African Art
Faces of Power and Wisdom
“[African] masks were not simply sculptures like any other. Not at all. They were magic objects…They were weapons. To help people stop being ruled by spirits, to free themselves. Tools. If we give a form to these spirits, we become free…I understood why I became a painter. ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ must have come to me that very day, but not at all because of the forms; because it was my first exorcism painting”
Pablo Picasso, recalling his first visit to the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro in Paris
Images: Benin. Brass plaque depicting a court officer. Formerly at the Metropolitan Museum, returned to Nigeria in 2021. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ·· Fang people, Ngontang helmet mask with four faces, Royal Museum for Central Africa ·· Kongo, Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi: Mangaaka), Metropolitan Museum of Art ·· Kifwebe Mask, Dallas Museum of Art
African art refers to all art forms produced in sub-Saharan Africa throughout history. In this sense, while Ancient Egyptian art is, at least geographically, entirely African, its culture and time frame are very different from that of the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, and is dealt with in a separate entry on this website. The same strategy has been followed with Islamic art created in North Africa.
The main aspect to bear in mind when studying African art is the sheer number of cultures that it encompasses. For example, the number of languages spoken on the continent is estimated to be between 1000 and 2000 (“Introduction to African Languages“, Harvard University), with 250 of them spoken in the territory of present-day Nigeria. Generally, these cultural groups are/were communities of rather small size, with a strong sense of community life and belonging to the clan, and great respect for the ancestors. Within these cultural units, art serves as a reinforcement and celebration of the community. Thus, “the sculptor was not an individual expressing his personal feelings (…) but the art he produced was intended to satisfy the needs of a community in which he was closely integrated. (…) Often the pattern set for the forms had significance only to the community that generated it (…) Thus art was a unifying force within the community, as it reaffirmed community identity by using a specific language” (Jocelyn Murray, African Institute of London: “Cultural Atlas of the World: Africa”, 1992).
It is very difficult to establish any kind of classification or grouping of sub-Saharan African art. Some of the proposed geographical divisions (East Africa, South of the Congo River, etc.), while practical for studying individual cultures, are rather arbitrary. In general, traditional African art used wood as a base material, producing small and medium-sized sculptural works, especially masks and ritual figures. In some cases, animal hair, semi-precious stones or other objects with an aesthetic or expressive meaning are used.
There are, of course, very notable individual cases within African art. One of them are the Benin Bronzes, a collection of more than a thousand metal plaques and sculptures, generally bronze or brass, showing a much more naturalistic style than other works of art on the continent, such as those of the Fang or Senufo cultures, which attracted the attention of the first European explorers and were praised in the book “Description of Africa” published in 1668 by Olfert Dapper. In the case of Ethiopia, the early and intense Christian influence led to the creation of art and architecture very different from those of neighbouring areas.
African art had a colossal influence on the European avant-garde art of the early 20th century. As the quote at the beginning of this essay indicates, Picasso acknowledged his debt to African art before his Cubist Period, and the influence of African masks is evident in artists such as Matisse and Modigliani. Following the end of the colonial era, interest in contemporary African art has been growing, with exhibitions in major museums around the world, and with artists such as El Anatsui, whose art draws on the tradition of his native Ghana, attracting the interest of major collectors.
G. Fernández · theartwolf.com
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