Portuguese, lack the vitality and aesthetic qualities of Tchokwe storytelling as performed for local audiences (See Barbosa 1973; Havenstein 1976).
Current studies focus on the teller’s interactions with the audience and record both verbal and nonverbal features of the performance. Such research includes documentation of both artistic and everyday forms of speech: for example, narrating and telling proverbs (kuta yishima), indirect speaking and telling parables (kubwa nyi misende), recounting historical events or recent news (kulweza sanoo), and “just talking” (kuta pande) (Fretz 1987; 1994; 1995).
Historically, whenever the Tchokwe relocated, they carried with them their knowledge of healing, divining, and sorcery, their renowned abilities in mask making and carving of ancestral figurines, and their oral tradition as represented by myths, tales, and proverbs. Thus, they created a web of interconnected traditions that still transcends the colonially imposed national boundaries.
Today, they continue to traverse the borders that separate their families and clans. However, as the political situations in the Republic of the Congo, in Angola, and in Zambia shift, the alliances between these neighbouring countries change, often making their journeys more difficult and urgent. Not only do they cross the border for family visits and for the lucrative diamond trade, but they also escape as refugees from war-torn areas. In addition, these erstwhile hunters and traders now cross more intangible, intellectual frontiers through radio broadcasts, education abroad, and leadership positions in international organizations.
As communication with the rest of the world accelerates, the opportunity for travel beyond their homelands increases for the more educated and well-connected. Having learned throughout their history to be resilient, to assimilate other cultures, and to create syncronistic arts, the Tchokwe, no doubt, will continue to improvise on new experiences and, thereby, both retain and revitalize their traditions.
References Barbosa, A. 1973. Folclore angolano, ciquenta cantos quicos, texto bilinque. Luanda: I.I.C.A.
Bastin, Marie-Louise. 1982. La sculpture tshokwe. Translated by J.B. Donne. Arcueil, France: Offset Arcueil.
—. 1988. “Entites Spirituelles des Tshokwe (Angola).” Cuanderni Poro 5:9–59.
Crowley, Daniel J. 1975. Aesthetic Value and Professionalism in African Art: Three Cases from the Katanga Chokwe. In The Traditional Artist in African Societies, ed. Warren L.d’Azevedo. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
De Heusch, Luke. 1982. The Drunken King or The Origin of the State, trans. Roy Willis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fretz, Rachel I. 1995. Answering in Song: Listener Responses in Yishima Performances. Western Folklore 9(2):95–112.
—. 1994. Through Ambiguous Tales: Women’s Voices in Tchokwe Storytelling. Oral Tradition, 9, no. 1:230–50.
—. 1987. Storytelling among the Tchokwe of Zaire: Narrating Skill and Listener Responses. Ph.D. Dissertation, Folklore and Mythology, UCLA.
Havenstein, A. 1976. Fables et contes anaolais. St Augustin bei Bonn: Verlag des Anthropos-Institus.
Holdredge, Claire Parker, and Kimball Young. 1927. Circumcision Rites among the Bajok. American Anthropologist n.s. 29:661–9.
Jordan, Manuel. 1993. Le Masque comme processus ironique: Les makishi du Nord-Ouest de la Zambie. Anthrooolosie et Societe 17, no, 3:41–61.
Kubik, Gerhard. 1981. Mukanda na makishi—Circumcision school and masks—Bescheidunasschule und Masken. Berlin: Museum fur Volkerkunde, Musikethnologische Abteilung.
—. 1993. Makisi Nvau Mawiko: Maskentraditionen im bantu-sorachiaen Afrika. Munich: Trckster Verlag.
Lima, Mesquitela. 1971. Fonctions sociolosiaues des fiaurines de culte “hamba” dans la societe et dans la culture tshokwe. Luanda: Institute de Investicacao Cientifica de Angola.
McCulloh, Merran. 1951. The Southern Lunda and Related Peoples (Northern Rhodesia, Ancrola. Belgian Conao). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, West Central Africa, Part I. London: International African Institute.
Miller, Joseph C. 1970. Tcokwe Trade and Conquest in the 19th Century. In Pre-Colonial African Trade, ed. Richard Gray and David Birmingham. London: Oxford University Press.
—. 1988. Wav of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Sesembe, Nange Kudita wa. 1974. Tshikumbi, Tshiwila et Mungonge: Trois rites d’initiation chex les Tutshokwe du Kasai Occidental. Cultures au Zaire et en Afriaue 5:111–35.
—. 1981. L’homme et la femme dans la society et la culture Tchokwe: de l’anthropologie et la philosophic. Unpublished dissertation. Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Yoder, P.Stanley, 1981. Disease and Illness Among Cokwe: An Ethnomedical Perspective. Ph.D. Dissertation, Anthropology, UCLA.
Language: Wuchokwe (Bantu)
Neighboring Nations: Luba, Lunda, Lwena, Ovimbundu, Songo
Types of Art: The Tchokwe are well known for art objects produced to celebrate and validate the royal court. These objects include ornately carved stools and chairs used as thrones. Most of the sculptures are portraits, which represent the royal lineage. Staffs, scepters, and spears are among other implements sculpted to celebrate the court.
History: Tchokwe origin can perhaps be traced to the Mbundu and Mbuti Pygmies. Between 1600 and 1850 they were under considerable influence from the Lunda states and were centrally located in Angola. In the second half of the 19th century though, considerable development of the trade routes between the Tchokwe homelands and the Angolan coast led to increased trade of ivory and rubber. Wealth acquired from this allowed the Tchokwe kingdom to expand, eventually overtaking the Lunda states that had held sway over them for so long. Their success was short-lived, however. The effects of overexpansion, disease, and colonialism resulted in the fragmentation of Tchokwe power.
Economy: The Tchokwe grow manioc, cassava, yams, and peanuts. Tobacco and hemp are also grown for snuff, and maize is grown for beer. Domesticated livestock is also kep, and includes sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens. Protein is added through hunting. There is an exclusive association of big game hunters known as Yanga, but everyone contributes to the capture of small game animals. The farming and processing of agricultural products is done almost exclusively by women among the Tchokwe. Slash and burn techniques and crop rotation are practiced to conserve the land naturally.
Political Systems: The Tchokwe do not recognize a paramount leader, but instead offer allegiance to local chiefs who inherit their positions from the maternal uncle. The chiefs (mwana nganga) consult with a committee of elders and ritual specialists before making decisions. Villages are divided into manageable sections which are governed by family headmen. All members of Tchokwe society are divided into two categories: those who are descended from the founding matrilineal lines and those who are descended from former enslaved populations.
Religion: The Tchokwe recognize Kalunga, the god of creation and supreme power, and a series of nature and ancestral spirits (mahamba). These spirits may belong to the individual, family, or the community, and neglecting them is sure to result in personal or collective misfortune. Evil spirits may also be activated by sorcerers (wanga) to cause illness, and this must be counteracted to regain health. In order to accomplish this individuals normally consult with a diviner (nganga), who attempts to uncover the source of the patient's problem. The most common form of divination among the Tchokwe is basket divination, which consists of the tossing of up to sixty individual objects in a basket. The configuration of the objects is then "read" by the diviner to determine the cause of illness.
The hyphenated Nation of the Lunda-Tchokwe. As the hyphenation implies, the category comprises at least two subsets, the origins of which are known to be different and the events leading to their inclusion in a single set are recent. The Lunda alone were a congeries of peoples brought together in the far-flung Lunda Empire (seventeenth century to nineteenth century) under the hegemony of a people calling themselves Ruund, its capital in the eastern section of Zaire's Katanga Province (present-day Shaba Province).
Lunda is the form of the name used for the Ruund and for themselves by adjacent peoples to the south who came under Ruund domination. In some sources, the Ruund are called Northern Lunda, and their neighbours are called Southern Lunda. The most significant element of the latter, called Ndembu (or Ndembo), lived in Zaire and Zambia.
The people with whom the northward-expanding Tchokwe came into contact were chiefly Ruund speakers. The economic and political decline of the empire by the second half of the nineteenth century and the demarcation of colonial boundaries ended Ruund political domination over those elements beyond the Zairian borders.
The Tchokwe, until the latter half of the nineteenth century a small group of hunters and traders living near the headwaters of the Cuango and Cassai rivers, were at the southern periphery of the Lunda Empire and paid tribute to its head. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Tchokwe became increasingly involved in trading and raiding, and they expanded in all directions, but chiefly to the north, in part absorbing the Ruund and other peoples. In the late nineteenth century, the Tchokwe went so far as to invade the capital of the much-weakened empire in Katanga. As a consequence of this Tchokwe activity, a mixed population emerged in parts of Zaire as well as in Angola, although there were virtually homogenous communities in both countries consisting of Tchokwe, Ruund, or Southern Lunda.
