(AA) Art Gallery

Art Gallery

This review has been designed to help you narrow down the most important works of art covered in this Module. It is NOT meant be a replacement for reading the text, but to serve as a supplement. You are responsible for keeping up with the reading in your text as well as provided supplemental readings/websites.

If you are used to looking at realistic works of art, African art will seem very different. Some works, like certain Yoruba masks, look fairly realistic to our eyes. Other works, however, may not look like anything we've seen before. In all cases, the works look exactly as the artists intended, but the intentions of traditional African artists are quite different from the intentions of traditional European or American artists. Generally speaking, African art is conceptual—intended to express concepts and ideas rather than to reproduce the appearance of the visual world. The various works represented in this module have religious, entertainment, memorial, royal, and everyday functions. The forms of the works relate to their functions. African art tends to incorporate symbols from animals, thereby lending a mask or figure certain animal qualities, such as the aggressiveness and persistence of the warthog or the grace and swiftness of the antelope. Also, heavily beaded objects in African art indicate the wealth or prestige of their owners.

Generally speaking, African art makers will exaggerate those features which they consider most important to or most representative of their ideals of beauty. For this reason, much of African art focuses on the human face and figure. In figures, for example, heads are often disproportionately large, emphasizing the importance of the brain as the seat of reason. Hairstyles may be carefully delineated, indicating the importance of a beautiful coiffure. Figures are usually nude or partially nude—breasts on female figures indicate the importance of nurturing and fertility in general; genitals on male figures imply procreation. It is a challenge for us to imagine the original context of these objects. A person wearing a mask would usually also have his entire body covered and would dance while wearing the mask and costume. He might be accompanied by instrumental music and song. When not in use, masks were usually stored out of sight. Figures, too, were made for specific purposes and were usually kept in special shrines with limited access.

Africa is a huge, diverse continent with many people today living in modern cities. The works represented in this module were made in the service of traditional African societies. Many masks and masquerades provided a way for people to interact with the spirit world, which Africans traditionally believed was populated by nature spirits or ancestral spirits. With the influx of religions like Christianity and Islam, many of the traditional religions were overshadowed. Masks and masquerades that had previously served a religious function began to be viewed primarily as entertainment.

General Characteristics of African Art

• Centered around spirituality, the spirit world, and the role of ancestors is huge to incorporate into artworks
• Fertility of man and of the land is key
• Most common materials are wood, ivory, and metal
• Mostly utilitarian, usually for ceremonies
• Architecture is predominately mud brick
• Stone used in Zimbabwe and Ethiopian churches

Review the African Arts works in the Art Gallery presentation below.

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION