African art
African art is a set of artistic manifestations produced by the peoples of black Africa throughout history.
The African continent is home to a wide variety of cultures, each characterized by its own language, traditions and distinctive artistic forms. Although the vast expanse of the Sahara desert acts as a natural dividing barrier between North Africa and the rest of the continent, there is considerable evidence confirming a whole series of influences between the two areas through the trade routes that crossed Africa. Most of the African sculptures are exhibited in museums in the West.
In numerous indigenous tribes of Africa, the deep roots of the autochthonous artistic tradition has allowed the maintenance of various aesthetic manifestations until relatively recent times. In fact, it is precisely from the beginning of the 20th century that this art began to be appreciated in the West, first by representatives of the avant-garde and then by museums and the general public. There are great stylistic differences from one area to another, we find everything from schematic figures and masks to very naturalistic pieces. Although almost all of them have symmetry in common, giving more importance to the head and torso and much less to the legs, which are usually represented short and with less detail than the rest of the body parts.
History
Before European colonization
African art is as varied as the cultures that populate the continent. The first artistic manifestations, as occurred in North America and Europe, with cave paintings and engravings dating back to the Neolithic and found in the Sahara area (for example, the Tassili paintings).
In general terms, like all primitive artistic manifestations, African art is essentially functional, it always arises associated with a religious or social act, and for this reason it is strongly conditioned by beliefs.
In the areas where pastoralist culture predominated (from the Sudan, south of the Sahara, to the eastern and southern savannahs), the main artistic manifestations occur in the realm of personal adornment, where motifs inspired by the animals. In these areas, rock art also has an important presence. Among the farming peoples of Central and West Africa (Congo and Niger river basins) sculpture dominated the art scene. The earliest sculptures known as ceramic heads and figurines from the Nok culture of Nigeria (500 BCE-200 CE). The first samples of iron work in the sub-Saharan area also correspond to this culture. The oldest evidence of the use of copper and its alloys comes from the Igbo settlement of Igbo-Ukwu, also in Nigeria; 9th century sites have brought to light bronze objects that, however, bear no relation to the famous bronzes from the Yoruba city of Ifé (15th-19th centuries) in Nigeria.
Before the process of colonization of the continent began, most of the African peoples were animists, that is, they attributed a soul or vital principle to all beings and phenomena of nature. Only the most developed civilizations came to create a pantheon of established divinities. Africans believed in an all-powerful god who did not communicate with imperfect human beings. That divinity gave all creatures a spirit, which could exert a positive or negative influence; the most powerful were the ancestors: when a man died, his spirit separated from his body and wandered around the place where he lived. The Africans believed that these spirits lived in the carved figures that represent the deceased and that they were guarded by their relatives.
In general, the fundamental values that preside over this belief system are unity and harmony within the family and with the clan, with the ancestors and the spirits. Religion is a communal act, not an individual one. Natives who converted to Christianity or Islam strove to uphold these principles. In this context, two basic artistic manifestations were differentiated: fetishes and masks: Fetishes are objects to which a supernatural power is attributed to exert malefic or beneficial influences. It is worth distinguishing between reliquary-figures, with cavities to store objects, nail fetishes, which exert evil influences, fetishes that transmit the messages of the spirits and commemorative carvings of relevant characters. For their part, the masks are used to capture the supernatural energy of the spirits, in funerary and magical rites or in ceremonies designed to promote the fertility of the earth. The making of a mask or a fetish is accompanied by a specific ritual, such as the previous sacrifice of an animal.
The choice of naturalism, extreme stylization or, on the contrary, ghostly excess is determined by the complex relationships that the sculptures maintain with the environment. They reveal themselves as active instruments by which individuals are structured and speak.
Objects play a key role in relationships with the afterlife, in order to communicate with ancestors and spirits.
The vast majority of manifestations of African art have wood as their basic material. In the more developed tribes, materials such as iron (in everyday objects such as knives, hoes and axes) or bronze were occasionally used. Gold was used by the most evolved cultures, such as those of the Ivory Coast, for jewelry, small masks or pendants.
Colonial Period
Until the beginning of the 20th century, the African continent was largely unknown to Europeans; A great plurality of ethnic groups coexisted in it and more than ten thousand languages were spoken. Although the Portuguese had reached the Congo River in 1482, the scientific and, above all, economic interest of the European nations in Africa did not develop until the middle of that century. From that date, successive expeditions filled the museums of the metropolis with pieces.
- Colon plant
Colon figurines (in French) statues colon, pronounced [statys k.l),]), are a genre of figurative wood sculpture of African art that originated during the African colonial period. The statues commonly represent European colonial officials, such as officers, doctors, soldiers or technicians or Africans of the europeized middle class (EMU)Evolus). They are often characterized by recurrent decorative motifs, such as salacot helmets, suits, official uniforms or tobacco pipes, and are painted in bright colors with paints based on vegetable pigments.
As a genre, the colony statues originated in West Africa, apparently among the Baulés in Ivory Coast. It achieved international popularity after the Second World War and after decolonization. It has been argued that gender originated as an African artistic response to colonization and repression at the hands of the colonial state. It is debated whether the statues were originally seen as satirical caricatures of colonial officials or simply representations of new topics in local styles. Anthropologists also debate whether the original statues were intended to be purely ornamental or whether they also had a ritual function.
Among the notable artists who worked in the style was the Nigerian Thomas Ona Odulate (flower1900-50, whose works are exhibited widely in museums in the United States and Europe.
Today, colony statues are produced widely as tourist memories in West and Central Africa.African art themes
Associated with the different African social cultures of the World itself, an art has arisen generally linked to the magical-religious rituals of the different animistic beliefs. This art has been developed since prehistoric times. In African art, the wooden works stand out, both for their number and their quality, although there are older sculptures in terracotta (Nok S. V AC) and Benin bronzes (13th century), in present-day Nigeria.
The main themes of the art objects represent:
- Fertility: In these societies, with economies based on agriculture, livestock and fishing, the most important rituals are those that have produced the most artistic works, being related to human fertility and by extension the livestock and fields. All these villages have numerous sculptures of maternity, couples and different amulets designed to promote fertility.
- Death is another ritual that generates a great production of artistic objects. It is thought that, somehow, the dead remain present in the world of the living and able to influence their lives. So we must please the dead, propitiating rituals and sculptural objects.
- Spirituality: The fetish or Nganga is both a doctor, psychologist and spiritual guide. Within the requirements you can include the commission of the realization of a sculpture that will induce concrete healing powers.
The other major applicants for African art are the mask societies, a good part of them are secret and almost all male. Along with these societies, the large and small African empires have also generated a multitude of prestigious objects, sculptures, royal seats, command staffs, fabrics, etc., intended to exalt the power of their owners.
Architecture
The African architecture corresponds to a wide variety of architectural styles. Throughout their history, the ethno-linguistic groups that populated Africa have had their own architectural traditions. In some cases, extensive styles such as the Sahelian architecture in West Africa have been identified. A common theme in much of the traditional African architecture is the use of fractal scaling: small parts of the structure tend to look similar to the larger parts like, for example, a circular village made of circular houses.
As most of the architectural traditions of other parts, African architecture has been the subject of numerous external influences since the earliest periods. Western architecture has also had an impact on coastal areas since the end of the 15th century and is currently an important source of inspiration for many buildings, particularly in large cities.
African architecture uses a wide variety of materials. In its structures it is possible to find straw, wooden sticks, mud, adobe, apisonated land and stone, with a preference of materials according to each region: North Africa by stone and adobe; West Africa by mud and adobe; Central Africa by wood and more perceivable materials; East Africa, varied; Southern Africa, by stone, straw and wood. A wall in North Africa could be constructed of stone or ground; in West Africa, mud or adobe; in Central Africa, wood; in Southern Africa, wood or stone; and in East Africa, of all these materials.
The green African architecture also makes use of a wide variety of materials. In this type of architecture you can identify nine broad categories of room structures: 1. In the form of a hive; 2. Cone in cylinder; 3. Cone in the poles; 4. Hastial roofed; 5. Pyramidal cone; 6. Rectangle with rounded ceiling and slope at the ends; 7. Square; 8. Flat ceiling or clay ceiling; 9. Quadrangular, around an open courtyard; 10. Cone on the floor.Traditional domestic architecture materializes in the form of simple huts or cabins; when several rooms are needed, more cabins are added.
In the zone of influence of Islam and the Orthodox Church, architecture played a fundamental role: there are notable examples, both in the western area of the continent (the clay mosque of Yené, in Mali) and in the eastern regions (rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia).
Music
Africa is a vast continent, having its different regions and nations a wide variety of musical traditions. North African music (Red map regions) has mostly a different history of the sub-Saharan region.
- North Africa is the cradle of Mediterranean culture, including Egypt and Cartago before being successively governed by Greeks, Romans and Goths and later become the Maghreb of the Arab world. Like the musical genres of the Nile Valley and the Horn of Africa (blue, dark green and red on the map), their music because they are two music has ties with the music of the Near East.
- East Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands (clear green regions on the map) They have had a slight influence on Arabic music as well as the music of India, Indonesian music and Polynesian music. However, indigenous musical traditions in the region are based on the culture of sub-Saharan peoples as the speakers of Niger-Congo languages.
- South Africa, Central and West Africa (brown, blue and yellow regions of the map) they share a sub-Saharan musical tradition understood in a broad sense, although they also take influences from Western Europe and North America. The musical and dance forms of the African diaspora, including African American music and many Caribbean genres such as soca, calipso and zouk, as well as Latin American music genres such as rumba, salsa, were based to a greater or lesser extent on the music of African slaves, which at the time influenced African popular music.
Regional developments
The Benin Bronzes
In tropical Africa, in the center of the continent, the lost wax technique for small bronze sculptures was developed early, as finds in Benin attest. The kingdom of Benin, which between the 14th and 19th centuries occupied the territory of present-day Nigeria, was very rich in sculptures made of various materials, such as iron, bronze, wood, ivory or terracotta. Pieces such as the Altar de la Mano exemplify the mastery with which artists manipulated bronze, as well as the importance of symbolic elements in art. In the central part of this work there are a series of figurines in relief that venerate the king and glorify his divine power. The monarch is the central figure of the set; he bears in his hands the symbols of his power, and his head is greater than those of his courtiers.