The intermingling of Lunda (Ruund and Southern Lunda) and Tchokwe, in which other smaller groups were presumably also caught up, continued until about 1920. It was only after that time that the mixture acquired the hyphenated label and its members began to think of themselves (in some contexts) as one people.
The languages spoken by the various elements of the so-called Lunda-Tchokwe were more closely related to each other than to other Bantu languages in the Zairian-Angolan savanna but were by no means mutually intelligible. The three major tongues (Ruund, Lunda, and Tchokwe) had long been distinct from each other, although some borrowing of words, particularly of Ruund political titles by the others, had occurred.
Portuguese anthropologists and some others accepting their work have placed some of the peoples (Minungu and Shinji) in this area with the Mbundu, and the Minungu language is sometimes considered a transitional one between Kimbundu and Chokwe. There may in fact have been important Mbundu influence on these two peoples, but the work of a number of linguists places their languages firmly with the set that includes Ruund, Lunda, and Tchokwe.
Economic and political developments in the 1970s affected various sections of the Lunda-Tchokwe differently. Substantial numbers of them live in or near Lunda Norte Province, which contains the principal diamond mines of Angola. Diamond mining had been significant since 1920, and preindependence data show that the industry employed about 18,000 persons. Moreover, the mining company provided medical and educational facilities for its employees and their dependents, thereby affecting even greater numbers. How many of those employed were Lunda-Tchokwe is not clear, although neighbouring villages would have been affected by the presence of the mining complex in any case.
In the intra-Angolan political conflict preceding and immediately following independence, there apparently was some division between the northern Lunda-Chokwe, especially those with some urban experience, who tended to support the MPLA, and the rural Tchokwe, particularly those farther south, who tended to support UNITA. In the 1980s, as the UNITA insurgency intensified in the border areas of eastern and northern Angola, Lunda-Chokwe families were forced to flee into Zaire's Shaba Province, where many remained in 1988, living in three sites along the Benguela Railway. The impact of this move on the ethnolinguistic integrity of these people was not known.
A somewhat different kind of political impact began in the late 1960s, when refugees from Katanga in Zaire, speakers of Lunda or a related language, crossed the border into what are now Lunda Sul and northern Moxico provinces. In 1977 and 1978, these refugees and others whom they had recruited formed the National Front for the Liberation of the Congo (Front National pour la Libération du Congo-FNLC) and used the area as a base from which they launched their invasions of Shaba Province. In the 1980s, these rebels and perhaps still other refugees remained in Angola, many in Lunda Sul Province, although the Angolan government as part of its rapprochement with Zaire was encouraging them to return to their traditional homes.
The Zairian government offered amnesty to political exiles on several occasions in the late 1980s and conferred with the Angolan government on the issue of refugees. In 1988, however, a significant number of Zairian refugees continued to inhabit Lunda Tchokwe territory. The significance for local Lunda-Tchokwe of the presence and activities of these Zairians was not known.
ARTE PRIMITIVA LUNDA
Se não mantivéssemos estes objectos juntos, esta pequena migalha da cultura mundial perder-se-ia. A arte Africana ao entrar na Europa influenciou estéticamente artistas como Picasso ou Matisse que admiraram a animação dos objetos e seu primitivismo...
A cultura Lunda ou Kioka, nasceu das tribos Bantu, silvícolas, recolectores e caçadores que esculpiam todos os aspectos da vida. Traçavam seus dotes artísticos com uma simples faca fazendo instrumentos de uso diário como pentes, adornos vários e artefactos de uso em suas casas e cozinhas. As paredes de suas casas eram decoradas, seus corpos tatuados, seus penteados adornados com criatividade.
Na falta de registos escritos, a cultura oral que passava de pais para filhos, tal como a sua arte primitiva e costumes, eram as bases que perpectuavam no tempo. Este é o legado Kioko ou, tchockwe, sendo que sua arte constitui raridade e, por isso, mais reputada na avaliação de seus artigos da arte a nível mundial.
As revistas “Art d´Áfrique Noir” de Roul Letuart referem a arte Tchockwe como sendo das obras mais cotadas no mercado de artes primitivas; as famosas estátuas T´chipinda e Lunda mais conhecidas por Mwatshianvua e Lweje-Ya-Konde (casal fundador do império Lunda), atingiram nesse mercado de arte, o 1º lugar da tabela de preços. Isto é referido no livro “Identidade e Patrimônio Cultural” da autoria do antropólogo e escritor Henrique Abranches.
Acácio “Sakapwma”, iniciou suas esculturas em madeira respeitando a arte, conteúdo, e corte com machadinha, faca nativa e formões. Esculpiu o casal do império Lunda, de rara beleza, talhando a madeira de forma muito pessoal preservando a traça original. Independentemente dessas peças preciosas que marcam sua obra, esculpiu outras de renome e forte cunho na identidade deste povo, o “T´shipinda Katele” (caçador), o casal “Mama Wa-Knkw” e “Mwkuluana Wa Kwkw” (pensador e pensadora), talvez a representação mais marcante e admirada internacionalmente, pois que mostra um casal de velhos esperando a morte.
Como obra inédita, tem uma peça única em madeira, com quatro pessoas que mostra a cena do “Kaponye” (parto). Além das estatuetas temos as máscaras, masculinas e femininas: umas decorativas, outras para uso em danças populares ou profanas.
É rica a diversidade deste conjunto, sendo as máscaras por demais importantes em suas vidas. O bastão decorativo é uma peça importante e de uso dos chefes ou notáveis como insígnias do poder. O artista “Sakapwma”, não poderia deixar de criar quatro destas belas peças.
Em relevo, criou cenas do quotidiano representadas numa tábua de madeira e duas peças de alumínio fundido, uma dourada a outra prateada. No conjunto do espólio de arte tchockwe, trabalho rico em arte e de difícil elaboração é a incisão de figuras e simbologia em cabaça natural, obra que os nativos muito praticavam e valorizavam. Não há referência de haver outro branco que tenha ousado gravar em cabaça.
No campo das esculturas, não poderia faltar o trabalho em marfim; a realização de um artista é reconhecida devido à dificuldade e paciência na sua elaboração; e Acácio “Sakapwma” executou uma jarra com altura 38,5cm, com o diâmetro interno de 13x10,5 cm e o peso de 2kg. Esta peça consumiu 18 anos de trabalho na sua execução.
José Manuel Primo Videira (Nelo)
Subscreve: O Soba T´chingangeFFSAFederation of the Free States of AfricaContactSecretary General


Vance Kirkland's powerful Dot Paintings are often compared to two other well-known "dot" styles: Australian Aboriginal art and Pointillism. Here are some interesting facts about the use of dots in modern art:
A dot style of modern Aboriginal art from the Australian Outback has emerged as significant in the contemporary art world and has been avidly collected and exhibited over the past twenty years. Many Kirkland Museum visitors ask about any connection that may exist between that Aboriginal dot style and Vance Kirkland's paintings. Though art has always been a part of Aboriginal culture, the dot paintings began in 1971, when an art teacher named Geoffrey Bardon provided brushes and acrylic paint to a community in Papunya in the remote central desert. The dots, circles, and cross-hatching of these works, formerly done in sand, signified traditional stories. What had been ephemeral ceremonial patterns and shapes became lasting images in paint for the first time. This caused controversy among the tribal members, as some images depicted religious forms or rites that they believed could be harmful to women and children who viewed them in this more permanent form.
Vance Kirkland began his dot paintings in 1964, seven years before the dot trend in Aboriginal art began. As far as we know, he was not aware of Aboriginal art.
La Parade (detail), 1889, by Georges Seurat.
"Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science." - Georges Seurat
Vance Kirkland's dot paintings are also often compared with the work of Pointillist painters such as Georges Seurat (1859-1891). Seurat is known as a Post-Impressionist because he was a generation younger than the French Impressionists like Monet, Degas, and Renoir, though he did exhibit in their last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. His work is also, confusingly, called "Neo-Impressionism," a term meant to signify his method of working with "broken" color, because he and painter Paul Signac were interested in light and dark color values, as the Impressionists had been. Whatever you call it, the method they devised worked on the theory that instead of combining red and yellow to make orange, the eye could do the mixing. Seurat and Signac therefore made stripes or stipples of the two pure colors (red and yellow in this example) next to one another, trusting the eye to see the orange they intended. Seurat was interested in the science of optics, and studied color and color theory. He accidentally and reluctantly found himself the leader of what is now called the Pointillist movement, though he found the term offensive. He saw himself as a scientist with a precise system for the creation of his work.The subjects Seurat and Signac painted were still traditional: landscapes or figures. The dots, points, or stipples were meant to blend to create a recognizable scene. This is what differentiates their work from Kirkland's dot paintings.Vance Kirkland started using dots in his painting at the end of 1963; his first dot series was the Valhalla series beginning in 1964. The bubbled oil and water mixtures with a high percentage of pigment formed Kirkland's vision of flaming fragments initiating the birth of the universe. The density of the red oil and water forms Kirkland used in this series sometimes produced circular areas of paint which may have inspired the dot paintings.Kirkland continued and refined the dot technique, with each dot carefully placed on the canvas with a dowel or small brush, until the end of his life. His final, unfinished painting from May 1981 reveals a bit of his process. He had already placed the largest dots on top of his oil and water mixtures, and was beginning to fill in the smaller dots around them when he died.The Pointillism movement, Kirkland's Dot period and Australian Aboriginal art of the late 20th century may share "dots", but each has an important and separate story. We hope this brief explanation and comparison clarify the differences and enhance your appreciation of the works of all of these important and imaginative painters.Maya D. WrightMarketing & Membership Coordinator
Labels: Aborigine Colrado Painting, Dots, Kirkland Museum, Pointillism, Seurat
This year we added 22 new docents to our volunteer program, bringing our total to 40. We thought it would be fun to hand over this year's holiday blog to them all, asking them to tell us about their favorite piece in the Kirkland collections. So many fresh perspectives!
Here are some of our favorites -
Untitled (Mountain Stream), 1929
by Raphael Lillywhite (1891-1958, American)
"I love the beautiful colors; the scene is peaceful and inviting. This painting captures what I love about Colorado." - Sue
Sicardo Line Art Nouveau Ceramics, 1902-1907, Weller Pottery Company, Zanesville, Ohio
Clement Massier Pottery 1902-1907
"I enjoy seeing the iridescent-glazed vases by Clement Massier (1844-1917, French) and Jacques Sicard (1865-1923, French) displayed together. I like the corporate intrigue of the display since American pottery company Weller hired Sicard away from Massier in order to use Sicard's knowledge of the lustrous glazes for which Massier was famous." - Candace
"My favorite piece is the Spherical Vase 1930, made by Charles Fergus Binns (1857-1934, British-American). The shape of the vase is simple and the pale green glaze is rich and subtle. The combination of form and color results in an elegant ceramic vase." - Karen
And three of the crew are just wild about Harry! They each chose Split Bush 1968 by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978, Italian-American)-
|"I love the Harry Bertoia sculpture. It is a large piece that reminds me of the plants that I work with in the summer. Besides that, I feel that it communicates with me through the beautiful sound that it makes as I walk by." - Sally|
|Almost every visitor stops and with a "what's this" look in their eyes, stares at the bush. As a docent, this opens up a whole line of storytelling. Some people seem to already notice its "soundings," so this gives me an opportunity to talk about Bertoia's connection to Colorado, his many other pieces in the museum, and even his drawings in the hallway. When we finally get to Bertoia's chairs downstairs, many people ask "Don't they make any sound?" - Ron|
|I love the way you hear the gentle tingling as the floor vibrates when you walk by. He took hard metal and made it appear somewhat soft, organic, and ready to sway in the wind. When I look at it I'm reminded of a perfectly trimmed bush in a lush formal garden. - Ruth |
| Interning this year in the collections office, I have seen a lot of objects both on display and in our vaults. While it might not be my favorite piece in the entire museum (there are far too many to blog about here) Barry Kryzwicki's (b. 1952, American) Teapot (1988) sticks out as my favorite for 2009. His use of form and design for an everyday object makes it appealing and unique. It's an object I would love to own in my own home. - Kat|
David Yust's (b. 1939, American) dramatic 9' circular painting, Circular Composition #118 (Change in Scale #102) 1978, in the back stairs gives me a gasp whenever I go down those stairs. I know that it is one of a triptych that was done for a bank in Greeley and I wish I could ever see the three together, or that I could see this one from a greater distance. I like that he has gotten out of the more usual rectangular shape of paintings and I love what happens, beautiful curvilinear areas of color and repeated shapes. - Jan
And so, with deep gratitude for this wonderful art and these superb docents, we wish all of you a very happy holiday season and a Happy New Year!
Hooray! The Mad Men Are Back!
Italian designer Joe Colombo (1930—1971) must have had Don Draper in mind when he designed these Footed Glasses
(Modern design, 1964, Arnolfo di Cambio). The clever offset base means he'll never have to choose between smoking and drinking. Find them in the Lower Level Corridor.
Roger Sterling needs our Dorothy Thorpe Silver Band Serving Bowl Nest
(c.1960), also known as a Chip 'n Dip
, to go with the Dorothy Thorpe cocktail set he keeps in his office. A few crackers might have helped the gin and oysters go down and stay down.
Peggy Olson dreamed that Peter would call her. Our flaming orange Trim Line Telephone
(1965), designed by Henry Dreyfuss (Am, 1904—1972), would make that call sizzle.
Peter Campbell's in-laws would never approve of our Antenna Chair
(early 1960s, from the Sculptured House, Genesee, CO), designed by Charles Deaton (Am. 1921—1996). We don't care and neither should he.
What more can we say? Salvatore Romano swooned when he saw our EPIC Lipped Bonbon Dish
(c.1962, Viking Glass Co). First, the candy is in and then it comes out . . . over that graceful spout. Come see for yourself.
Exploring the Auk Drinking Set
Kayserzinn Drinking Set
Designed by Hugo Leven (1874-1956), German
1900 - 1905
Collection Kirkland Museum
Decanter/jug is 8 inches tall.
Tray is 14 3/8 in x 4 5/8 in.
The decanter or jug in this pewter drinking set is the form of an auk, a bird similar to a penguin which lives on islands in the north seas and eats fish. The largest variety of auk, the giant auk, was last seen in 1844 and is now extinct. Small auks are sometimes known to fly, but the giant auk was a flightless bird whose wings had adapted to swimming.
Hugo Leven was a German designer and part of the Jugendstil (German for "Youth Style") movement, which is considered part of Art Nouveau. Leven became art director of the enormously successful German metal ware company J.P. Kayser & Sons. It was for the Kayser & Sons company that he designed the famous Kayserzinn pewter, of which this auk set is an example. Many of the pieces Leven designed are still in production today. Though Leven made his career designing mass produced products for industry, he was a proponent of the Art & Crafts ideal of creating unique handcrafted objects.
The Kayserzinn Drinking Set is currently on view in the watercolor room, which is the front room of the old studio building where Kirkland's watercolors are on display.
Our Soon-To-Be-Very-Famous Glass
Once again, our remarkable Ruba Rombic glass collection is in the spotlight. The crew from the PBS television show Antiques Roadshow visited us last week to film the museum and, in particular our Ruba Rombic pieces, for an upcoming 2010 broadcast. The following essay was originally written exclusively for our members, but we'd like to share it with everyone now that the line is about to arouse the curiosity of a broader audience. Ruba Rombic on view at Kirkland MuseumRuba Rombic
, the edgy Cubist glassware designed by Reuben Haley for Consolidated Lamp and Glass Company, debuted in 1928. The Consolidated company was in Coraopolis, PA, west of Pittsburgh. According to the company, the name "Ruba Rombic" comes from the combination of "Rubaiy," meaning epic or poem, and "Rombic," meaning irregular in shape. This design is considered one of the most desirable and important of American Art Deco glass. Kirkland Museum recently acquired the rare large vase and the large bowl (pictured above at left) at the New York Modernism Show.
Most of Haley's previous designs were modeled after Lalique glass (see some on view in Kirkland Museum' watercolor room), but Ruba Rombic was truly original with its very art deco look. The strange angular shapes were made by blowing glass into a mold. It was eventually produced in sixteen colors and nearly 40 different shapes from vases and decanters to trays and candlesticks. Colors included honey, amethyst, French crystal, silver, green, topaz, sunshine, lilac, jade, jungle green, and smoky topaz. The pattern was only produced from 1928 until 1932, when the Consolidated company was temporarily closed.
Two shelves of Ruba Rombic, including a few examples of Ruba Rombic ceramics also by Reuben Haley for the Muncie Pottery Company of Muncie, Indiana, are currently on view in the Kirkland Museum corridor between the garden door and the elevator. The Ruba Rombic is displayed adjacent to, and can be compared to, other important designs of American Art Deco glass of the 1920s and 1930s. From Colored Glassware of the Depression Era 2, published 1974, by Hazel Marie Weatherman, page 48
By Maya Wright
Marketing & Membership Coordinator
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"*
Have you seen the four straps hanging over Vance Kirkland's work table? Have you heard that he spent many hours a day suspended in those straps? Have you tried to imagine what that must have been like for him to float above a work in progress, sliding the canvas back and forth below on four rustic skateboards?
