The oldest art objects found anywhere south of the Sahara are the terra cotta figures discovered at Nok in Nigeria, many of which date from five centuries before the birth of Christ. These figures and heads are exceptional not only in terms of age and beauty but in size as well.
As a general rule, clay was seldom used for figurative sculpture, probably because of the difficulties of firing large pieces. Brass casting also has a long history in Africa. After the clay has hardened, the wax is melted away and molten metal is poured into the mold through vents left for that purpose. Once the metal has cooled the clay is broken away to reveal the finished casting.
Thus each casting is unique, the mold having been destroyed in the process. Though the forms of art and the style of the artists differ from the use we are familiar with in the West, a closer look will show that they have a remarkable degree of aesthetic skill and technique. Moreover, as we learn more about the role that sculpture played in the social-life of the community, we see more clearly that the art met in particular ways the social as well as the creative needs of those communities which produced it.
One final note must be made on this collection. The sculpture-producing regions of Africa are confined for the most part to Western and West Central Africa. The objects in this collection and shown here in this catalogue are all from West Africa, with the exception of the Coptic Christian Art of Ethiopia. The weight of the traditional art shown here is from those areas in which the S. Fathers have worked. Though not truly representative of all areas which produce sculpture, this catalog and exhibition are designed to show something of the range of forms and the purposes to which art was put in sub-Saharan Africa.
Hopefully, those who see this art will gain a deeper understanding of the richness and vitality of African art and the cultural heritage and creativity of the African people. Please contact us for group tours. All rights reserved. The African Art: Product of Ancient Civilizations and Centuries of Artistic Traditions Unlike the art of Western societies, traditional African art was a functional and necessary part of everyday life and it would be impossible to understand African culture without an understanding of their art.
African Art Part of Everyday Life Unlike the art of Western societies, traditional African art was a functional and necessary part of everyday life and it would be impossible to understand African cultures without an understanding of their art.
Religious Rituals Sculpture figured prominently in the religious rituals which were a central force in African life giving social cohesion through common belief and participation in ceremonial life. Authority and Social Control Masks representing spirit forces were particularly important at ceremonies marking the major changes in the lives of individuals or community events such as initiations into adulthood or funeral ceremonies.
A Symbolic Art Utilitarian objects such as weaving pulleys, bowls, stools, chairs and textiles were also made with great care to beautify daily life as well as to enhance the status of chiefs and prominent persons. The Material Wood The material most frequently used by the African sculptor was wood.
Stone Stone was used much less frequently than wood, probably because much of the stone found south of the Sahara is volcanic and crumbles easily. Ivory Ivory was used extensively in the manufacture of jewelry and side-blown trumpets, many with elaborate geometric detail. The earliest known prehistoric art of Africa - such as the Blombos Cave Engravings c.
Bushmen are the oldest known natives of South Africa, although exactly when they appeared, and how far their history dates back, remains a mystery. It is not even certain if it was their ancestors who were responsible for the pictographs and petroglyphs which have been found at various prehistoric sites in the country.
The Bushmen were driven back into the desert areas, not only by the white man, but also by the Hottentot invaders. The Hottentots are also a yellow-skinned race, so closely resembling the Bushmen that, according to some experts, it is inadvisable to separate them. There remains however, an enormous difference between their artistic achievements.
None of any consequence can be attributed to the Hottentots, but the old Bushmen have to their credit some of the finest and oldest art in the world, at sites all over Southern Africa.
The general character of Bushman rock art is naturalistic, and many of the images can be seen as pictographs, in that they express ideas and are not "art for art's sake.
The difference is due to the natural conditions of the country, although it is generally assumed that engravings are more archaic than paintings. The Prehistoric Colour Palette used by Bushmen artists in their cave painting consisted of earth pigments. Red and brown from bole or heematite; yellow from iron ochre; white from zinc oxide; black from charcoal or soot; blue from iron and silicic acid.
