Art & History Appreciation

ART 101 Art History

Chapter 16

African Art

Slide 1 African Art Chapter 16 Because many tradition-based African artifacts serve a specific function, Westerners sometimes have not regarded them as art. We need to recognize, however, that the concept of “art for art’s sake” is a relatively recent invention of the Western world. Prior to the Renaissance, most art traditions around the world were considered functional as well as aesthetic. The objects African artists create, while useful, also embody aesthetic preferences and may be admired for their form and composition. While creations by African artists have been admired by Western viewers for their formal power and beauty, it is important to understand these artifacts on their own terms. Many African artworks were (and continue to be) created to serve a social, religious, or political function. In its original setting, an artifact may have different uses and embody a variety of meanings.

Slide 2 Major Time or Stylistic Periods In many African societies, art plays an important role in various rites of passage throughout the cycle of life. These rituals mark an individual’s transition from one stage of life to another. The birth of a child, a youth’s coming of age, and the funeral of a respected elder are all events in which an individual undergoes a change of status. During these transitional periods, individuals are considered to be especially vulnerable to spiritual forces. Art objects are therefore created and employed to assist in the rite of passage and to reinforce community values.

In many African societies, death is not considered an end but rather another transition. The passing of a respected elder is a time of grief and lamentation but also celebration. In this final rite of passage, the deceased joins the realm of the honored ancestors. While the dead are buried soon after death, a formal funeral often takes place at a later time. Funeral ceremonies with masked performances serve to celebrate the life of an individual and to assist the soul of the deceased in his or her passage from the human realm to that of the spirits. Such ceremonies generally mark the end of a period of mourning and may be collective, honoring the lives of the deceased over several years.

Slide 3 Important Historical Events 2300 BCE – Egyptian envoy, Harkhuf, lands in Nubia (Egyptian relations with the rest of the African continent continued through the Hellenistic era and beyond).

1000-300 BCE – Phoenicians and Greeks founded dozens of settlements along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa to extend trade routes across the Sahara to the peoples of Lake Chad and the bend of the Niger River (when the Romans took control of North Africa, they continued this lucrative trans-Saharan trade).

600-700 CE – Expanding empire of Islam swept across North Africa, and thereafter Islamic merchants were regular visitors to sub-Saharan Africa. Islamic scholars chronicled the great West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. West African gold financed the flowering of Islamic culture. East Africa had been drawn into the maritime trade that ringed the Indian Ocean and extended to Indonesia and the South China Sea. Arab, Indian, and Persian ships plied the coastline. Swahili evolved from centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking merchants and Bantu-speaking Africans. Great port cities such as Kilwa, Mombasa, and Mogadishu arose. 1400 CE – Europeans ventured by ship into the Atlantic Ocean and down the coast of Africa. They rediscovered the continent firsthand. Political institutions in Africa that predate European colonization have ranged from large, centralized kingdoms led by a single ruler to smaller, village-based societies. Centralized states may vary in size and complexity but are generally ruled by a chief or king, supported by a hierarchical bureaucracy. In many different societies, leaders are considered to be semi-divine. In less centralized societies, power is not vested in a single individual. Instead, authority may be exercised by family heads, a council of elders, or local social or political institutions. African political institutions were dramatically impacted by colonial rule. The role of traditional rulers continues to change in post-independence Africa, where modern states are governed by national leaders.

Slide 4 Nok Some of the earliest evidence of iron technology in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Nok culture, which arose in the western Sudan (present-day Nigeria) as early as 500 BCE. Nok people were farmers who grew grain and oil-bearing seeds, but they were also smelters with the technology for refining ore. Slag and the remains of furnaces have been discovered, along with clay nozzles from the bellows used to fan the fires. The Nok people created the earliest known sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa, producing accomplished terra-cotta figures of human and animal subjects between 500 BCE-200 CE. A corpus of sophisticated terracotta sculptures found over a broad geographic area in present-day Nigeria provides the earliest evidence of a settled community with ironworking technology south of the Sahara.

Terracotta is a hard, fired but unglazed clay ranging in color from pink to purple-red but typically brownish red, used especially for sculpture and pottery. The artistic creations of this culture are referred to as Nok, after the village where the first terracotta was discovered, and date to 500 BCE to 200 CE.