Kirkland saw musical explosions and vibrations, mysteries and forces, rhythmic and discordant, in his imagined galaxies and had the artist's drive to capture these visions in pigment on canvas. He mixed the unmixables—oil and water. Zealous in his conviction that the responsibility of an artist is to show people something they had never seen, he tried to send the colors "where no man had gone before", into brilliant spaces beyond the visible sky.
The techniques he developed required his canvas to be laid flat on a table top so that he, and not gravity, could control the flow of the paint. He poured and spooned the mixtures from baby-food jars and moved them with rags, mopping up the water when it had deposited the paint just where he wanted it. He placed each peaked dot with a wooden dowel, dipped once in color and dabbed two, maybe three times before it required a refill.
Once he made the first small paintings, the first small worlds, it was only a matter of time before he cut the replaceable notch in his studio doorway to accommodate ever larger canvases, ever larger creations. The 5'2" visionary adventurer wanted to make paintings larger than himself, paintings that demanded a heroic reach.
His arms were too short, his aging back too vulnerable. So he and a friend devised a system of four straps to suspend him above his work. They bought the 3-inch green cotton webbing at an army surplus store. Imagine how long it took them to work out the details, the number of straps, the length of each, and the distance between them. There must have been a lot of trial and error to get them positioned so that he could climb in and then forget them. In these straps, he could defy gravity. He could lose himself in the weightless work of bringing a universe into being.
Sadly for us, Kirkland was never photographed at work in his straps. His assistants staged and photographed a recreation of the scene using fresher and narrower nylon slings to help us imagine the artist at work. Everyone who sees those now-empty straps must wonder, if just for a second, what it feels like to fly with a paint-loaded brush or dowel in their hand.
I never met Vance Kirkland, but I work in his space, always surrounded and enriched by the cosmos he created. Recently, at the end of a long day, with only a few staff members left in the building and Vance's work table empty, I asked for the oft-fantasized favor and it was Granted (Hugh Grant-ed, that is—permission given by our founding director and curator). So, not for hours, but for a few moments, I flew in the straps of a genius – "Ah...", indeed!
* from the poem Andrea del Sarto
by Robert Browning
Vance Kirkland As Collector
Visitors to Kirkland Museum are usually surprised by the depth and breadth of the collection. Many come expecting to see only the paintings of Vance Kirkland. In fact, the museum is dedicated to sharing with the public three important aspects of Kirkland′s life and career. In doing so, painting and sculpture by over 170 Colorado artists, and an impressively large collection of international decorative art is also displayed within the museum′s walls. It is believed to be the largest decorative art collection on display in North America.
In addition to being a visionary modernist painter, Vance was also a committed educator and an avid collector. He founded the current School of Art at the University of Denver in 1929, thereby touching the lives and affecting the work of many Colorado artists. He enjoyed a wide range of friendships within the artistic community inside and outside of Denver. He also began collecting the work of artists and designers he admired when he was a very young man. He′s been quoted as saying, “If I′m going to sit on it, eat off it, or drink out of it, it′s going to be great design.”
Here he is, at the age of 32, sitting by his lily pond at 817 Pearl St., Denver in his Art Deco style Machine Age Rocking Chair
from the McKay Corporation (c.1930s). You can see the chair today in the museum′s Watercolor Room.
You may have heard that a young Vance Kirkland was the first college student to win a prize at the Cleveland Museum of Art May Show with his watercolor The Brewery, but have you heard what he did with the award money? It was 1927 and he was twenty-three years old. It may surprise you to know that he used his prize money to purchase the winning entry in the ceramics competition of the same show - four Russian Peasant Figures
designed by Alexander Blazys and manufactured by the Cowan Pottery. Kirkland had studied ceramics with Blazys and Guy Cowan at the Cowan Pottery Company. The musicians are on display in the Lower Level Corridor.
In January of 1929, Vance hired Anne Gregory Van Briggle, widow of Artus van Briggle and former president of the Van Briggle Company, to teach Life Drawing at DU (just 11 months before her death in November of that year). It is likely that he acquired these two early Van Briggle Vases
directly from Anne during that time. The small blue vase dates from 1902 and the brown one from 1904, the same year that Artus Van Briggle died from the tuberculosis which originally brought him to Colorado in search of a cure. Both vases can be seen in Exhibition Room I.
Vance purchased this fantastic hand-blown La Donna Vase
(1950) from its designer, Fulvio Bianconi with whom he became acquainted during travels to Italy in the 1950s and ′60s. The artist was reluctant to part with this, as he was with many others of his premium pieces which he thought should be preserved in museums. Vance persevered until he agreed to sell it and, true to his philosophy of actually using the great design objects he collected, he kept the vase filled with flowers on his desk for many years. You can see it, complete with residual water stains, in the Museum Corridor.
As a result of hepatitis contracted during a surgery, Vance endured several hospitalizations during the last years of his life. During the registration process for his final hospital admission, he was asked to state his religious affiliation. With characteristic humor, he directed the clerk to write, “Drinking Buddhist.” This Cambodian Buddha
(c.1850) was one of several from his home. It now presides over the Studio Corridor. In future blogs, we′ll look more closely at Vance Kirkland as an artist and as an educator and art supporter.


Covenant in Context
A. David and Moses
The drama in the Gospels turns on a single question: Is Jesus the long awaited Messiah, the son of David come to restore the everlasting monarchy promised by God to David?
Underlying this drama - which continues through the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles and even into the final chapters of Revelation - are centuries of rival interpretations of the Scriptures.
In the Bible and in religious writing outside the Bible, we can see that there were sharply competing expectations about who the Messiah was to be, the "signs" that would accompany his coming, and the shape of the kingdom he would establish.
Through a close reading of the New Testament and key Old Testament passages, we will look at this clash of expectations. We will explore the biblical testimony in context, comparing it with the extra-biblical literature of the period, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and various intratestamental writings. We will see how the proclamation and work of Jesus, as recorded in the New Testament, reflects and reacts to the messianic hopes of his contemporaries.
This study has implications for questions that modern scholars have long debated - How did Jesus understand His mission and work? What were the historical reasons for his condemnation and death on the Cross?
This study also addresses an imbalance in the scholarly and pastoral study of the New Testament. Researchers have tended to focus on the importance and influence of Moses and the covenant at Sinai on the shape of the New Testament. By contrast there has been a relative scholarly neglect of the Davidic covenant.
However, it could be argued that the figure of David and his kingdom is more central - not only to the New Testament - but to the direction and meaning of the Old Testament.
David is generally acknowledged as a defining figure in the Psalms, with more than 70 psalms attributed to him. What is not widely recognized is his prominence throughout the Old Testament.
Indeed, while the name Moses occurs a little over 720 times, David is mentioned almost 1,020 times. David’s career is the subject of 42 chapters, or nearly 30 percent of what scholars call the "Deuteronomistic History" (Joshua-2 Kings).
In the Chronicles, a review of Israel’s history from a "Priestly" perspective, the percentage is the same.
David is mentioned 37 times in the prophets, Moses only seven times. And as we will focus on in our next lesson, the eschatological hopes of the prophets are frequently concerned with the return of a Davidic king and the restoration of his capital, Zion. The prophets say nothing about the return of Moses and a restoration of Sinai.
David’s imprint will be especially felt when we consider key Old Testament concepts and institutions that become central in the New Testament - the Temple, Zion, the “Son of God,” and the “Anointed One” (Messiah).
B. For the Sake of Abraham
We will see, however, that the Law of Moses and the sacrificial system are critical to the understanding and legitimacy of David’s kingdom. But before we can consider the specific character of David’s kingdom, we need to begin with some background.
God’s covenant with David comes as the last in a sequence of covenants found in the Old Testament. These covenants - with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David - form the narrative structure of the Old Testament.
(For a thorough review of these covenants and their significance, see our on-line class, Covenant Love: An Introduction to the Biblical Worldview).
The background to the covenant with David, and indeed the entire story of Israel, is God’s three-part promise to Abraham - to give him and his descendants their own land, to make them a great and blessed nation, and to make the children of Abraham the source of divine blessing for all the families of the earth (see Genesis 12:1-4).
Each of these promises was "upgraded" to a covenant by God (see Genesis 15; Genesis 17:4-8; 22:15-18).
