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African Art and Architecture

I INTRODUCTION

African Art and Architecture, works of art and architecture created on the African continent south of the Sahara. The immense Sahara acts as a natural barrier, separating African cultures to the north from those to the south. Although there has always been some intermingling of peoples on the two sides of the Sahara, differences in history and culture are pronounced. This article primarily discusses the art created south of the Sahara, a region known as sub-Saharan Africa. For information on the art of northern Africa, see Islamic Art and Architecture; Egyptian Art and Architecture; and Coptic Art and Architecture.

The history of African art and architecture spans a vast period, beginning as early as 25,500 bc and continuing to the present. Among the earliest surviving examples of African art are images of animals painted on rock slabs found in caves in Namibia. Animal images painted on or cut into rocks and canyon walls in the Sahara date from 6000 to 4000 bc. Later Saharan rock art depicts ritual activities, herding, and food preparation. The earliest known African sculptures (500 bc to ad 200) are sculpted clay heads and human figures from central Nigeria. Many surviving examples of African art date from the 14th to the 17th century. However, most of the African art known today is relatively recent, from the 19th century or later. Very little earlier African art has survived, primarily because it was made largely of perishable materials such as wood, cloth, and plant fibers, and because it typically met with intensive use in ceremonies and in daily life. Scholars of African art base suppositions about earlier art mainly on art of the last two centuries, but they can only guess at the earlier traditions from which the recent art developed.

African art does not constitute a single tradition. Africa is an enormous continent with hundreds of cultures that have their own languages, religious beliefs, political systems, and ways of doing things. Each culture produces its own distinctive art and architecture, with variations in materials, intentions, and results. Whereas some cultures excel in carving wood, others are known for casting objects in metal. In one culture a decorated pot might be used for cooling water, while in another culture a similar pot is used in ritual ceremonies.

The major types of art produced in Africa are masks, statues, furniture, textiles, pottery, baskets, beadwork, and metalwork. Most objects that are sculpted or shaped—masks and statues, for example—are created chiefly by men and depict human or animal forms. Where two-dimensional art exists, as in textile design or painted decoration on houses, it is generally produced by women.

II THE CULTURAL ROLE OF AFRICAN ART

African art, unlike most European art, generally serves a function. The art may satisfy an everyday household need, adorn the body, or fulfill a social or religious role. These objects of use also have artistic value because skilled artisans have designed and created them with a strong concern for visual beauty and symbolic meaning. Art objects that serve basic household needs include baskets, water vessels, eating utensils, carved headrests, and stools. Ritual objects include masks used in ceremonies and statues that commemorate and guard the remains of important ancestors. Personal adornment may take the form of decorative body scars, jewelry, or staffs and other objects that identify a person's social status. African art objects rarely serve only one purpose. A piece of jewelry, for example, may adorn the body, indicate prestige, and at the same time be the focal point of a ritual that protects the wearer from negative forces.

A Art for Everyday Uses

African cultures design many utilitarian objects—such as furniture, dishes, and utensils—with decorative schemes in mind. Among the most common decorative objects made for everyday use in Africa are baskets, handmade pottery, carved wooden vessels, eating utensils, stools, and headrests.

A1 Baskets, Pottery, and Utensils

Baskets, which serve as useful containers for carrying and storing goods, can be woven or coiled from a number of materials that come from plants. These include sisal from the agave plant, bark, grass, raffia from palm fibers, and reeds. Woven baskets, most often made by men, can hold clothing and personal items such as medicines or makeup. Women usually make baskets by the coil method—winding fibers into coils and then binding the coils together with additional strips of fiber. Some baskets are bound so tightly that they can hold water. Zulu and Ndebele women from southern Africa use binding strips made of colored fiber to create intricate patterns in their coiled baskets. Inspiration for these patterns comes from nature—the joints of sugarcane plants, for example—and from spearheads and other handmade items.