Slide 5 Nok 500 BCE-200 CE Nok people were farmers who grew grain and oil-bearing seeds, but they were also smelters with the technology for refining ore. Slag and the remains of furnaces have been discovered, along with clay nozzles from the bellows used to fan the fires. The Nok people created the earliest known sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa, producing accomplished terra-cotta figures of human and animal subjects.

Slide 6 Ife Crowned Head of a Ruler From Ife Yoruba Culture The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass and copper and created a style unlike anything in Africa at the time. The technical sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’ enduring beauty. The human figures portray a wide cross-section of Ife society and include depictions of youth and old age, health and disease, suffering and serenity. According to Yoruba myth, Ife was the center of the creation of the world and all mankind. Ife was home to many sacred groves located in the city’s forests. Two groves in particular have revealed numerous sculptures: The Ore Grove with its stone monoliths, human and animal figures and the Iwinrin Grove which is associated with terra-cotta heads and fragments from life-size figures. The identification and function of this head remains uncertain. Its elaborate beaded headdress, possibly representing a crown, suggest that it was associated with an Oba, a ruler of Ife.

Slide 7 Ife Memorial Head of an Oba. The leaders of the kingdom of Benin trace their origins to a ruling dynasty that began in the fourteenth century. The title of "oba," or king, is passed on to the firstborn son of each successive king of Benin at the time of his death. The first obligation of each new king during this transition of rule is to commemorate his father with a portrait cast in bronze and placed on an altar at the palace. The altar constitutes an important site of palace ritual and is understood to be a means of incorporating the ongoing influence of past kings in the affairs of their descendants. Though associated with individuals, this highly stylized genre of commemorative portraiture emphasized the trappings and regalia of kingship rather than specific facial features. In the Edo world view, the head is considered the locus of a man's knowledge, authority, success, and family leadership. The burden of providing for his family and seeing them through times of trouble is often described as being "on his head." The oba is often called by his praise name "Great Head," accentuating the head of the living leader as the locus of responsibility over and for the Benin kingdom. The idealized naturalism of this work reflects conventions of depicting the king at the prime of his life. The straightforward gazing eyes, which would have included iron inlays, possess the ability to see into the other world, communicating the divine power of the oba to survey his kingdom. The beaded headdress and collar are depictions of the king's coral regalia. Coral is of importance to the Edo because of its associations with the ancestral realms of the sea and to the immense wealth of the oba gained through ocean-going trade with Europe.

Slide 8 Benin When European merchant ships began to visit West Africa from the 15th century onwards, Benin came to control the trade between the inland peoples and the Europeans on the coast.  The kingdom of Benin was also well known to European traders and merchants during the 16th and 17th centuries, when it became wealthy partly due to trading in slaves. When the British tried to expand their own trade in the 19th century, the Benin people killed their envoys. So, in 1897 the British sent an armed expedition which captured the king of Benin, destroyed his palace and took away large quantities of sculpture and regalia, including works in wood, ivory and especially brass. Some of these things came from royal altars for the king’s ancestors.

Slide 9 Benin Queen Mother Pendant Mask. The art of Benin is a royal art, for only the oba could commission works in ivory. Artisans who served the court were organized into guilds and lived in a separate quarter of the city. This pendant mask was created in the early sixteenth century for an Oba named Esigie, in honor of his mother Idia. The face has softly modeled, naturalistic features, with graceful curves that echo the oval shape of the head. Four carved scarification marks, a number associated with females, indicate her gender. Iron inlays for the pupils and rims of the eyes intensify the Queen Mother’s authoritative gaze and suggest her inner strength. The two vertical depressions on her forehead were also inlaid with iron. She is depicted wearing a choker of coral beads and her hair is arranged in an elegant configuration that resembles a tiara. The intricately carved openwork designs are stylized mudfish alternating with the faces of Portuguese traders. Both motifs are associated with the Oba and his counterpart, the sea god Olokun. The mudfish is a creature that lives both on land and in water, and a symbol of the king’s dual nature as both human and divine. Similarly, the Portuguese, as voyagers from across the sea, may have been seen as denizens of Olokun’s realm. Like the sea god, they brought great wealth and power to the Oba.