It was for the sake of this covenant with Abraham that the Israelites were brought out of Egypt (see Exodus 2:24; 6:5). And it was for the sake of this covenant with Abraham that David’s kingdom is established.
In Nathan’s oracle, God repeats three times that He is making this covenant with David for "for My people Israel" (see 2 Samuel 7:8,10,11). This recalls the language God used to explain His actions in liberating Abraham’s children from Egypt (see Exodus 3:7,10; Leviticus 26:12).
Later, in the psalmist’s reflections, the Davidic monarch is seen fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham: "In him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all the nations" (see Psalm 72:17; compare Genesis 12:3; 22:18).
The Rise of David
A. Israel in the Era Before Kings
The idea of the monarchy is sown throughout the Old Testament. In one of his promises to Abraham, God tells him: "Kings shall stem from you" (see Genesis 17:6).
In his deathbed blessing upon his sons, Israel says that nations will pay homage to Judah and that "the scepter shall never depart from" him (see Genesis 49:9-12). The line of Judah becomes the royal line from which David and Solomon stem (see 2 Samuel 8:1-14; 1 Kings 4:20-21).
Nevertheless, when the Bible is read canonically – that is, as a single book with a certain unity of content, edited for use in the worship and reflection of the Christian community – we see tension and ambivalence about the idea of a monarchy for God’s people.
We see this ambivalence already in Deuteronomy. There, Moses reluctantly predicts the people will desire a king. He even writes legislation to govern the king’s conduct and policies (see Deuteronomy 17:14-20).
On the one hand, the moral and political chaos of the pre-monarchial period is attributed to Israel’s lack of a king - "in those days there was no king in Israel - everyone did what he thought best" (see Judges 17:6; 18:1; 21:25).
But there is also a strong sense in the Old Testament that an earthly monarch contradicts God’s sovereignty over Israel (see Deuteronomy 33:5; Judges 8:22-23).
These tensions come to a head in the people’s request for a king in the time of Samuel.
In seeking a king "as the other nations have," the people are seen as rejecting the kingship of God (see 1 Samuel 8:7; 12:12,17,19-20).
Though their ends are earthly - the people want a king to fight battles and conquer territories for them - God consents to their request and "uses" it to fulfill His own covenant plan for Israel and the world.
He gives Israel a king "for the sake of His own great name" because He has made Israel "His people" (see 1 Samuel 12:19).
B. Restoring the Ark
The ideal of Israel’s monarchy was articulated at that point in the Scripture. The king is to be an earthly manifestation of God’s rule over the world, to obey God’s commands and to worship Him alone - in remembrance of His covenant and the great things He has done in making Israel His special possession.
David, especially as portrayed in the early days of his reign, is presented as the ideal king.
His capital at Jerusalem is both the "the city of David" (see 2 Samuel 5:7,9) and at the same time seat of the "kingdom of the Lord" (see 2 Chronicles 13:8), and "the throne of the Lord" (see 1 Chronicles 28:5).
David’s first act as king is to restore the Ark of the Covenant, the defining symbol of God’s election of Israel and the site of His real and living presence among the people during the wilderness period (see Exodus 25:8-22; Joshua 3:8-11).
The Ark contained signs of God’s covenant with Moses (see Hebrews 9:4) - the tablets of the 10 commandments (see Exodus 40:22), Aaron’s priestly staff (see Numbers 17:25) and some of the manna upon which the Israelites fed in the desert (see Exodus 16:32-33).
The Ark became crucial to the identity and character of David’s new priestly kingdom. David’s great concern for the Ark is central to the early drama of his reign, and the installation of the Ark in the Temple built by David’s son, Solomon, marks the high point of the history told in the books of Chronicles.
The Ark’s restoration to Jerusalem is depicted as a noble and grand religious pilgrimage. It is preceded by David’s mandate for the ritual purification of the Levites (see 1 Chronicles 15:11), who alone are permitted to touch the Ark under the Mosaic law that David reinstitutes (see Deuteronomy 10:8; 1 Chronicles 15:2).
The procession to the tent pitched by David is a joyous religious feast, complete with liturgical dancing and songs of exultation and much rejoicing, led by David and the priests (see 1 Chronicles 15:1-16:3; 2 Sam. 6:11-19).
David is garbed in priestly robes of fine linen and wears a priest’s ephod (see Judges 8:28; 1 Samuel 14:3; 21:9; 22:18; 23:9). As the Ark is installed, David leads the priests in offering holocausts and peace offerings. Then he blesses the people in the name of the Lord and shares bread, meat and cake with every Israelite.
What we witness here is Israel’s king performing high priestly acts - leading worship, offering sacrifices, imparting the Lord’s blessings.
David’s actions reestablish the presence of God among the people (see 1 Chronicles 23:25). To ensure the purity of Israel’s worship in God’s presence, he restores the Mosaic liturgical code, making the descendants of Aaron to be "officers of the holy place and officers of the divine presence" (see 1 Chronicles 24:3,5,19).
He also, reestablishes the Levitical priests "to minister before the Ark of the Lord - to celebrate, thank and praise the Lord, the God of Israel" every morning and evening, and also on feast days (see 1 Chronicles 16:4; 23:25-32).
At the culmination of his monarchy, David, like Moses, is given a divine "pattern" or "plan" for the Temple that will house the Ark of His covenant permanently (see 1 Chronicles 28:19; Exodus 25:9).
The Temple is built as a replica of a Lord’s heavenly throne and temple (see Psalm 11:4). As Jerusalem is not only a political capital, but also a spiritual and moral one, the Temple is both a religious sanctuary and the palace of the divine dominion - the seat from which Israel’s king rules as the son of God over all the nations (see Psalm 2).
C. The Oracle of Nathan
Only after the Ark is established, does God renew His covenant with Israel through an oracle delivered by the prophet, Nathan (see 2 Samuel 7:8-16; 1 Chronicles 17:7-14)
Nathan’s original oracle does not include the word "covenant." But David describes it as an "eternal covenant" (see 2 Samuel 23:5) and this "covenant" is celebrated in the Psalms (see Psalm 89:4-29; 132:12).
God’s promises in Nathan oracle - the themes of divine sonship, temple building, and everlasting dynasty - will resound throughout the remainder of the Old Testament and, as we will see, converge in the Gospel of Jesus.
Let us look in detail at the divine promises that Nathan delivers:
First, he tells David that "the Lord will establish a house for you." In biblical terms, "house" means royal dynasty. This means that David’s kingdom will be a dynasty, one that endures for generations.
Next God promises that David’s son will assume his throne: "I will raise up your heir…and make his kingdom firm." The "firmness" of his kingdom is another indicator that the kingdom will remain.
David’s son will also, according to the promise, "build a house for My name." In other words, David’s son will build a temple as a permanent home for God’s presence in the Ark of the Covenant.
Of this royal son of David, God further promises: "I will be a Father to him and he shall be a son to Me." This is the language of "covenant-adoption." The son of David will be adopted as God’s own son. This marks the first time in Scripture that the idea of divine sonship is applied to one individual. While God had referred to Israel as His first-born son, no one as yet in the Bible has been called, in effect, a "son of God."
God’s promise is unconditional, according to Nathan. The royal son is expected to keep God’s Law and will be punished for transgressions against the Law. But God will never disown David’s heir or dissolve his kingdom. Nathan conveys this message: "If he does wrong, I will correct him…with human chastisements, but I will not withdraw my favor from him."
Finally, God states the conclusion that all of these promises point to: "Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever." This means that David’s dynasty will never end; there will always be an heir of David seated upon his throne.
The Shape of the Davidic Monarchy
A. Eight Elements of the Kingdom
God’s covenant with David is initially and partially fulfilled with the birth of Solomon. Solomon is the "son" who builds the Lord a house or temple.
And while we see the outlines of the godly kingdom begin under David - especially with the organization of the Levites and the worship before the Ark - it is only under Solomon that the kingdom reaches full bloom.
Based on the promises of Nathan, the reflections on the Davidic covenant found in the Psalms and the prophets, and the organization of the kingdom under Solomon, we can eight characteristics of the Davidic monarchy:
• First, the Davidic monarchy was founded upon a divine covenant. No other human kingdom in the Old Testament can boast of such a privilege.
• The Davidic monarch was the Son of God. Solomon’s is a monarchy ruled over by God’s son (see Psalm 2:7), who is both a priest and a king (see Psalm 110:1,4). The identity of the monarch as God’s son implies this priestly prerogative. The king is to be a priestly mediator between the human and divine. At the right hand of the king is his mother, the Queen, who intercedes for the people with the king and is a trusted adviser to the king (see 1 Kings 3:19-20; Proverbs 31).