Most pottery is used for storing and serving liquids and other foods, although some is made for ritual use. Making pots is generally a woman's task, but in western and central Africa there are male potters as well, and who makes what generally depends on the pottery's purpose. Among some peoples in Nigeria, for example, women make pots that are for household use, while men make pots used in rituals. Both produce delicate, thin-walled pots, but they use different methods. As when making baskets, women usually employ a coil technique, rolling long strips of clay into coils, which they then stack to form the pot. They sometimes shape a pot by stacking the coils around a mold. Men also use molds, but they form their pots from flat slabs of clay rather than from coils. The Igbo people of Nigeria have traditionally decorated both household and ceremonial pots with grooves, bosses (small knobs), and raised designs. Similar decorations appear on double-bowled pots used for offerings in community shrines.

Spoons and other eating utensils are typically made of wood and may carry elaborate, carved decoration. Decorative vessels used as containers for food or water, or as drinking dishes, may be made of wood or clay. Household objects such as these may also impart prestige, indicating their owner's rank or status. For example, in the 19th century the Kuba of central Africa carved wooden vessels in the shape of human bodies or heads from which they drank palm wine in the palace, in men's clubhouses, and at funerary rituals. Kings and chiefs distributed these cups to gain the loyalty of their followers.

A2 Furniture

Stools and headrests are the traditional forms of furniture in Africa. Stools, like other household items, can have both everyday and spiritual functions. Carved out of wood, some stools are very elaborate in design, especially when intended for a ceremony. The Luba people of central Africa produce caryatid stools, in which a male or female figure carved out of wood supports the stool's seat. These stools appear only at the king's investiture (taking office) ceremonies. On most Luba stools, a kneeling female caryatid represents the owner's important female ancestors. Among the Ashanti of Ghana, a subgroup of the Akan people, there are both sacred and domestic stools. The most sacred stool of all is the Golden Stool, which is a symbol of the Ashanti nation. No one is allowed to sit on the Golden Stool; instead, it is enshrined on its own chair. The Ashanti valued their domestic or personal stools highly because they believed a person's spirit was absorbed into the stool each time that person sat on it. When not in use, the stool was placed on its side so that no one else could use it. A typical Ashanti stool consists of a curved seat with an intricately carved support that indicated the owner's social status.

Wooden headrests, used instead of a pillow to support the head and neck during sleep, have been an important household item in much of Africa. Often carved elaborately, they look like miniature stools with a curved platform for the base of the head atop a decoratively carved support. Because they elevated the head, headrests also protected the elaborate hairstyles of men and women during sleep. Among the Shona of southern Africa, headrests carved with geometric designs served an additional function: facilitating communication with ancestor spirits. In Shona belief, a man who dreamed was visiting his ancestors. Today, only Shona diviners (people with special spiritual powers) use headrests for this purpose.

B Art and Ritual

Belief in the supernatural has traditionally played an important role in many African societies (see African Religions). This belief incorporates elements of magic (belief in the mystic potency of certain persons or objects), animism (belief in the existence of spirits of several kinds), and religion (belief in the existence of gods and goddesses who must be appeased through rituals). Rituals are meant to exert control over the uncertainties of life by harnessing positive forces from ancestors, gods, or other spirits and by limiting negative forces. The performance of these rituals calls for special objects, including masks, headdresses, and statues. Many ritual objects are believed to house powerful spirits or to provide a means of communication with such spirits.

B1 Masks

Masks are worn during festivals, celebrations, and ceremonies whose purposes are to cleanse, honor, entertain, initiate, or bless. A mask serves both to disguise and to protect the wearer, who is most often male, as he performs in dances or theatrical skits. Most masks are carved of wood, although some are made of cloth and other materials. They may be decorated with paint, beads, cloth, or raffia.

Masks can be divided into two categories: facemasks, which cover only the face, and helmet masks, which cover the entire head. The Baule, a subgroup of the Akan of western Africa, have several types of masks, each associated with a specific function. Baule masks are worn to protect the community from dangers, celebrate a harvest, honor and entertain important visitors, or commemorate people who have died. A judge ruling on a criminal case may wear an aggressive wooden helmet mask with horns to impress and terrify wrongdoers. A smaller facemask with female features is used in performances that entertain and honor members of the community.

By themselves, masks are regarded as ineffectual, but when someone wears a mask and full costume and dances with the accompaniment of music and singing, the mask becomes a powerful spiritual force. In general, only men wear masks, but in some cultures, such as the Mende of Liberia and Sierra Leone, women also own and perform in masks. As part of a ritual that initiates them into a female society, Mende women wear a black helmet mask that represents a water spirit.