Slide 10 Close up Early encounters with Europeans were often recorded in African art. Look closely at the top of the mask. Do you see faces? These represent Portuguese explorers with beards and hats (flanked by mudfish) who visited the Benin Kingdom along the west coast of Africa in the late 1400s. These explorers began to collect ivory which they referred to as “white gold.” In Benin culture, ivory holds both material and symbolic value. As a luxury good, ivory was Benin’s principal commercial commodity and helped to attract Portuguese traders who, in turn, brought wealth to the kingdom in the form of copper and coral. In addition, ivory is white, a color that symbolizes ritual purity and is also associated with Olokun, who is considered to be a source of extraordinary wealth and fertility.

Slide 11 Great Friday Mosque 13th century rebuilt 1907 Islam has had a millennium-long history in Africa, including in regions south of the Sahara. While religions generally bring established iconographic systems to whatever new territory into which they expand, Islam has relatively little interest in symbolic systems. Given Muslims’ preference for decorative rather than representational forms of art, Islam in Africa has only sought to discourage religious imagery, otherwise imposing few recommendations on the development of Islamic architecture in Africa. Also, since Islam spread to Africa very early in its history—expanding from North Africa to West Africa between the seventh to the tenth century CE, when Muslims still conducted many of their daily prayers outside, at home, and wherever else they found themselves at the time for salat (any one of the five prayer times throughout the day)—early Muslims in Africa had no set idea of what a masjid (mosque) should look like. African Muslims simply adapted local forms of architecture to Islamic use. Thus, the adobe architecture of men’s lodges and other civic structures in countries such as Niger, Mali, and Mauritania were deputized into Islamic service, as in the Great Friday Mosque of Djenné, taking care to orient the building so that the often windowless qibla wall faced Mecca. Crenellations and columns, which often carried gender or clan symbolism in pre-Islamic contexts, were either allowed to keep some of their symbolism or were otherwise secularized (rather than Islamized) so that they could be used by Muslims. The distinctive torons that project like bristles from the sides of the Great Friday Mosque can be found on mosques, civic buildings, and homes from Togo to Morocco. They are used to facilitate climbing the structure and attaching scaffolds to the building so that renovations on the mud brick exterior can be done periodically.

Slide 12 The Great Mosque of Djenne was built out of mud for weary travelers who wished to speak with God. In the Sahara, adobe construction has proven far more practical than “modern” materials. It is inexpensive, locally sourced, and functions as a “memory material,” in that it takes much of the day to lose the coolness of the night, even as the Sahara sun blazes outside, and conversely it takes much of the night to lose its heat even as desert temperatures plummet. Since the Saharan environment continually sandblasts any structure, much more expensive concrete buildings would have to be renovated anyway (at greater cost), so that adobe proves the more cost-effective, “greener” architectural solution in the Sahara and Sahel. Since building with raw, unbaked clay is essentially building with a sculpture material, local master masons have always taken the opportunity to decorate their building designs with architectural elements and decorative motifs. On adobe mosques such as the Great Friday Mosque, masons and artisans have had only to avoid figural representations in their decorative programs, in accordance with Islamic custom.

Slide 13 Great Zimbabwe While the site was occupied in ancient times—iron was in use there by the third century CE—its rise to prominence, and the advent of the finest walls, occurred in the 14th and 15th centuries during a florescence in trade. Great Zimbabwe happened to lie right on the route between the region's gold-producing regions and ports, where merchants traded African gold and ivory for beads, cloth, and other goods from Arabia and farther east. The site may also have been a religious center, as evidenced by stone monoliths and "altars" found throughout the site, along with enigmatic soapstone birds and figures that point to the important role of ritual and symbol in the art and architecture of Great Zimbabwe. By the mid-15th century, however, the balance of trade had shifted to the north. Local resources had also apparently dwindled to dangerously low levels from overuse, and salt was scarce. Whatever the cause, Great Zimbabwe's people abandoned their once-glorious stone city, leaving the site a ruin that Mauch found 400 years later inhabited by local Karanga people who had no idea of its history.

Slide 14 Great Zimbabwe. Constructed of granite slabs. Oldest monumental stone structure south of the Sahara 1200-1400 CE. Consists of a series of walls and towers. Massive stone masonry, without mortar. Great Zimbabwe stands as one of the most extensively developed centers in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa and stands as a testament to the organization, autonomy, and economic power of the Shona peoples. The site remains a potent symbol not only to the Shona, but for Zimbabweans more broadly. After gaining independence from the British, the nation formerly named after the British industrialist and imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, was renamed Zimbabwe.