• The Davidic monarch was the "Christ," i.e. the "Messiah" or "Anointed One." The anointed status of the Davidic king was so integral to his identity that he is frequently referred to simply as "the anointed one" or "the Lord’s anointed."
• The Davidic monarchy was inextricably bound to Jerusalem, particularly Mt. Zion, which was the personal possession of David and his heirs (see 2 Samuel 5:9), and would have had no significant role in Israelite history had not David made it his capital (see Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21; 19:10–12; 2 Samuel 5:6–12).
• The Davidic monarchy was inextricably bound to the temple. The building of the temple was central to the terms of the Davidic covenant from the very beginning, as can be seen from the wordplay on "house" ("temple" or "dynasty") in 2 Samuel 7:11–13. Even after its destruction, the prophets remained firm in their conviction that God would restore His temple to its former glory as an international place of worship.
• The Davidic monarch ruled over all twelve tribes. It was only under David and Solomon, that both Judah and all the northern tribes were united as one kingdom and freed from foreign oppression (see 2 Samuel 5:1–5; 1 Kings 4:1–19). For this reason the prophets associate the reunification of the northern tribes of Israel ("Ephraim") and the southern tribes of Judah with the restoration of the Davidic monarchy.
• The Davidic monarch ruled over an international empire. David and Solomon ruled not only over Israel but also the surrounding nations. The psalms theologically justify and celebrate this state of affairs, and the prophets envision its restoration. The Kingdom, with its capital in Zion, Jerusalem, will become the mother of all nations, "one and all born in her" (see Psalm 87:5), all made sons and daughters of God in a worldwide family.
• The Davidic monarchy was to be everlasting. One of the most prevalent emphases in the Psalms and Deuteronomic history is that the Davidic dynasty will be eternal (see 2 Samuel 7:16; 23:5; Psalm 89:35–36). Not only the dynasty but the lifespan of the reigning monarch himself was described as everlasting (see Psalm 21:4; 72:5, 110:4).
B. Unconditional Promises, Divided Kingdom
In the lessons ahead, we will see how these elements of the Davidic kingdom and the promises to David will be decisive for understanding the debates in the Gospels.
But these debates take place against a historical backdrop - that the Davidic kingdom was divided shortly after Solomon’s reign, and later destroyed.
As presented in Scripture, Solomon’s sin had led to the destruction of the kingdom. He overtaxed the Israelite tribes to finance great building projects and to build up a huge army (see 1 Kings 9; 12:3); he took many foreign wives and concubines and "his wives turned his heart…to strange gods" (see 1 Kings 11:1-3).
When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam refused the re-negotiate Solomon’s tax policies and the tribes rebelled. Ten of the twelve tribes, led by Jeroboam, split-off and established a Northern Kingdom, leaving Rehoboam to reign over two tiny tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South.
Eventually, both houses of the divided kingdom were captured and led into exile. The Northern Kingdom was destroyed in 722 B.C., overrun by the Assyrians (see 2 Kings 17:7-18). In 597, Babylon overran Jerusalem, shattering the Southern Kingdom (see 2 Kings 24:3-4).
Even when the people were restored from exile, centuries continued to pass without any sign of the great Davidic king that God had promised. At the time when Jesus was born, there was no kingdom to speak of, no Davidic heir in the wings.
But the intervening centuries had produced a body of prophecy and reflection on the meaning and fulfillment of God’s covenant with David. That literature - both biblical and extra-biblical - will be the subject of our next lesson.
• How could it be argued that David and his kingdom are more important for understanding the Old Testament than Moses and the Sinai covenant?
• In what ways might the Old Testament’s attitude toward monarchy be characterized as ambivalent, prior to the Davidic kingdom?
• Explain the significance of the Ark of the Covenant for the kingdom of David.
• What were the promises made to David in Nathan’s oracles.
• Name and explain the elements of the Davidic monarchy.


The film Amistad (1997) portrays an important event in United States Abolitionist history. A group of African Mende were captured near Sierra Leone and smuggled into Cuba via a Portuguese slave ship. They were smuggled into Cuba in order to work around the treaty signed in 1817 by England and Spain prohibiting the transatlantic slave trade. The Spaniards who purchased the slaves needed to purchase them in Cuba to circumvent this treaty. However, on route to the United States from Cuba, the Africans rebelled. Although they were able to guide the ship back to Africa by day, at night, the surviving Spaniards sailed the ship towards the United States where the Africans were eventually jailed and their fate decided by the U.S. courts. Eventually, it was determined the Africans were never slaves under international law and their freedom was returned to them.
Although an important tale amongst many important tales to tell from the history of the United States, and the world, enslaving fellow men and women, two important men from another important history are missing from Spielberg's lesson. These men are Laurent Clerc and Thomas Gallaudet who were the initial translators for the Africans until more suitable translators could be found. The important history of which they were a part is the history of the Deaf in the United States. Clerc is the Deaf Frenchman whom Gallaudet met in England and convinced to return to the United States with him to improve the education of the Deaf in the United States. These two men were responsible for improving the opportunities available for the Deaf and providing a foundation to survive later battles with those who wished to oppress Sign Language. Clerc and Gallaudet were chosen as initial translators for the Africans because Sign Language's basis in pantomime allows one to transcend some oral linguistic barriers.(1)
And it is the absence of this history that underscores the need for a Deaf Film Festival, such as the one that was held at the Pacific Film Archives on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, from February 21st through the 23rd. Three feature-length films representing Deaf Culture were shown, one made by a Deaf director, Peter Wolf's I Love You, But . . . (United States, 1994), one made in collaboration with a Hearing and Deaf director, Yutaka Osawa and Akihiro Yonaiyama's I Love You (Japan, 2000), and one made by two Hearing directors, Danny and Oxide Pang's Bangkok Dangerous (Thailand, 2000). Also included were a group of European Deaf Shorts, Silent Film (Malcolm Venville, England, 1996), Egypt (Kathryn Resetarits, Austria, 1996), Alice and the Aurifactor (Jorg Fockele, Germany, 1995), Dancer from a Silence of 100 dB (Antti Raike, Finland, 1995), and No Way Out (Cornelis "Con" Mehlum, Norway, 2001). Two lectures took place, one conducted by Jane Norman, PhD, Professor of Communication Studies at Gallaudet University(2) who looked at the complicated task of defining Deaf Cinema and another conducted by John S. Schuchman, author of Hollywood Speaks: Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry (1988) who addressed the portrayals of the Deaf by Hollywood.
Deaf Culture: A Primer
Before I go any further, I must address Deaf Culture. Whenever I mention Deaf Culture to Hearing people, they often note they'd never much thought about the Deaf having a culture. The first thing a Hearing person needs to learn about Deaf Culture is that Deaf-centric Deaf people have little, if any, desire to hear. Knowing this helps eliminate all the Hearing-centric stereotypes that come from pity of the Deaf or fear that one might become Deaf. It is not a "disability" in the sense of something "missing," it is merely a different way of experiencing the world. The Deaf are better understood as members of a linguistic minority and their struggle to have their languages accepted within their respective majority languages share similarities with the struggles of other linguistic minorities such as Native American languages in the early United States.(3)
Like any other
culture, the language of the Deaf, Sign Language, is a major aspect of
Deaf culture. Sign Language is as capable of conveying concrete and abstract
thoughts and emotions as any other language and it contains its own syntax
and grammar. Deaf culture is as active and vibrant as any other culture,
exhibiting many arts, commercial businesses, and politics. What was nice
about this festival is to have Deaf culture understood, a given, by those
in attendance. It may have been difficult for the fully Hearing-centric
person to fathom the discussions in the lectures and on the screen regarding
Deaf culture. But for those of us Hearing people who have had some exposure
to Deaf Culture, it was a pleasant oasis from the ignorance of the Hearing-biased
Both lectures that were part of the festival provided a helpful structure in which to view the films. Professor Jane Norman, PhD, surveyed the major moments in Deaf Cinema and how they relate to significant moments in the history of Deaf Culture. Film came to all of us in 1895 and this provided a wonderful opportunity for the Deaf. Being that the Deaf communicate through a visual language without a writing system, similar to many spoken languages such as Hmong, film provided an opportunity to document their language and culture so that it may be preserved and passed on. Simultaneous with the appearance of this tool for Deaf people, the Deaf were being oppressed by the same dominant culture forces lashing out at immigrants and other "undesirables." Deaf schools in the United States and France were eradicating Sign Language and firing Deaf teachers, all in response to an edict put down by the Hearing-dominated "representatives" at the Milan Second World Congress to Improve the Welfare of the Deaf and the Blind in 1880. In response to this Hearing-prejudiced edict, the Deaf-centric National Association of the Deaf (NAD) was created to battle Deaf oppression. As Gay Rights has its Stonewall and Asian-American Civil Rights its International Hotel, Deaf Rights has its Milan.