The blue is particularly unusual and does not occur in the cave paintings of Europe. The fine lines found in Bushman paintings were drawn with thin hollow rods sharpened and used like quills. African rock paintings and engravings were, curiously, discovered earlier than European ones: those in southern Africa as early as the mid 18th century, those in the North in when they were found by a group of French soldiers who reported engravings of elephants, lions, antelope, bovids, ostriches, gazelles, and human beings armed with bows and arrows.
The best-known site of desert paintings in the north is the Tassili plateau , active from the age of Mesolithic art , which was explored and described by Henri Lhote in the s. This is a mountainous area - sq miles sq km of rock and shifting sand - now inhabited by only a few Tuareg shepherds. Thousands of years ago, when the paintings were made, the land was fruitful, covered with forests and crossed by rivers alive with fish. The style of the pictures is naturalistic, animated, and entirely different both from the conventionalised Libyan-Berber style, and from the early naturalistic, group of the Atlas.
They seem to be much more closely related to South African Bushman art. Of particular interest are several polychrome paintings in the Tassili mountains representing graceful human figures with dappled cattle close by.
To the south-west of this region, the French Ahagger expedition discovered in another site with the same kind of polychrome wall-paintings, showing various animals, but chiefly cattle. A few human figures are distinguished by extraordinarily animated and often graceful movements. The work is carried out entirely in spaces, so that they are genuine paintings and not linear drawings.
On the same site, however, there are also a number of prehistoric engravings similar to the type in the Atlas region. There is a strong similarity between the Ahagger paintings and Bushman art, and, in addition they have a striking resemblance to the art of Ancient Egypt. Some of the Saharan paintings depict Negroes and a hunting way of life dating from the prehistoric Roundhead period , while others from the Cattle period, BCE - CE show pastoralists, figures with copper-coloured skin and straight hair who resemble the Fulani cattle-herders of the west African savanna.
Art historians have suggested, and ethnographical research partly confirmed, that these works of Neolithic art were created by proto-Fulani groups: they contain elements that correspond to features of Fulani myths taught during boys' initiation rites, such as the hermaphroditic cow from whose chest emerge the heads of domestic animals, and the graphic portrayal of what resembles a Fulani initiation field a circle with the sun in the center and heads of other cows, representing different phases of the moon, spaced around it.
The rock pictures in the Atlas region of Algeria were first investigated in They are almost all engravings: only two pictures painted in ochre were discovered and these belong to earlier periods. Three principal art groups may be distinguished. There are first the very early naturalistic drawings of animals which are now either extinct in this area, or belong to a very remote geological period. The huge impressive design of a lion at Djattou is a good example.
Next come a group of somewhat less naturalistic drawings, of slightly more recent date. Finally, there are the comparatively late Libyan-Berber designs, described as in part rather crude animal outlines, in part designs that are of a purely geometric and schematic character. Classical African Sculpture. Thanks mainly to archaeologists, African bronzes and terracottas no longer belong to an "unknown" past. Detailed comparative studies aided by radiocarbon dating have located them in historical contexts and continuing traditions.
One of the best-known examples of an early sculptural tradition is that of "Nok", a label covering a range of terracotta sculpture of human and animal figures found widely distributed across northern Nigeria. They first came to light in tin mines near the village of Nok in Zaria province and have since been dated to the 4th or 5th century BCE.
Some art historians have detected similarities between the stylized human figures and the naturalistic animals of Nok and the undated stone sculptures of Esie , the Nomoli figures of Sierra Leone, and the Afro-Portuguese ivories carved at Sherbro. But a more convincing suggestion is that the Nok style - the main features of which are a spherical or conical head, and eyes represented as segments of a sphere with the upper lid horizontal and the lower lid forming a segment of the circle - has many features in common with that of Ife , the religious and one-time capital of the Yoruba people.
