African Art - sculpture with a deeper meaning

By: Susan G Phillips

Traditional African art is often unusual and abstract. Sculptures of human figures may have out of proportion elements such as an over-sized head coupled with a tiny body form.

To understand the art, it must be remembered that the majority was made for religious purposes. The artist was not interested in the beauty of the subject in a Western European sense but instead the work would have a deeper meaning that was based on a religious belief.

Most traditional Africa tribal religions are based on one all-powerful God and ancestor worship being a major part of the belief. As God could not be represented in an artistic work then statues and carvings were made of ancestors. Realism was not an important factor or even a consideration.

The most important aspect to the work would be the artists ability to bring a life-force into the sculpture that came direct from God. In this way the spirits of the ancestors could occupy the statues and only then would the artist have created a successful sculpture.

In addition to the ancestral figure sculptures another important African art form is the mask. Again, the mask was carved for religious purposes and usually destroyed after use. This is one of the reasons why so little ancient African art has survived. Of course another reason is due to the nature of the materials that were used in the sculptures. Clay and wood were the most common and unlikely to survive over a long period of time.

The earliest known African sculptures come from Nigeria. Between the years 1100 AD and 1300AD Nigerian civilization flourished and many beautiful terracotta sculptures have been discovered and are surprisingly lifelike.

African Art has had a considerable influence on Western Art. Most notable would be the work of Picasso. The inspiration of African masks and sculptures and the shapes partly inspired 'cubism' and other abstract art forms.

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