One of the major projects implemented by NAD, between 1910-1920, was, as Norman calls it, a "Heroic Film Project" of 13 silent 35mm films. The goal was survival. It allowed for self-preservation of Deaf Culture and a means to promote sign language skills since the Milan edict resulted in a decline in master signers.
Norman states she is reluctant to define Deaf Cinema for everyone since it is not static but an ongoing discourse. She asks, "Are there ways to carry over Sign Language linguistic principles cinematically through camera shots, editing, eye gaze, or sign language storytelling 'style'?" A few of the Shorts appeared to answer this question. Finnish director Antti Raike's, Dancer from a Silence of 100 dB (1995) paralleled a Deaf dancer's Finnish Sign Language with the movements of his dances. Austrian director Kathryn Resetarits's film Egypt (1996) utilized camera angles that allowed for enhancement of the expressive stories signed by the Austrian Deaf.
Besides Deaf History, Norman looked to the lessons learned from other minorities. She uses Spike Lee as a role model. Lee, along with advocating for more African-American representations on screen, has always advocated for more representations off screen as well. When minorities are excluded from positions behind the scenes, from director on down, reliance is still placed on the dominant culture for ones expression.
Norman doesn't only find parallels in African-American history for her work, the Native American community's reaction to Dances With Wolves (1990) provide useful analogies as well. Particularly, the Lakota Indian community had had concerns with non-Indians profiting from a story about their community. Indians were a part of the production and received a paycheck, but what were the other benefits to the community?
Learning from Deaf History and the history of other minorities, Norman's developing theory of Deaf Cinema requires a developing Deaf Cinema itself. To truly develop, more Deaf characters must be played by Deaf actors rather than by Hearing actors. But Norman goes further then that by requiring Deaf-centric consultants as well. Deaf performers cannot be expected to play the role of thespian and advocate. They have a job to do and that is to act. Having Deaf-centric consultants to check the script and intervene with the producers and directors, allows the Deaf performers to concentrate on performing. And in the spirit of Spike Lee and the Lakota Indians, the Deaf must be placed in other positions surrounding the making of the film to provide economic benefits to the community and opportunities for the Deaf to learn the business so they can create their own films later.
With these conditions met, you are more likely to have Deaf-centric film rather than Hearing-Centric film. Where Hearing-centric films will use the Deaf as plot propellers for comic relief, such as Kill or Cure (1923) a silent film starring Stan Laurel where a mysterious man who understands a gibberishy sign language is utilized for comic effect, Deaf-centric films will portray Deaf characters more three-dimensionally, such as Aimee, the main character in I Love You, But . . ., where her Deafness is never used for comic effect at her expense. Where Hearing-centric films will use "gimmicks"(4) such as having a shot of a dog barking without the sound and then immediately repeating that shot but this time with audio, Silent Film will include a whole soundtrack of the sounds inside a cochlear-implanted woman's head as she flashes back and forth between her son's hearing check-up and the day she met her husband at a Deaf social club.
Ironically, what is called for by Norman appeared close to emerging in the days of Silent Film, as John Schuchman, a Hearing Child of Deaf Adults, elaborated in his lectures about the history of Deaf actors in film and the history of the portrayals of the Deaf. Although NAD attempted to preserve Deaf culture on film, a major opportunity for Deaf culture was missed when James Spearing, the director of the all Deaf production The Busy Hour (1926), tried to get elite members of the Deaf community to fund a production company of films of, by, and for Deaf people. The summary response he received was 'We already have Silent Films so why would we need to make our own.' A few years later, Talkies would bring the demise of Silent Films and the opportunity was lost.
Silent Films had allowed Deaf actors opportunities to play both Hearing and Deaf characters. One of the most famous of the Deaf actors from Silent Films was Granville Redmond, a colleague of Charlie Chaplin. The clip Schuchman showed of Redmond was You'd Be Surprised (1926), a Victor/Victoria-esque Deaf role where Redmond, a Deaf man, played a Hearing man pretending to be a Deaf man in order to provide the plot twist. Although Redmond used legitimate sign in the film, Deafness was again used as a plot device rather than anything representative of Deaf Culture.
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) was one of the first films to incorporate a Deaf character. Bell is not well-liked in Deaf culture. Besides being a eugenicist who called for the prohibition of marriages between Deaf people, he oppressed sign and argued illegitimately that all Deaf could learn to speak like Hearing people.(5) This film argued that if the Deaf tried hard enough, they'd be able to talk perfectly like the beautiful character in the film, and, thus, be beautiful and successful like her. This characterization that if the Deaf struggled, they could speak perfectly became a Hearing-centrism of Deaf in film, alongside the portrayal of all Deaf as master-lip-readers.(6)
Schuchman noted that Johnny Belinda (1948) for which Jane Wyman won an Oscar for her portrayal of a Deaf woman, most famously known for her character's signing of the Lord's Prayer, holds an interesting place in Deaf Cinema. Although the pity-all-Deaf-people storyline makes people cringe these days, the Deaf press lauded the film as a step forward and positive portrayal of the Deaf in film. Particularly of note was the accurate sign language. Interestingly, the ads for the film, rather than describe Wyman's character as Deaf, talked of her as being an "innocent victim." The producers were worried talking about Deafness in the advertisements would depress the primarily Hearing audience. Schuchman noted that Children of a Lesser God (1986) followed a similar advertising campaign.(7)
Schuchman finished his talk by stepping away from Deaf actors and Deaf characters and addressing Deaf audiences. He derided the Motion Picture Association of America for its history of adamantly fighting laws requiring captioning of all major films. I'm sure cost and aesthetic reasons play into the MPAA's reasoning, but with the multiple viewings in our multiplexes, at least one showing could always be reserved for captioning for the Deaf. Norman, in her lecture, also addressed the need for more captioning for films by dropping a plug for the San Francisco International Film Festival specifically because the majority of those films are captioned since the majority are non-English films.
Deaf Cinema: The Movers and Shakers
Thus, the absence of captions is a frustration for the Deaf community when trying to watch films in the multiplexes. And in an effort to make this a Deaf-centric festival, the organizers held one screening that provided an opportunity for Hearing people who did not Sign to experience this frustration. Peter Wolf's film, I Love You, But . . . was screened without captioning of the American Sign Language (ASL), while the spoken dialogue was captioned. Hearing people were provided synopses of the signing scenes, but non-signing Hearing people had to rely on other aspects of the storytelling to decipher the nuances that the synopses did not cover.
I Love You, But . . . is Peter Wolf's third film, following Deafula (1974) and Think Me Nothing (1975). The film involves a Hearing man, Robert, played by Raymond Storti, who falls in love with a Deaf woman, Aimee, played by Rhondee Beriault, whose Deaf boyfriend is away doing research in another country. Robert learns sign language to communicate with Aimee and, although awkward, Aimee finds this endearing. Robert learns about Deaf culture through his relationship with Aimee and both Robert and Aimee deal with the prejudices of their respective Hearing and Deaf families.
The beginning of their relationship is forced as is the case in so many romance films. Robert's love for Aimee is too immediate, but we begin to believe the relationship based on the time they spend together. Interestingly, a scene at the beginning of the courtship subverts an unfortunate staple of the romance genre, the romanticism of stalker behavior. Aimee's badminton coach gives Robert Aimee's phone number and address in return for money. Initially, the audience is disturbed by this violation. However, the number given is that to a Relay operator, a telephone service which enables Deaf and Hearing to communicate over the phone and the address is the coach's house. The coach tricks Robert to make sure his interest in Aimee is sincere. With too many romance films rewarding stalker-like behavior, this was a wonderful subversion of that genre trope.
The spoken dialogue of I Love You, But . . . lacks naturalness, coming off as forced as the acting, especially Storti's. Still, the film's strength is not in it's acting and spoken dialogue. The film's strength is in its representation of a culture that rarely receives proper representation. Although I did not find My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) all that much to raise a big fat fuss about - it also has a relationship that begins through contrived and forced circumstances - I am well aware of the lack of representations of Greek-American culture. I have yet to meet a Greek-American friend of mine who did not thoroughly enjoy the film. The main reason they provide for loving this film is they can relate to so much that is shown in the film, all the way down to the father's creative uses of Windex. Similarly, I Love You, But . . . presents a positive portrayal of Deaf culture, yet with less humor. Aimee and her Deaf boyfriend are successful. Aimee videotaping letters to her boyfriend and the flashing lights in Deaf homes that signify someone is at the front door each are representative of Deaf lives. Controversial topics are addressed as well, such as cochlear implants, the Messiah complex of Hearing people wanting to "save" Deaf people, and derivative forms of Sign Language that Hearing people espouse so that they can more easily communicate with Deaf people at the expense of the richness and fullness of ASL.
Producer Lawrence Fleischer, who also wrote the story from which the film was adapted, was present at the screening. He said that his intent was to show a strong, confident Deaf woman, which was accomplished. He also said the cast had hopes to market this to wider Hollywood through the higher production value of the film. Throughout the film, Robert and Aimee are seen engaging in activities such as riding horses and jet skis. Robert is quite the beefcake as well, shown in an unintentionally laughable scene playing tennis in tight spandex. A Hearing woman sitting next to me who knows ASL openly critiqued these scenes saying to me, "They sure are active?" Wolf and Fleischer had hoped this action would make the film more sellable. Sadly, the film's forced spoken dialogue and action fall flat in this attempt. Where the film shines is the portrayal of aspects of Deaf culture and Deaf issues that the Hearing community has excluded from the screen.
Danny and Oxide Pang's film Bangkok Dangerous succeeds where Wolf's fails, yet fails where Wolf's succeeds. It is an entertaining action film that has little to do with Deaf culture outside of showing how the Deaf are often isolated when they are born to Hearing cultures that do not allow them, or do not have the resources to allow them, the opportunity to learn their natural language of Sign nor socialize with fellow Deaf people.
The main character of this film, Kong, is Deaf. As we learn through the flashbacks, Kong was working at a shooting range in Thailand when he met Joe and his girlfriend Aom. Kong joins Joe enacting hits throughout Thailand. The film is basically a meditation on revenge. Very stylized, the Pangs play around with quick edits, slow-motion, and colors. The result is a visually enjoyable film throughout with very little dialogue.
Kong's Deafness is not portrayed in a Deaf-centric way perhaps because he is isolated from any Deaf community in Thailand. It would have been helpful if the festival organizers had provided some context about the Thai Deaf community since the film itself does not address this. Regardless of such context, this film could not be described as representative of that community since we are only shown one Deaf person whereas the other films shown represented Deaf characters from different walks of life.(8)
The Pangs generally engage in the gimmick of Hearing portrayals of Deafness where they occasionally put us in what they believe is Kong's head by dampening the audio every so often. One interesting scene, however, involves Kong's profession being exposed to Fon, the Hearing woman he's dating. Mugged by some random thugs, Kong quickly disposes of them with his gun. After the gun is fired, the audio becomes a sustained ringing. It's an interesting technique and it works in enhancing the fear of Kong at his profession being found out and the fright of Fon in the horror and confusion surrounding her.
Fon's attempts to communicate with Kong through written Thai provide interesting moments as well. Fon decides to write on Kong's arm. With the beginnings of their courtship written on his body, Kong is provided physical memories when they are apart. Kong gazing at his arm while alone in bed adds a nice touch to the story. Still in terms of Thai Deaf Culture, we aren't shown much. The visual spectacle provides most of the engagement in the story.
It is the film I Love You, a film whose title does not present the hesitation of Wolf's, that succeeds in entertaining us within a Deaf-centric frame. Yutaka Osawa and Akihiro Yonaiyama, Hearing and Deaf respectively, worked with equal input to present a treasure of a story about a Deaf woman, Asako Mizukoshi, played by Akiko Oshidari, married to a Hearing man, Ryuichi, played by Minoru Tanaka, with a Hearing daughter, Ai, played by Ai Okasaki. The plot centers around the family's response to Ai being picked on at school for having a Deaf mother. In an effort to help her daughter, Ai joins a Deaf acting troupe, including her daughter as they prepare to perform "Beauty and The Beast" for a cultural series in their prefecture. Through this endeavor, both Akiko and Ai find fuller, more honest lives. Unlike Bangkok Dangerous, multiple aspects of Deaf culture are addressed, such as a Deaf person's frustrations with isolation from her community by her Hearing parents, Hearing prejudices against the Deaf marrying, and Deaf prejudices towards the Hearing community. And unlike I Love You, But . . ., such is done in a completely engaging, entertaining story of heart, perseverance, and triumph.
Osawa and Yonaiyama, writer Yukiko Okazaki, and the cast have told a touching tale full of joy and pain that carries the audience with each gesture. The tensions between the Hearing and Deaf worlds are played out with few cliches and few moments of forced dialogue or plot propulsion. When Asako and Ryuichi have a fight about Asako's time away from home due to play practice, Asako silences Ryuichi through her insistence on turning off the light in their bedroom so he can't sign to her. Ryuichi insists on keeping the light on and Asako finally turns away from him, crouches to the floor, and screams in her authentic Deaf voice that he just can't understand what she's struggling with as a Deaf mother in a Hearing-dominated world. The eloquence of her emotion overrides the lack of elocution from her voice. Also, when Ai discovers a family secret, Asako helps Ai process the information in a wonderfully, tearful scene. I Love You is melodrama at its best, yet better. Besides the universals of a family's struggle, we also see the particulars of a community too often left silent in our Talkies.
While the play within a play of Asako's Deaf acting troupe performing "Beauty and The Beast" allows for a parallel of stretching oneself to understand the experience of others, to see the beauty within that which you initially do not understand, there is another play within a play going on in I Love You. Actually, it's a lecture within a play, that is, Jane Norman's lecture. The collaboration of Deaf and Hearing professionals on the film, along with collaboration of Deaf and Hearing in the acting troupe within the film, both follow the model Norman presented in her lecture. In I Love You, we witness Deaf and Hearing collaborating equally to present the Deaf realistically, thus, respectfully, and it follows that we also witness the result of the Deaf community benefiting through active participation in the film as a whole.
Although the Deaf Press lauded Johnny Belinda during its time, the film no longer stands up as a powerful work today. Perhaps I Love You will be the first Deaf film of quality to carry its impact to later generations. If the response at this festival or from the audience at Gallaudet University when it was shown there is any indication, there is no "But" associated with this "I Love You." Hopefully, the Signs at future Deaf, and non-Deaf, Film Festivals will soon associate "And" with future "I Love You's" where the Deaf have representation of, by, and for the Deaf through film. It looks as if all was not lost when Talkies took over.
Lane. When the Mind Hears: The History of the Deaf. New York: Vintage
Books, 1989. It is important to note here that it would be in error to
equate Sign Languages with pantomime. As Lane writes in the narrative
voice of Laurent Clerc, ". . . , Whatever basis a particular sign
may have had in pantomime, it has undergone a species of abbreviation
and regularization, so the movement is fluid and rapid, the handshapes
are familiar, the locations are convenient" (281-282). However, some
who know Sign Language can have greater familiarity with pantomime to
allow for limited communication with non-signing individuals with serious
effort, as Lane notes with examples in the above mentioned book.
(3) Right here, I may have lost some Hearing readers. Most Hearing people have little, if any, contact with the Deaf, and are thus awash in assumptions about the Deaf. To convince a neophyte of the values and reality of Deaf Culture would cause me to digress significantly from the purpose of this article, Deaf Cinema. For those who are curious and wish to read more about Deaf Culture, I will recommend two books by psychology and linguistics specialist, Harlan Lane, PhD: When the Mind Hears: The History of the Deaf (1989) and The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community (2000).
(4) I had come to the festival to learn about Deaf Cinema, but also to see if PARK Chan-wook's film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) could survive a Deaf-centric critique. Although Park did not repeat a scene verbatim with and without audio, he does take us into the head of the Deaf character, Ryu, played by SHIN Ha-kyun, by removing the audio and then he takes us out of Ryu's head by returning the audio.
I asked John
Schuchman if Shin and BAE Doo-na's signing through the reflection of a
mirror would constitute a Hearing-centric "gimmick." The film
was not shown at this festival and Schuchman had not seen it. Having not
seen the film and being a Hearing Person, Schuchman didn't feel comfortable
answering my question. However, confirmation was received from the Deaf
in the crowd that they do sometimes sign in the mirrors of bathrooms.
This may or may not be a "gimmick." Whether Sympathy for
Mr. Vengeance presents a Deaf-centric view rather than a Hearing-centric
fantasy of Deafness requires further study.
(5) Lane (1989).
(6) Yes, presenters
throughout the festival acknowledged that there are master lip-readers.
However, they are the exception within the Deaf population, not the rule.
(8) The festival organizers could have referred to Owen Wrigley's The Politics of Deafness (1996) for such context, in which the deaf community in Thailand is discussed. Unfortunately, I found out about this book too late to read it before this article's deadline..