Because of the power certain masks possess in performance, some people are not allowed to look at them, even if the masks are used in a ritual performed in a public place. Among the Senufo of the Côte d'Ivoire, for example, a certain masked dance eases the passage of a dead person's spirit from this life to the afterworld. Women of childbearing age are not allowed to see this dance for fear that it might harm their unborn children; the Senufo also believe that the women's life-giving power might impede the transition of the dead person's spirit.

B2 Headdresses

Headdresses are worn on top of the head, sometimes in addition to fiber or cloth that disguises the wearer. Ceremonies involving headdresses have a variety of purposes, from the investment of power in a king to the blessing of land for cultivation. The Bambara (or Bamana) people of Mali depend on farming for their livelihood, and they use the Chi Wara headdress in ceremonies to bless the land and celebrate the harvest. The Chi Wara consists of a carved wooden animal form with long antelope horns; this form is attached to a basket that is placed on the top of the head. It represents a mythological creature, half man and half antelope, that taught the Bambara how to till the soil. Dancers in male and female pairs wear the mask in rituals at harvest and planting seasons.

B3 Ceremonial and Religious Objects

Most African religions focus on controlling the elements that produce and sustain life, such as air, water, and soil, as well as supernatural forces. Individuals seek to achieve this control through contact with ancestor or nature spirits. Most African cultures believe that ancestor spirits act as intermediaries between the human community and god, the creator. Art objects, usually wooden or clay figures, may be used to make contact with these spirits and guide their powers.

Among the Kota (or BaKota) of Gabon, carved wooden guardian figures oversee and protect the remains of dead ancestors and other important individuals whose spirits can intercede between humanity and an all-mighty creator. These Kota figures have large, concave, oval faces with small eyes and no mouth; narrow necks; and open, lozenge-shaped bodies. Wire or thin sheets of brass or copper cover the wooden forms, decorating them and protecting them from decay. The figures are placed above baskets containing the bones and other remains of the dead. These baskets are kept in huts at the edge of the village, into which only designated villagers may enter.

Some ceremonial objects serve more personal ends. Such objects can take various forms: statues, bowls, stools, masks, or even staffs and knives. By manipulating one of these objects, the handler may hope to benefit an individual, a group, or a community.

For example, in the Baule culture, each man or woman has a spouse in the spirit world. If a person is troubled by his or her spirit-spouse, that person will have a small statue of the spirit carved. Baule spirit-spouse statues have intricately carved hairstyles and patterns across the surface that represent scarification (ornamental or symbolic scarring of the skin). A troubled person might try to please her or his spirit-spouse by manipulating the statue, oiling it, clothing it, and adorning it with jewelry. She or he then wraps the statue in cloth and keeps it in the bedroom. Today, female spirit-spouse statues may take the form of a woman wearing a dress, high-heeled shoes, and a contemporary hairstyle, while male statues might wear a suit and tie.

B4 Objects for Divination

Another important African religious practice is divination, which is the art of receiving hidden knowledge or insight from supernatural sources. Diviners attempt to uncover problems, determine their cause, and provide solutions, and they may use objects to aid this process. Some African cultures use artistically rendered objects, while others use parts of animals, such as feathers or horns. In western Africa, the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin use a decorated tray for divination. This round, rectangular, or half-moon-shaped board is carved with geometric and animal motifs and one or more images of Eshu, the Yoruba trickster deity, who is thought to deliver messages to and from the spirit world. The divining process begins by covering the board with white chalk. The diviner then throws palm nuts onto the board and interprets the markings they make on its surface.

The Kuba people of central Africa use an itombwa, or friction oracle, for divination. This carved wooden object takes the shape of a four-legged animal with an elongated body. The animal is chosen for its abilities to find something hidden. A dog, for example, is good at sniffing out game and a crocodile can attack swiftly without being seen, so both are good choices. On the sides of the itombwa are intricate patterns, such as chevrons or crosshatches, and on its back is a removable knob that is flat on the bottom. The diviner soaks this knob in oil or water and rubs it on the long, flat back of the itombwa while reciting various possible cures or solutions. When the knob stops moving, the diviner turns the animal upside down. If the knob remains in place, then the cure pronounced at the time it stopped moving is the correct one.