Slide 15 Bwa Mask Among the southern Bwa peoples, large wooden plank masks are carved to represent various flying spirits that inhabit the natural world. These spirits, though largely invisible, are associated with water and can take physical form as insects that gather around a pool after a heavy rain or as a large water fowl, like an ibis. Some Bwa describe a mythological encounter in which a flying spirit appeared before a human, offering protection and service. A tall plank mask was created after this encounter to honor the spirit and ensure its continued beneficence. This mask has a circular face and tall, vertical superstructure with a series of downward-curving hooks projecting from both the front and the back. The protruding, diamond-shaped mouth with jagged teeth is pierced to allow the wearer to see. Brightly painted patterns in red, black, and white enhance the bold geometric shape of the plank. These designs refer to important Bwa ideals of social and moral behavior that are taught over the course of initiation. Each symbol has multiple levels of meaning that older initiates reveal gradually to novices as they mature. The checkerboard pattern of black and white squares, for example, refers on one level to the animal skins on which people sit: white representing the clean, fresh hides assigned to youths and black suggesting the darkened skins owned by elders. On a less literal level, the juxtaposition of white and black squares suggests abstract concepts such as the separation of good from evil, and of light from dark.

Slide 16 Kuba Funerary Rites There are a wide variety of masks used in Africa. In West Africa, masks are used in masquerades that form part of religious ceremonies enacted to communicate with spirits and ancestors. Many African masks represent animals. Some African tribes believe that the animal masks can help them communicate with the spirits who live in forests or open savannas. Ritual ceremonies generally depict deities, spirits of ancestors, mythological beings, good and or evil, the dead, animal spirits, and other beings believed to have power over humanity. Masks of human ancestors or totem ancestors (beings or animals to which a clan or family traces its ancestry) are often objects of family pride; when they are regarded as the dwelling of the spirit they represent; the masks may be honored with ceremonies and gifts.

Slide 17 Ngady Mwaash Mask the Kuba kingdom’s history can be traced to the 16th century. According to oral tradition, the ngady amwaash mask dates to the first Kuba dynasty and honors the role of women in Kuba life. The triangles on the mask’s face represent hearthstones, and the diagonal lines extending below the eyes symbolize tears, evoking hardship. Though it represents a woman, the mask is performed by a man.

Slide 18 Yoruba Twin Figures Highest rates of twin births in the world. When a Yoruba twin dies, the parents often consult a diviner, a specialist in ritual and spiritual practices, who may tell then that an image of a twin, or ere ibeji, must be carved to serve as a dwelling place for the deceased twin's spirit. The Yoruba of Nigeria have the highest recorded rate of twin births in the world, with an estimated 45 sets of twins in every 1,000 births. For Yoruba families, the birth of twins is greeted with rejoicing because they are believed to possess special powers and the ability to bring good fortune to those who honor them properly. However, multiple births have an increased risk of one of the twins dying during infancy. Figures like these, called ibeji, are memorials to deceased twins. Their elaborate hairstyles and beaded jewelry mark their honored status. When one twin dies, a single sculpture is commissioned and cared for by the mother and later by the surviving twin. If both infants die, a sculptor creates two images. The figures are ritually washed, dressed, and offered favorite foods. Such figures reflect the various styles of individual artists and regions. The heads of the pair from the Oyo region have been repeatedly bathed with indigo, symbolizing the calming of the spirit's inner being.

Slide 19 Door from Royal Palace in Ikere, Nigeria Classic theme of elongated breasts symbolizes fertility. Asymmetrical composition combines narrative and symbolic scenes in horizontal rectangular panels. The British started to take control of the area known today as Nigeria in the 1880s, aiming to end the trafficking of slaves, bring Christianity to the region and trade commodities like palm oil and cocoa. The Protectorates of Southern and Northern Nigeria were established in 1900, and in 1914 were joined together to form one colony. Britain ruled Nigeria for 46 years before it gained independence as a nation in 1960. The British extended their control in stages by a mixture of diplomacy and military force. One method for asserting rule was to have a small number of British administrators operating through local leaders – a system depicted on these door panels and lintel. This form of administration became officially known as ‘Indirect Rule’ in 1912. These doors were originally carved for the palace of the Ogoga (king) of Ikere to commemorate the moment around 1899/1901 when the Ogoga first received the British administrator, Captain Ambrose, into his palace. The right-hand panel shows the arrival of Ambrose, carried in a hammock. He is accompanied by Major Reeve-Tucker, his predecessor as travelling commissioner, who is shown on the upper register. You can also see soldiers, shackled prisoners and porters carrying boxes of cowrie shells, which have been collected as taxes. On the opposite panel, the Ogoga is seated on a throne, surrounded by his wives, children, palace officials and slaves. Above the door panels, the lintel shows vultures attacking the eyes of human faces. The panels were originally painted in many colors, only traces of which now survive.

Slide 20 Democratic Republic of Congo Sculpture Power Figure

This visually powerful sculpture once belonged to a ritual specialist who used it as a tool to control and contain a spiritual force. The force was drawn to the figure by the application of medicines packed in resin in its abdomen. In the Kongo language, spiritually invested objects are called minkisi (singular, nkisi). This nkisi is also called nkondi, or hunter, referring to its power to aggressively track down offenders. The nails, pins, cowrie shells, bone, and blades imbedded in the figure enhance its ability to attract a spirit and may be connected to a specific problem that its power was called on to resolve. A nail or a blade was driven into the figure each time its spiritual force was invoked.

The Kongo people used these for centuries as tools for curing illness, punishing criminals, combating witchcraft, or solving other problems. The physical form of a nkisi—whether an embellished container or a finely sculpted figure—and its surface decoration can indicate if it is meant to harm or help. Some minkisi were called on to affect a result through violent means, and others were understood to act more kindly. The specific form that a nkisi takes is less important than the medicine created for its use, but the visual impact of a skillfully rendered figure such as this object adds to its ritual power. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Portuguese, French, and Belgian colonizers seeking control of the Kongo region encountered minkisi as weapons of resistance. Missionaries coerced or stole them from communities to remove their perceived pagan influence, at times even destroying them. Military commanders captured the figures to squelch local empowerment. Most minkisi now found in museum collections left the region during this period. Today the beliefs that underlie the use of minkisi are still prevalent in the Kongo area; however, minkisi no longer take the elaborate figural forms of the past.

Slide 21 Baule Sculpture Spirit Spouse Baule culture 20th century

The Baule people believed that before life they lived in the spirit world and had a spirit spouse whom they left behind. Those who have trouble getting married or having children have these made so that their spirit spouse may enter them. The person must treat this figure like a human, and hopefully they will one day find a real spouse. The sculpted Baule figure is a stand-in converser for an unseen spirit. A Baule man probably commissioned this female figure as a portrayal of his otherworld woman, following the instructions of a diviner and his revelation that the problem the man faced stemmed from the jealousy of his neglected mate in the otherworld. To picture her identity and to ultimately please her, the sculptor set out to carve a person of beauty as perceived by Baule notions of attractiveness. She is depicted with serenity and composure: her flexed legs, her hands at rest on her abdomen, her downward gaze--all impart a sense of a person who is still, quiet and potentially responsive. Her beauty is revealed in her ample calves, her rounded buttocks, the swelling curve of her abdomen, the fullness and potential of her pelvic circle (accentuated by hip beads), her high breasts, her long elegant neck, and the symmetry and perfection of her facial features. Beauty, for the Baule, is also seen in the depiction of scarification--the raised keloids which give the body a culturally imposed, tactile texture that speaks to her individuality while also evoking that betwixt-and-between status of youthfulness when, free from childhood yet not constrained with the responsibilities of adult status, one explores and enjoys physical maturity. This figure also bears witness to its former owner. It was he who added the hip beads which would have supported a miniature loincloth. He adorned her with beaded anklets and a necklace embellished with two gold jewels and a piece of precious coral. Her lustrous surface is due to the frequency with which he held her and addressed her on the mornings after the nights set apart for the dream visits from his otherworld mate. The figure concretized his waking dreams and made possible his daytime reveries.

Slide 22 Kente cloth Among the Asante people of Ghana, West Africa, a popular legend relates how two young men learned the art of weaving by observing a spider weaving its web. One night, the two went out into the forest to check their traps, and they were amazed by a beautiful spider’s web whose many unique designs sparkled in the moonlight. The spider, named Ananse, offered to show the men how to weave such designs in exchange for a few favors. After completing the favors and learning how to weave the designs with a single thread, the men returned home to Bonwire, and their discovery was soon reported to the first ruler of the Asante kingdom. The asantehene adopted their creation, named kente, as a royal cloth reserved for special occasions, and Bonwire became the leading kente weaving center for the asantehene and his court.