These outstanding pieces of African art arrived in England in 1897, when the kingdom's capital was destroyed. It was a treasure made up of bronze and ivory sculptures, among which stood out portrait heads of kings, leopard figures, bells and high-relief plaques, all of them made with surprising mastery, using the lost wax technique. The same method was used in the making of two other heads, very similar, that were found in Ifé in 1938. The surprise arose when these were unequivocally dated to the 14th-15th centuries, that is, they were prior to the first sculpture. European made to the lost wax, dated in the middle of the XVI.
Other examples
Other examples of pottery include the Lyndenburg heads in South Africa (500). We also know stone sculptures from the area of the mouth of the Congo, and from Sierra Leone (16th century), the latter probably the work of Sherbro artisans, the same ones who made excellent ivory carvings.
The oldest known wooden sculptures are the portraits of the kings of Cuba, from the central area of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dating from the 17th century. However, many of the best wood carvings date from the second decade of the 20th century: for example, the works of the Yoruba masters Olowe of Ise (after 1939) and Areogun of Osi-llorin (c.1880-1954).
The first preserved textile pieces from the sub-Saharan area are coarse fragments of the Igbo-Ukwu culture (9th century) and the cotton and wool garments found in the Tellem caves, in the Bandiagara area, in Mali (11th century)..
The performing arts (dance, theater and music) have as much or more relevance than the visual ones. The most outstanding characteristics of African music are the complexity of the rhythm, marked by the use of various types of drums, and the relationship between the melodic form and the tonal structure of the language.
Literature is probably the most universal and considered of the arts in Africa. It includes myths, stories, spells, proverbs and above all, poetry. It is also the most inaccessible manifestation to outsiders, which would explain why it has received, in comparative terms, so little attention. Although it has been transmitted mostly orally, there has also been some written tradition among the Hausa and Swahili. Since the 20th century, African literature has developed in European languages, such as English, French and Portuguese.
Finally, it is essential to comment on one of the most peculiar artistic expressions of the continent: the masquerade. Africans use masks to cure illnesses, in initiation rites for adolescents, to summon the spirits of ancestors, mediate disputes or judge criminals. Likewise, they are consulted as if they were oracles. The mask can be defined as a dramatic resource that allows the wearer to adopt a different role from the one that normally corresponds to him within the community. The complexity of the masquerade and the rites and festivals with which it is associated show its essential character as an art form in the sub-Saharan area.
Today, for example, many samples of Islamic art appear among the cultures of the south of the Sahara, as well as architectural forms of North African inspiration. In addition, research points to a reciprocal influence between these southern areas with the artistic and cultural traditions of those regions of North Africa that are closest to the Mediterranean. The art of Egypt, some of the most brilliant in Africa, has important artistic and cultural connections with the African civilizations south of the Sahara.
African necklaces stand out for the set of colors that are combined in them. Each necklace has a meaning, just like the masks.
African arts are a true reflection of the rich histories, philosophies, religions and societies of the inhabitants of this vast continent. African art, in addition to its inherent importance to the people who produced it, has also inspired some of the most important contemporary artists and art movements in both Europe and the Americas. Western artists of the 20th century have admired the importance placed on abstraction in African art, thereby encouraging their lack of concern for naturalism.
African's rich artistic traditions continue today, both in their most traditional vein and through new and innovative modes of expression.
African Contemporary Art
Many of the so-called traditional arts in Africa are still in full use and validity.
As in all artistic periods, important innovations coexist in Africa with significant stylistic conservatisms. In recent years, advances in the media experienced on the African continent have facilitated the wide-scale spread and spread of the various artistic forms among their different cultures. Today, for example, some Nigerian-style masks are being used assiduously among the populations of Ghana and other tribes on the coast of Guinea.
African art has also been subject to external influences. For example, Islamic architecture and decorative motifs can be seen in many of the artistic manifestations in the north, especially in Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Motifs similar to those used in India have been found in the sculptures and masks of the ibibio and efik along the southern coast of Nigeria.
Some contemporary artists have adopted Christian themes for the designs of doors, crafts and baptismal batteries of Christian African churches and cathedrals.
In recent times, artists have found their main sources of patronage in banks, commercial establishments, government offices and cuts from new countries. Tourism has also contributed to the demand for African art, especially decorative masks and ornamental sculptures of ebony or ivory, within the limits officially allowed.
The development of art and architecture schools in sub-Saharan African cities has encouraged artists to work on new materials such as cement, oil and other paintings, ink, stone, aluminum and a wide variety of graphic media. The images and designs thus created reflect a vibrant fusion between African tradition and the contemporary West.
Artists like Twins Seven Seven and Ashira Olatunde, both from Nigeria, or Nicholas Mukomberanwa, from Zimbabwe, or Eric Adjetey Anang, from Ghana or Amadou Camara Gueye, from Senegal are among the most brilliant followers of these new forms of artistic creation.Links
- The Anatsui
- Fathi Hassan
- Ben Enwonwu