African art is incredibly diverse, reflecting the vast array of cultures and regions across the continent. While there's considerable variety, consistent artistic themes, recurring motifs, and unifying elements can be observed throughout African visual expression. African art was created within specific social, political, and religious contexts, often serving a practical, spiritual, or didactic purpose rather than existing purely for art's sake.
Origins and Early Forms
The origins of African art predate recorded history. The region's oldest known beads, made from Nassarius shells, were used as personal ornaments 72,000 years ago. Evidence suggests the making of paints through complex processes around 100,000 years ago, and the use of pigments dates back approximately 320,000 years. African rock art in the Sahara in Niger features 6000-year-old carvings.
Along with sub-Saharan Africa, Western cultural arts, ancient Egyptian paintings and artifacts, and indigenous southern crafts have significantly contributed to African art. The abundance of nature was often depicted through abstract interpretations of animals, plant life, and natural designs. In West Africa, the earliest known sculptures come from the Nok culture, which flourished between 1,500 BC and 500 AD in modern Nigeria.
Traditional African Art: Themes and Materials
Traditional African religions have profoundly influenced African art forms across the continent. African art often stems from themes of religious symbolism, functionalism, and utilitarianism, with many pieces created for spiritual rather than purely creative purposes. The majority of popular African artworks can be understood as tools, such as representative figurines used in religious rituals and ceremonies.
Many African cultures emphasize the importance of ancestors as intermediaries between the living, the Gods, and the supreme creator. Art is seen as a way to contact these spirits. Art may also be used to depict Gods and is valued for its functional purposes. For example, African God Ogun is the God of iron, war, and craftsmanship.
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African art is produced using a wide range of materials and takes many distinct shapes. Wood sculptures make up the majority of African art because wood is a prevalent material. Other materials used include clay soil, Tiger's eye stone, Hematite, Sisal, coconut shell, beads and Ebony wood. Sculptures can be wooden, ceramic or carved out of stone like the famous Shona sculptures, and decorated or sculpted pottery comes from many regions. Various forms of textiles are made including Kitenge, mud cloth and Kente cloth. Mosaics made of butterfly wings or colored sand are popular in West Africa.
Key Characteristics of Traditional African Art
Despite geographical differences, traditional African art shares marked characteristics. Many African sculptures are united by their intended function as talismans or vessels for communicating with the dead ancestors during religious events. As such, many works remind us of the close relationship between art and spirituality throughout human history; the fact that centuries-old traditions have survived in many African cultures gives us a vital window on the origins of human creativity.
Pottery is a key form for many African artistic cultures. Jugs and vessels were often created with a utilitarian or domestic function in mind, yet also with great attention to visual beauty and detail. The case of African pottery indicates the less rigorous boundary placed between fine art and practical craftsmanship than in the Western tradition. In fact, this approach mirrored twentieth-century Western movements such as Constructivism, again indicating the ways in which traditional African art predicts and preempts Western equivalents.
Visual Abstraction
African artworks often prioritize visual abstraction over naturalistic representation. The human figure has long been the central subject of most African art, symbolizing the living or the dead, representing chiefs, dancers, or various trades, serving as an anthropomorphic image of a deity, or fulfilling other votive and spiritual functions.
Regional Styles and Examples
There exist diverse styles, which can often be observed within a single context of origin and may be influenced by the intended use of the object. Nevertheless, broad regional trends are discernible. Sculpture is most common among "groups of settled cultivators in the areas drained by the Niger and Congo rivers" in West Africa. Direct images of deities are relatively infrequent, but masks in particular are or were often made for ritual ceremonies.
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West African Metalwork
West African cultures developed bronze casting for reliefs, like the famous Benin Bronzes, to decorate palaces and for highly naturalistic royal heads from around the Bini town of Benin City, Edo State, as well as in terracotta or metal, from the 12th-14th centuries. Akan gold weights are a form of small metal sculptures produced from 1400 to 1900; some represent proverbs, contributing a narrative element rare in African sculpture; and royal regalia included gold sculptured elements.
Benin Bronze of a Leopard
Many West African figures are used in religious rituals and are often coated with materials placed on them for ceremonial offerings. The Mande-speaking peoples of the same region make pieces from wood with broad, flat surfaces and arms and legs shaped like cylinders.
As Europeans explored the coasts of West Africa, they discovered a wide range of functional objects that Africans used for cultural, social, and economic purposes. Oath devices, for instance, were essential to securing business relationships during the era of the Atlantic slave trade.
During and after the 19th and 20th-century colonial period, Westerners long characterized African art as "primitive." At the start of the twentieth century, art historians like Carl Einstein, Michał Sobeski and Leo Frobenius published important works about the theme, giving African art the status of an aesthetic object, not only of an ethnographic object. At the same time, artists like Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Joseph Csaky, and Amedeo Modigliani became aware of and inspired by, African art, amongst other art forms.
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In a situation where the established avant-garde was straining against the constraints imposed by serving the world of appearances, African art demonstrated the power of supremely well-organized forms; produced not only by responding to the faculty of sight but also and often primarily, the faculty of imagination, emotion and mystical and religious experience. These artists saw in African art a formal perfection and sophistication unified with phenomenal expressive power.
The study of and response to African art, by artists at the beginning of the twentieth century facilitated an explosion of interest in the abstraction, organization, and reorganization of forms, and the exploration of emotional and psychological areas hitherto unseen in Western art. By these means, the status of visual art was changed.
Wooden masks, which might either be of human, animal or legendary creatures, are one of the most commonly found forms of art in Western Africa. In their original contexts, ceremonial masks are used for celebrations, initiations, crop harvesting, and war preparation. The masks are worn by a chosen or initiated dancer. During the mask ceremony the dancer goes into a deep trance, and during this state of mind he "communicates" with his ancestors.
