Traces d'herminette
In English use: Rhythmic adze carving traces
Rhythmic adze-marks — the visible, parallel cuts of the African carver's primary tool, intentionally preserved.
The primary tool of the traditional African woodcarver is the herminette — a hand-adze whose blade is set perpendicular to the haft. Carving with the herminette is a striking, percussive action — not a drawing or pushing cut like the European chisel.
The African master leaves these adze-marks intentionally. He does not smooth his work to clinical European-classical perfection. The fine, parallel, rhythmic notches of the tool are seen on the inside of masks, often on the outside of figures, and across the surfaces of major sculptures. This requires immense mastery — unforgiving precision and rhythm.
The traces produce small adjacent flat planes — facetté (see entry) — which catch the intense African sunlight in countless angled reflections. The visual effect is what French critics call vibration — a moving, almost musical surface.
This facetté is exactly what Picasso saw, and what he made into Cubism.