Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
African art describes modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual cultures from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, such as art in African-American, Caribbean or South American societies inspired by African traditions. Despite ...
Art. African art reflects the diversity of African cultures. The oldest existing art from Africa are 6,000-year-old carvings found in Niger, while the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was the world's tallest architectural accomplishment for 4,000 years until the creation of the Eiffel Tower.
Mask from Gabon Two Chiwara c. late 19th early 20th centuries, Art Institute of Chicago.Female (left) and male, vertical styles. Most African sculpture from regions south of the Sahara was historically made of wood and other organic materials that have not survived from earlier than a few centuries ago, while older pottery figures are found from a number of areas.
One example is Marshall W. Mount, [7] who proposed four categories: first, "survivals of traditional styles", which show continuities in traditional working material and methods such as bronze casting or wood carving; secondly, art inspired by Christian missions; thirdly, souvenir art in the sense of tourist or "airport art", such as by the likes of artworks by South African visual artist ...
African folk art consists of a variety of items: household objects, metal objects, toys, textiles, masks, and wood sculpture. Most traditional African art meets many definitions of folk art generally, or at least did so until relatively recent dates.
It is a hallmark of African cultures in general that art touches many aspects of life, and most tribes have a vigorous and often recognisable canon of styles and a great range of art-worked objects. These can include masks , drums , textile decoration, beadwork, carving, sculpture , ceramic in various forms, housing and the person themselves.
Before the Berlin Conference of 1885, traders and explorers to Africa purchased or stole art as souvenirs and curios, [4] spreading beyond the coast; ivory objects made along African coasts had been collected for centuries, and many were made by Africans for purchase by Europeans, mainly in areas reached by the Portuguese, such as the Afro-Portuguese ivories.
In 1995, the Whitechapel Gallery in London presented the exhibition Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa as part of the festival africa95. Clémentine Deliss , the main curator, stated that the exhibition invited "the audience to experience a small part of the conceptual and aesthetic manifestations of the visual arts in Africa during the ...