The masks can be worn in three different ways: vertically covering the face: as helmets, encasing the entire head, and as a crest, resting upon the head, which was commonly covered by material as part of the disguise. African masks often represent a spirit and it is strongly believed that the spirit of the ancestors possesses the wearer.
Statues, usually of wood or ivory, are often inlaid with cowrie shells, metal studs and nails. Decorative clothing is also commonplace and comprises another large part of African art. Among the most complex of African textiles is the colorful, strip-woven Kente cloth of Ghana.
Traditional African Masks: everything you should know part 1
Akan Art and Gold
Akan art originated among the Akan people and includes traditions such as textiles, sculpture, Akan goldweights, and gold and silver jewelry. Akan art is characterized by a connection between visual and verbal expression and a blending of art and philosophy. Akan culture values gold above other metals, and it is used to represent supernatural elements, royal authority, and cultural values.
According to Asante oral tradition, their origins are linked to the arrival of a golden stool, which is believed to hold the soul of the Asante nation. In some Akan cultural beliefs, gold symbolized the sun and was associated with royal authority. It was often used in art to signify the king's importance, representing key cultural and social values.
Ashanti Trophy Head; circa 1870; pure gold; Wallace Collection (London). This artwork represents an enemy chief killed in battle.
Nigerian Art
Nigerian art is inspired by the country's diverse folklore and traditional heritage. Art forms from Nigeria include stone carvings, pottery, glasswork, woodcarvings, and bronze works. Masks are part of the animist beliefs of the Yoruba people. Pottery has a long tradition in Nigeria, with evidence of its production dating back to at least 100 B.C. Suleja, Abuja, and Ilorin are considered important centers of traditional pottery.
The Yoruba use a local plant to create indigo-dyed batik cloth. Women traditionally perform the dyeing, while in the north, the craft is practiced exclusively by men. Weavers in many parts of the country produce textiles with lace-like designs.
Contemporary African Art
Africa is home to a thriving contemporary art and fine art culture. This has been under-studied until recently, due to scholars' and art collectors' emphasis on traditional art. Notable modern artists include El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, William Kentridge, Karel Nel, Kendell Geers, Yinka Shonibare, Zerihun Yetmgeta, Odhiambo Siangla, George Lilanga, Elias Jengo, Olu Oguibe, Lubaina Himid, Bili Bidjocka and Henry Tayali.
Art bienniales are held in Dakar, Senegal, and Johannesburg, South Africa. Many contemporary African artists are represented in museum collections, and their art may sell for high prices at art auctions. Despite this, many contemporary African artists tend to have a difficult time finding a market for their work.
Many contemporary African arts borrow heavily from traditional predecessors. Ironically, this emphasis on abstraction is seen by Westerners as an imitation of European and American Cubist and totemic artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Matisse, who, in the early twentieth century, were heavily influenced by traditional African art.
Since the late 20th century, artists such as Ibrahim El-Salahi and Fathi Hassan have emerged as significant early figures in the development of contemporary Black African art. However, the foundations of contemporary African artistic expression were laid earlier, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s in South Africa, where artists like Irma Stern, Cyril Fradan, and Walter Battiss played pioneering roles.
In more recent decades, the global art scene has shown growing interest in African contemporary art, largely thanks to the support of European galleries like the October Gallery in London and the involvement of prominent collectors such as Jean Pigozzi, Artur Walther, and Gianni Baiocchi. A pivotal moment for the international recognition of African art came with the appointment of Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor as the artistic director of Documenta 11 in 2002.
A wide range of more-or-less traditional forms of art or adaptations of traditional style to contemporary taste is made for sale to tourists and others, including so-called "airport art". Several popular traditions assimilate Western influences into African styles such as the elaborate fantasy coffins of Southern Ghana, made in a variety of different shapes which represent the occupations or interests of the deceased or elevate their status.
Another notable contemporary African artist is Amir Nour, a Sudanese artist who lived in Chicago. In the 1960s he created a metal sculpture called Grazing at Shendi (1969) which consists of geometric shapes that connect with his memory of his homeland. The sculpture resembles grazing sheep in the distance.
SIGHTLINES on Peace, Power & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa
The Bard Graduate Center’s exhibition, SIGHTLINES on Peace, Power & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, brings metal arts from the 19th and 20th centuries together with works by contemporary African artists. The exhibition’s installation echoes the curatorial sentiment set forth to create new and question old sightlines on African and Black diasporic art. Designed by architecture firm AD-WO, the historic metalworks are showcased in vitrines and glass cases in the center of each room, sometimes running tangentially between galleries, while the contemporary paintings and sculptures are installed along the edges of the rooms.
The metalworks on view show how critical a role these objects have played in African history. One example is a jewelry ensemble complete with hair ornaments, earrings, a necklace, a ring, and a bracelet by Senegal’s “Queen of Couture,” Oumou Sy.
On the third floor we see objects that are or were used as currency. Before contact with European countries, the Kingdom of Kongo used copper, brass, and other alloys as currency. Here, Amanda Williams’s sculpture “Semper Augustus Chicagous” (2022) takes center stage. On the floor are dozens of cement-cast tulip bulb sculptures covered in imitation gold leaf. These gold tulip bulbs reconsider the history of the flower and its economic impacts during the Dutch Golden Age’s “tulip mania,” when the flower reached extraordinarily high prices because of their status and an increase in consumption.
SIGHTLINES demonstrates the vast importance of these African metalworks that traverse the continent.
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