One thing is certain: the traditions of African art have not been without development. Radiocarbon dating and oral traditions suggest, for example, that the naturalistic style of sculpture at Ife lasted for about as long as bronze-casting in Benin. However, the rich Ife style shows an unvarying canon from the 10th to the 14th centuries, while in Benin, from the 15th to the 19th centuries, the progression from a moderate naturalism to a considerable degree of naturalization is very marked.
Less is known about the arts and civilizations of Sao Lake Chad and Zimbabwe , but enough to show that they are indigenous African cultures: there is no longer need to invoke Egyptian, Phoenician, or Portuguese influences. Archaeologists have shown, for example, that the walls and towers of Zimbabwe were raised by African builders and from African sources of inspiration. Nor is there any doubt about the Africanness of the Cross River akwanshi of southeastern Nigeria and neigh boring Cameroon - stone figures that resemble no other works of art in any medium in the whole of Africa.
They are phallic in shape, with a general stylistic progression from phallus to human form. Some are little more than dressed and decorated boulders but they are distinguished by profuse surface decoration centred on the face, breasts, and navel.
Other less well-known examples of "classical" African art are the bronze sculptures of Nupe and Ibo , in Nigeria. The bronzes of Ibo Ukwu were discovered in when a cistern was dug in the village.
The site proved to be a repository for elaborately decorated objects - vessels, mace-heads, a belt, and other items of ceremonial wear. A grave excavated nearby contained a crown, a pectoral, a fan, a fly-whisk, and beaded metal armlets, together with more than 10, beads. Radiocarbon tests agree in dating these objects to the end of the 1st millennium, which makes this the earliest bronze-using culture of Nigeria.
The bronzes are extremely detailed castings with elaborate surface decorations, but they differ from other African traditions of casting, such as those of Benin and Ife. Moreover, the high standard of wealth they reveal has no parallel in "democratic" Ibo-land where there are no centralized chiefdoms or wealthy aristocracies as among the Yoruba and Benin.
Like Oceanic art , one of the most striking aspects of African art is that it is always very much an intimate part of social life , manifest in every aspect of Africans' work, play, and beliefs. The style and symbolism of paintings, figures, and masks, therefore, depend on their political, economic, social, and religious contexts, an examination of which often provides valuable insights into the meanings of African art.
The Bushmen of the Kalahari desert , for example, hunt in an inhospitable environment, leading a life dominated by their absolute dependence on immediately available resources for survival. There is an intense relationship between the hunters and the hunted, between life and rain. The Bushmen's anxieties are expressed in their myths, their ceremonies, and their rites, and they are represented too in their paintings and engravings.
Bushman rock paintings not only depict the animals they hunt, rain rituals, and the hunters themselves, but the animal species that have greatest mythical meaning. Another group, the Kalabari Ijo , are fishermen who also depend on chance - the luck of the tides, the shifting shoals of fish.
Their art also directly reflects their way of life, their anxieties, and their myths. Living in isolated, self-contained communities in the mangrove swamps of southeastern Nigeria, they believe in water spirits, "Lords of the creeks" who live in a fabulous underwater world, who are, like the sculptures that represent them, anthropomorphic or zoomorphic, or a mixture of the two.
The essence of the spirits is contained in the masks and sculpted headdresses worn by the fishermen at masquerades. The types of animals depicted in the masks are selected not for their economic importance but for their symbolic meanings and roles in Ijo myth and ritual.
The numerous nomadic peoples of Africa are prevented by the very nature of their way of life from owning bulky or heavy works of art. In many cases they prefer literature, the most portable form of art - bucolic poems, epics, tales, and satirical pieces which vividly express a nomadic aesthetic. The Fulani of west Africa are a case in point. They have a positive disdain of the working of wood, iron, and leather; any cultural objects made from these materials which they possess are made by Negro groups on whose lands they graze their cattle.
Even Fulani who have settled in villages prefer to give artistic expression to architecture , elaborate clothes , and ornaments. Authentic Fulani art is therefore rare, and restricted to details of dress, amulets, head-dresses, girls' anklets, ceremonial tools, and containers, and the body itself. Indeed, the Fulani have developed a veritable aesthetic of personal appearance , involving various forms of body art including body painting and face painting , as well as piercings and tattoos.
From childhood they learn to decorate and paint themselves, fashion their hair into wonderful shapes and patterns, cultivate splendid styles of walking; mothers even massage the skulls of their babies to achieve ideal shapes.
During annual ceremonies, which are both sadistic tests of manhood and male beauty contests, youths use all the arts of personal decoration - the body is oiled, painted, and ornamented. The men line up before the judges, "like sumptuous images of gods", their faces painted in red and indigo patterns, their hair decorated with cowries and surmounted by tall headdresses.
On both sides of their faces hang fringes of ram's beards, chains, beads, and rings. Old women loudly berate those youths who do not come up to the highest standards of Fulani beauty. The greatest contribution Africa has made to world culture is its fine tradition of sculpture , although it was hardly known outside the "dark" continent until towards the end of the last century. Then, works that had previously been considered only as colonial trophies and weird museum objects attracted the attention of European artists keen for new experiences.
Andre Derain , Maurice De Vlaminck , Picasso , and Matisse , were in turn overwhelmed by the expressive and abstract qualities of the figures and masks that turned up in Paris from the distant Congo and the French Sudan. Juan Gris even made a cardboard copy of a funerary figure from Gabon. The interest of these painters led to a generally heightened sensitivity to the qualities of African sculpture, although for many years it was a sensitivity that could only react to the pure form and mystery of the sculpture from ignorance of its function or symbolism.
Today we are better informed, although whole corpora of African art remain mysterious entities since they were collected long ago, as curiosities, from people who had lost awareness of their uses or symbolic meanings. Among the Dogon of Mali there are a number of famous old sculptures, known as tellem , about which neither the Dogon nor archaeology can tell us anything although innumerable art historians continue to make more or less inspired guesses.
Tellem figures usually have uplifted arms and are mostly female or sometimes hermaphrodite. Others include animals or anthropomorphic figures carved along the lines of the original curved pieces of wood.
With sculptures of this kind we are restricted to formal comparisons of style and subjective aesthetic appreciation. To this class belong the Fang masks and Kota figures , once the new-found "idols" of Derain and Epstein. The plaque behind the head of the Kota figure has been described, confidently, as "rays of the sun", "horns of a goat", "a crescent moon", and a "Christian cross". Bambara Farmers and their Art. The majority of Africans are not kings, priests, witchdoctors, and sorcerers, but farmers who spend the greater parts of their lives producing grain or cultivating root crops.
Their aesthetic life is closely linked to this fact of their existence. Some of the greatest sculptural traditions of Africa are represented by masks and figures produced to assure the fertility of the fields and the survival of their cultivators. The Bambara , a Mandinka group of more than one million people living in Mali , have become noted for their metalwork , basketry , leatherwork , weaving , dyeing , and woodcarving. Bambara masks are associated with four major cult associations: the n'domo , komo , kove , and tyi wara.
These societies bring out their masks during both dry and wet seasons; they "help" with the sowing, weeding, and harvesting of the Bambara's staple crop, millet, and celebrate the coming and going of rain. The n'domo mask , with its vertical horns, symbolizes growing millet - the corn will stand up strong and erect like the horns of the mask.
Or, move your cursor near the tool to display it. It is also a place of tremendous diversity, in terms of languages spoken, ethnic identities, cultural traditions, environments in which people live and work, and historic experiences. That which can be called African art ranges from what is often labeled traditional sculpture and masks to contemporary painting, photography, ceramics, metal working, and more. And although all are collected today and can be found in art galleries, the former are more likely to have been made and used, with the latter created for aesthetic reasons.
Still other forms of African art include personal adornment made from silver, gold, copper, brass, ivory, wood, clay, animal skin, textiles and beads , as well as intricately carved and woven objects of a practical nature, with some made for everyday personal use and others for only on special occasions.
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