Zimbabwean art is a vibrant tapestry woven from ancient traditions, spiritual beliefs, and contemporary expressions. It encompasses a wide range of forms, from rock paintings dating back millennia to the internationally acclaimed stone sculptures and the dynamic paintings of today's young artists.
Great Zimbabwe Ruins
Ancient Roots and Enduring Traditions
There is an artistic tradition in Zimbabwe that can be traced back to pottery of the Early and Late Stone Age and rock paintings from the Late Stone Age. Many rock paintings produced by San artists between 10000 and 2000 years ago are found in cultural sites in Zimbabwe and these demonstrate a high degree of skill in drawing. Many depict recognisable animal figures and use shading and colour to enhance the visual impact. In prehistory the area was widely settled by Kung peoples, the so-called Khoikhoi or San, Hottentot or Bushmen people, who were hunter gatherers.
They often lived in caves and made various artworks, including beading from shells for personal decoration, incising designs on ostrich shells and utilitarian objects such as clay water straws and also on the cave walls themselves. These dynamic and varied cave paintings date from around 10000 BCE and depict humans hunting many kinds of animals, warfare between humans, mystical and other unidentified marks, landscape and ceremonies where the humans are obviously decorated or in costume. The colours vary from black through brown, red, ochre, yellow and white.
The pigments used are unknown, though presumably contain a mix of local materials such as earth oxides, fat, vegetable juices and possibly fluids from larval insects. Their descendants, who live mainly in Botswana and Namibia, sing a variety of uniquely structured and tuneful songs, accompanied sometimes by a plucked or struck bow. These Stone Age people were supplanted by Iron Age Nguni-derived pastoral and farming peoples migrating in from the east and north around 2000 years ago, who became the ancestors of the WaRozwi/Barotse people and by derivation the Amashona peoples.
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The art of these people can be seen in many decorated first-fired clay pots, where typically a repeated dhlo-dhlo (linear herringbone) motif or similar edging was applied. Other artwork is harder to source, though it can be assumed they decorated the body and had beadwork and other art styles related to typical styles of the East and Central African Nguni peoples. At around the same time as the earlier incursions of these Bantu-type people (200BCE) there were sporadic expeditions by South-East coastal dwellers, probably by the Savi/Save river or over the Inyanga/Chimanimani mountain passes, into the Zimbabwe area to obtain gold for trade with Arab traders trading as far south as the mouth of the Savi.
They built stone forts extending into the interior at one day’s march from each other, with the final one being the complex now known as Great Zimbabwe. To service the coastal trade a town called Sofala was established at the mouth of the Sofala river on the east coast. It had its heydey in around 700 AD/CE and served the Mwenemutapa/Monomotapa Kingdom, whose capital was Great Zimbabwe. Archaeology at Zimbabwe has shown several distinct phases of building and styles of stonework. It is likely the original complex was rather functional - essentially a fort and trading post only, and the later and more elaborate building occurred when the complex became the central administrative and royal centre of activity for the area.
Some of the architectural features are probably linked with styles of coastal Swahili architecture and some are uniquely local. Chinese pottery shards, ivory, glass objects, local gold objects, Arabic and local beads, copper ingots, iron ingots and other trade items have been found at Zimbabwe. The herringbone and other stepped linear froms of decoration in the walls are a feature of the most recent stonework. Similar stonework is seen at Khami ruins, a fort built on the way to Zimbabwe.
Great Zimbabwe: A Legacy in Stone
This was Great Zimbabwe, which dates from about 1250-1500 AD. It is a stone-walled town (Zimbabwe means “royal residence”) and shows evidence in its archaeology of skilled stone working: the walls were made of a local granite and no mortar was used in their construction. When excavated, six soapstone birds and a soapstone bowl were found in the eastern enclosure of the monument, so these Shona-speaking Gumanye people certainly produced sculpture.
Each object was carved from a single piece of stone and the birds have an aesthetic quality that places them as genuine “art”. However, the most impressive and unique feature of Zimbabwe are the huge soapstone birds, the so-called Zimbabwe birds, depicting a bird of prey perched on a zig-zag base motif. These birds are possibly based on the Bateleur eagle or maybe avulture species and might have had something to do with a religious cult or indicative of a totem animal for the ruling people at the time.
