Africa

Historical Background

• Africans believe that ancestors never die and can be addressed; hence, a sense of family and a respect for elders are key components of the African psyche.  Ex: many African sculptures are representations of family ancestors and carved to venerate their spirits.

• Fertility is highly regarded, both of the individual and the land.  Spirits inhabiting forests/associated with nature are worshipped and respected.  Sculptures of suckling mothers are extremely common.

• Ancient Civilizations in Northern Africa (Nubia, Egypt, Carthage) dominated in politics for centuries before empires began in Southern Africa and much of the rest of the world.

• African Kingdoms came and went with regularity.  

• African affairs were largely internal struggles because outsiders were held back by natural barriers (ex: Sahara Desert and Indian Ocean).

• By the 15th century CE, African politics were complicated by Asian and European incursions on the East and West coasts of the continent.  Most outsiders restricted themselves to the coasts which afforded them the most access to African goods and few bothered with the interior of the continent.

• 19th century: "Scramble for Africa" divided the continent into colonies ruled by outside nations.  The era of European control spanned less than a century.

• 20th century: Most states achieved independence in the 1960s and 70s.  Colonization brought African cultural affairs in direct contact with the rest of the world.

Traditional African culture relies on oral histories, so many African objects are unsigned and undated.  Written records stem primarily from European and Islamic explorers who happened to encounter African artists.  

Artists worked on commission and often lived with their patrons until the work was completed.  African artists were apprentices (very similar to European standards) and had guilds that promoted their work to help elevate their profession.

Men were builders and carvers and permitted to wear ceremonial masks.  Women painted walls and created ceramics.  Both men and women were weavers.  There are some specific exceptions to these gender roles (ex: coming-of-age ceremonies for girls in Sierra Leone and Liberia).

The most collectable art came from farming communities rather than nomads.  Nomadic people of East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) produced more body art while West Africans (Sierra Leone and Nigeria) used bronze and wood for sculptures.

During the Renaissance, African art was imported into Europe as "curiosities" instead of artistic objects.  It was not until the 20th century that African art began to find acceptance in European artistic circles.

ADOBE - building material made from earth, straw, or clay dried in the sun.

GRANARY - A storehouse for threshed grain, usually built above ground to keep out vermin and protect product from the elements.

LOST WAX CASTING (CIRE PERDUE) - An artistic process in which a  plaster or baked clay mold is made over a clay model.  Once the mold is removed, the interior surface is coated with wax.  The wax castings are removed and a heat resistant material (investment) is poured on both sides creating an inner and outer mold.  The mold is then baked in a kiln and the wax runs out, and molten metal is added to the mold, filling the space where the wax once was.  

NKISI - Believed by the BaKongo to be brought down as the first sacred medicine in a ceramic vessel and placed on three termite mounds by their god, Ne Kongo.   Loosely translated as "spirit" and represented as a container of sacred substances that are activated by supernatural forces that can be summoned into the physical world.  Nkisi n'kondi are the power figures that hold this spirit.

RELIQUARY - A container for holy relics.  

SCARIFICIATION - Scratching/etching/branding/cutting designs into the skin.  Signifies identity, status, affiliation, coming of age, or spiritual connection.

SANSUM/SUNSUM - Ashanti and Akan people; one's "spirit" that connects the body to the soul

TORONS - wooden beams projecting from walls of adobe buildings.