African Art

AFRICAN SCULPTURE

Long before European contact, the peoples of Africa created a rich traditional art that is both distinctive and characteristic of their cultural attainments. Although they were divided into many different tribes, their beliefs, desires, and general way of life were sufficiently similar that, despite the uniqueness of each tribal culture, an over-all homogeneity prevailed. It is therefore possible to crystallize the particular essentials which give this art its distinguishing character.

Although technical proficiency in such crafts as weaving, wrought ironwork, and basketry led to aesthetic expressions, it was largely in the medium of sculpture that the African artist accomplished his greatest achievements. With metal tools, a profusion of figures, masks, and ritual and utilitarian objects were carved in wood (the preferred material), or in ivory; modeled in clay; or cast in bronze or brass. Many were shaped as freestanding forms in the round, others were rendered in or embellished with a relief or incised technique, and some were further decorated with paint, shells, beads, or fiber. Although many objects were frequently sizable, many were moderately small.

The African sculptor was a highly trained and perceptive artist. He served a long apprenticeship under a master from whom he learned how to make and use his iron tools and to create in the art idiom traditional to his tribe or village. Conservatism decreed that he work within a requisite tradition, but he could give it a personal interpretation by emphasizing parts of the design and by slightly modifying the shapes and their pattern of interrelationships. There is, therefore, in African sculpture a considerable variability .of quality, depending upon the skill of the sculptor and his sensitivity to the forms upon which his art is based. These forms were largely derived from human figures and facial features, although they sometimes originated in animal prototypes, or were of hybrid composition.

Patronage of the artist grew out of a need for various sculptured objects in ritual expression of religious beliefs and in ceremonies of social, political, or economic significance, which often had a basic religious sanction. Paramount among purely religious concepts was a belief in the power and importance of ancestral spirits and in the control by deities and supernatural spirits of practically every province of human life. These deities and spirits were thought of as anthropomorphic beings, and their tangible presence at, or participation in, rituals was represented by sculptured figures or masks. Mythological characters were similarly represented sculpturally when myths were dramatically enacted upon social or religious occasions, while carved forms were required in some areas as receptacles for the spirits of ancestors at death. Of sociological significance, diverse objects, such as stools, neck-rests, cups, batons, and pendants were given decorative treatment for use by persons of high rank. Forms of this kind were motivated purely by the desire to achieve an aesthetic effect.

Throughout this vast, circumscribed area of Africa a great number of different styles of sculpture were developed over perhaps thousands of years. So varied were these styles that each tribe and often each village had, by virtue of its cultural heritage, its own distinctive mode of representation. These might differ considerably in such essentials as the proportioning and shaping of parts; the expression of form as an expanding volume or a weighty, contained mass; the surface as smooth or rough textural planes; and the emphasis and exaggeration of certain details and the reduction or even elimination of others. But, with few exceptions, the intent in all styles was not to transfix in a material, such as wood, an exact likeness of life forms, but rather to create sculptural shapes which were expressive of the active force and growth of natural forms. sculpture, therefore, does not closely resemble its human and animal prototypes, but each style has a pattern, evolved from the depths of tribal tradition, for their expressive interpretation as sculptural statements. These range from an approximate naturalism to a highly schematic conventionalization.

On the basis of broad style similarities, five major geographical divisions may be defined for a general characterization of this art : the Sudan, Guinea coast, Nigeria, the Cameroons, and Central Africa.

Sculptures of the western Sudan

As exemplified by the Bambara, Dogon, Mossi, and Baga tribal styles, the scuptures of the western Sudan are typified by a marked, almost mathematical formalism in which human and animal representations are given geometric and at times almost abstract interpretations. Figures have a rigid frontality of pose, a strong bilateral symmetry, and a rhythmic interrelationship of parts. Sudan designs are large and impressive in scale, while sharp contrasts in surface, shapes, and line produce spectacular effects. By comparison, the Guinea coast styles to the south are more nearly expressive of natural forms, with a less rigid and more relaxed interpretation of parts. Although a dramatic stylization appears in certain Liberian tribal masks, especially in those by the Dan and Ngere tribes to the east, the shapes and details of Baule and Guro sculptures achieve a subtle and controlled naturalism ; while small bronze gold weights by the Ashanti of Ghana are impressionistic in their rendering of genre subjects.

Nigerian Sculptures

In Nigeria, particularly among the Yoruba tribes, ritual and utilitarian objects are given a vigorous and expressive naturalism. Rounded, full-volumed forms, monumental in scale if not in size, convey a figurative subject matter close to life prototypes, although they depict in traditional tribal idioms deities and religiously inspired forms. Yoruban sculptures are often richly painted in bright colors. Also from this area, the famous Benin bronzes and ivories stress an even greater heaviness of form, while a profusion of specifically descriptive detail represents an iconography referring to the divine kings and adjuncts of his court. In contrast, the equally famous bronze and terra-cotta heads from nearby If e constitute one of the most sensitive and naturalistic styles of, portraiture found in art. In the southeastern part of Nigeria, the tribal sculptures of the Ibo, Ibibio, Ijo, and Ekoi display in their masks and figures a great variety of form which are often marked by an intensity of dramatic expression.

Cameroon Art

Cameroon art, especially the numerous secret society masks, stylistically combines the naturalistic vigor of the Yoruba with the dramatic intensity of southeast Nigeria. Tribal styles however have an over-all homogeneity in their preference for the interpretational human and animal forms as rhythmic patterns of large-scale expanding shapes, each of which is separated by defining and penetrating grooves. The effect is a dramatic and dynamic expressiveness resulting from the tensions and interactions of these purely sculptural shapes. This is intensified by a rough-textured surface, the consequence of a vigorous technique in which little attention is paid to elaboration or refinement of forms or details.

The Art of Central Africa

Many strong and unique tribal styles developed in Central Africa, which embraces largely the vast watersheds of the Congo-Ubangi and Ogowe rivers. Common to much of this art area is the interpretation of natural forms and features by acutely stylized shapes and patterns which, although derived from, are distinctly unlike their life prototypes. This is readily seen in the head shapes of Basonge and Bena Lulua figures and in the facial features of Bayaka and Bakete masks ; while it reaches the point of near abstraction in the brass and copper figures of the Bakota. In many Central African styles, in fact, although the shapes are more closely allied to natural forms, a dramatic and aggressive expressiveness prevails. This is especially striking in polychromed masks and magic-working figures from the Congo region.

The vigorous and diverse sculpture of Africa is, with few exceptions, represented by examples from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the notable exceptions are the Benin bronzes made before the 15th century, and the If e bronze and terra-cotta heads probably of an earlier date. It seems likely that future archaeological and ethnological investigations will contribute appreciably to the establishment of chronological depths, if not actual dates for much of the sculpture of this area.

African Mural Art

In the south and central parts of Africa examples of ancient rock engravings and paintings appear in caves and shelters. These are ascribed to small-statured nonid people, the Bushmen, and date from the 19th century to thousands of years before the Christian era. Many represent isolated animals by a simplified naturalism comparable to the animal interpretations in the caves of southwestern Europe ; while others depict stylized human figure compositions similar to the prehistoric art of eastern Spain. As in European cave art, colors range from simple red or black monochromes to fine polychromy ; and examples of superimposed figures indicate that some surfaces were used over and over again. This mural art is unrelated to the historical sculpture of Africa and, although not as ancient, is aesthetically close to European prehistoric art.

Special thanks to Art's Not Dead Online Gallery (www.artsnotdead.com) for providing images for this site. Please visit their site to purchase Posters and Prints.