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Zimbabwe Birds at Great Zimbabwe
Most of these sculptures are still in the country but one is in South Africa where it still adorns Groote Schuur an official residence, once the home of Cecil Rhodes. Another unexplained motif at Zimbabwe, which like the birds were mounted on the perimeter wall of the Great Enclosure, were stelae or tall narrow rectilinear pillars of rock (probably natural fracture artefacts) set at intervals round the top of the wall.
In addition to architecture, Great Zimbabwe’s most famous works of art are the eight birds carved of soapstone that were found in its ruins. The birds surmount columns more than a yard tall and are themselves on average sixteen inches tall. The sculptures combine both human and avian elements, substituting human features like lips for a beak and five-toed feet for claws. Excavated at the turn of the century, it is known that six of the sculptures came from the Eastern Enclosure of the Hill complex, but unfortunately their precise arrangement can only be surmised.
Scholars have suggested that the birds served as emblems of royal authority, perhaps representing the ancestors of Great Zimbabwe’s rulers. Although their precise significance is still unknown, these sculptures remain powerful symbols of rule in the modern era, adorning the flag of Zimbabwe as national emblems.
The Spirit Mediums and the Symbolism of the Staff
Ubiquitous to the majority of sub-Saharan Africa’s historic cultures, were the specialists in transpersonal or holotrophic consciousness. The Spirit Mediums, or N’anga of Zimbabwe were famed throughout sub-Saharan Africa. They played a leading role in the first uprising or chimurenga against the colonialists in the 1890s, and again in the second chimurenga, leading to Zimbabwean Independence in 1980. The Mediums stood for cultural principles which linked the generations through history.
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An iconic symbol in Zimbabwean culture, the staff signifies the position of authority of the holder, particularly the Spirit Medium, the Chief or ‘tribal’ authority, and so on downwards, to the position of the man as head of the family. It is a symbol of the gravitas of authority, for the holder bears the responsibility of preserving cultural principles, of handing on such principles to the individual who will inherit his or her position on his passing. The staff has featured as a potent symbol in Zimbabwean cultures since the time of Great Zimbabwe, at least.
During the rise of nationalism in Zimbabwe the 1960’s, leading to the second Chimurenga or war of liberation, Joshua Nkomo, the traditional leader of the Ndebele people, was officially presented, ‘with a gano, bakatwa, and tsvimbo,’ (axe, dagger and staff), as symbols of the ‘spiritual rearmament’ that would be critical to the coming struggle.
Contemporary Zimbabwean Art: A Renaissance in Stone
Zimbabwe has always been known as one of the sub-continent’s most creative countries. It is not surprising that the first contemporary art movement to come out of sub-Saharan Africa was from Zimbabwe, her sculpture in stone. Emerging onto the international art scene in the 1970’s, it was described at the time as ‘one of the most compelling art forms to come out of contemporary Africa.’ (Ray Wilkinson) Within a decade, it had been exhibited in major Western Museums, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musee de Rodin in Paris, and the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London.
The artists chosen medium was a ‘touchstone’ to a simultaneously past and present reality, the granite domes and outcrops of the country were part of the cultural and spiritual landscape. Serpentine was freely available, being quarried in the country, tools were made by hand, no machines were ever used, and it became the medium for black artists to express their own psychic identity in a milieu in which all things African, in the colonial milieu of the time, were regarded as inferior. The unforgiving medium of stone yielded to the ‘I -Thou’ relationship of African consciousness, of being at one with the rhythm of things.
This was the elemental power of these early forms, and the reason it made such an impact on the international art world. Forms which expressed a powerful energy that was a statement of being, whether human, animal or even hybrid, being as simultaneously transcendent and actual. Contemporary art survives only in collaboration with audience, patron, market, the relationships every artist must negotiate. The first Director of the Rhodes National Gallery, now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Frank McEwan, came to the newly opened Gallery in 1957 straight from the art world of Paris and a close association with Picasso.
Steeped in the aesthetic of the avant-garde of Paris, he recognized the same in the black artists of Zimbabwe, in a society polarized between African and European, and he opened a way for black artists that was not there for them before. It is not so easy to erase an aesthetic consciousness, an awareness of the deeper questions and dimensions of life, which was what drove the emergence of Zimbabwe’s stone sculpture.
Materials Used in Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture:
| Material | Description |
|---|---|
| Soapstone | A form of talc, soft and easily carved. |
| Serpentine | A common mineral with serpent-like green bands, harder than soapstone. |
| Red Jasper | An opaque form of quartz, takes a high polish and used as a gemstone. |
| Malachite | An important ore of copper, with concentric banding of green shades. |
| Verdite | A semi-precious green stone, over 3500 million years old. |
Contemporary Painting and Multi-Media Art
The same desire to express the human condition is behind a second contemporary art movement from Zimbabwe, making its mark on the international art world, the work of her young painters. These artists are speaking from their everyday experience of Zimbabwe’s spiral of disintegration. Their work strives to interpret who and where is the self, in a situation which has gone so far beyond the ordinary that it is not easy to describe in words. This time it is paint, photography, graphics, and found objects in a bricolage of township life, multi-media applied in bold gestural strokes and vibrant colour, which coalesce into personal metaphors, commentaries on meaning where meaning as a shared security has vanished.
Portia Zvavahera, Embraced and protected in you, 2016
Although not exhaustive, nevertheless the following artists are prominent in a remarkable body of painting coming out of Zimbabwe, Kudzanai Chiurai, Virginia Chihota, Misheck Masamvu, Gareth Nyandoro, Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Portia Zvavahera, Amanda Mushate, Admire Kamudzengerere, Lovemore Kambudzi, Richard Mudariki, Wycliffe Mundopa, Moffat Takadiwa.
Other Art Forms in Zimbabwe
Traditional arts in Zimbabwe include pottery, basketry, textiles, jewelry, and carving. Among the distinctive qualities are symmetrically patterned woven baskets and stools carved out of a single piece of wood. For over a hundred years, the Ndebele have decorated the outside of their homes with designs. Before the mid 19th century, the Ndebele lived in grass huts. During the years of the Difaqane (scattering of the people during the Boer wars), the Ndebele mixed with their Sotho and Pedi neighbors, which resulted in the Ndebele switching from grass to mud walls in their house construction.
One form of early design was made with earth pigments, ranging from bright yellow to brown. The second form of early designs were made by dragging the fingers through wet plaster, usually cow dung, to leave a variety of markings, from squiggles and zigzags to straight lines. In this form of painting, the entire wall was divided into sections, and each section was filled in with contrasting finger paint patterns. In the Ndebele belief system, it is only this older form of painting that has any spiritual significance, and is believed to be demanded by the ancestors to create cultural continuity.
Some Ndebele claim that sickness and bad luck would come to those who did not recognize the ancestors. This form of decoration is still acknowledged by contemporary painters, who decorate the ground in front of a new wallpainting with these older designs. There is no conclusive theory regarding the introduction of beads into Ndebele culture. It is thought that they have long been used by the Ndebele people and that the early glass beads, mostly of Czechoslovakian origin, may have been introduced during the second half of the nineteenth century by European traders.
Beadwork has always been done exclusively by the Ndebele women, who are renowned for their artistic skills. The motifs used in beadwork and in wall painting show great vitality and dynamic response to the changing world around the artists. Commonplace items such as letters of the alphabet, especially from car registrations like TP for Pretoria, and N for Ndebele and Ndzundza, are used in their normal form or are elaborated for their design effect. Telephone poles, airplanes and the symmetrical geometric patterns of razor blades are also included.
Stylized plant forms may express a hope for good harvests in a dry region. However the most frequent theme, as in wallpainting, is the house. Gables, gateways, steps, rooflines and light fixtures may all be recognized on women’s aprons and on walls. In order for the women to weave items such as the sleeping mats, they must first go into the fields to harvest a variety of indigenous materials.
The Soapstone bird and origins of Great Zimbabwe @ Parkingson High ,Shurugwi
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