C Art and Adornment

People in all cultures adorn their bodies in some way, typically with jewelry, hairstyles, or clothing. In Africa people also adorn their bodies with tattoos, scars, and other body art; they may also reshape their earlobes or lips. Adornment can serve as an expression of beauty and also as an indication of a person's title, age, social status, or membership in an exclusive group. It may also protect against danger or assure health or success in war.

C1 Scarification

Scarification is the practice of cutting the skin and introducing irritants into the wound to produce a permanent scar. Although rarely practiced today, scarification has a long tradition in many African cultures, and these traditional markings continue to appear on carved statues and pottery figures. Most scars were made on the face, back, chest, or around the navel. Scarification could indicate status or ethnic affiliation, or it could offer protection against harmful spirits. For example, among the Somba people of Benin and Togo, in western Africa, scarification indicated a person's stage in life. An individual received his or her first marks at the age of 14, signifying the transition from childhood to adulthood.

C2 Jewelry

In Africa, both men and women adorn themselves with jewelry, which can include earrings, necklaces, armlets, rings, pendants, belts, and bracelets. Jewelry may be made of gold, brass, leather, or ivory, and it may be embellished with beads, feathers, or seeds. Among the Masai, a nomadic people of eastern Africa, belts, beaded earrings, and ostrich feathers indicate the stage a man has reached in life. In the past, a Masai man who had not yet killed a lion would wear ostrich feathers.

C3 Textiles

Both men and women dye cloth and stamp or weave designs into textiles used for clothing. Like jewelry, textiles may be used to indicate social status or group membership. Among the Akan of western Africa, only royalty were allowed to wear a fabric known as Kente cloth. The earliest surviving examples of Kente cloth date from the 16th century; they consist of woven strips of blue- and-white silk sewn together. This cloth signified the wearer's status and through its patterns might also allude to a proverb or a historic event. Today, a more brightly colored version of Kente cloth is popular among all social classes.

D Art and Prestige

Many African art objects serve to indicate the status of an individual, family, or other group. Objects such as weapons, staffs, and crowns act as symbols of rank, wealth, or position in the community.

D1 Weapons

Today, as in the past, African men may wear swords, knives, spears, and other weapons for display to indicate their status. Many societies restrict the use of ceremonial weapons to specific individuals or groups. Some traditions practiced today are hundreds of years old. Swords served as emblems of authority as far back as the 15th century in the Kingdom of Benin, which had its capital in what is now Nigeria. Only the king of Benin wore the ceremonial ada, an ancient, long-bladed sword that symbolized his right to take human life. Chiefs carried other types of swords. Brass plaques from the 16th and 17th centuries depict this tradition.

D2 Regalia

During investiture ceremonies, kings and chiefs receive courtly regalia—notably crowns or other special headgear—that proclaim their power and authority. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, the tradition of the beaded crown, or ade, dates from the legendary first ancestor or ruler of the Yoruba, Oduduwa, who is said to have placed an ade on the head of each of his 16 sons. The ade consists of a beaded veil hanging from a cone-shaped hat that is covered with interlaced patterns of beads. Affixed to the cone are beaded relief sculptures of faces and birds with symbolic meaning in Yoruba culture. The beaded veil protects ordinary people from looking directly at so powerful a being. In turn, the king must never look inside the crown because that is where his power resides. Some say that looking inside could blind or kill him, while others assert that peering inside confirms a loss of power and that the king who has done so should commit suicide or face execution.

D3 Objects to Denote Importance

In addition to kings and chiefs, other Africans of importance in society may announce their position through items such as belts, emblems, and especially staffs. In the kingdom of the Ashanti (18th and 19th centuries, in what is now Ghana), court officials who served as spokespersons and advisers to the king were called linguists and carried linguist staffs. The chief linguist carried a staff with a decorated knob covered in gold. The knob typically illustrated proverbs connected to the position of chief. A knob showing two men seated on stools in front of a table, for example, indicates that “food belongs to the rightful owner and not to one who is hungry.” This proverb means that the position of chief must pass to the rightful heir, not to someone who thirsts for power.

III MATERIALS, FORMS, AND STYLES

An art object's appearance depends upon its materials, its form, and the stylistic practices at work in the artist's culture and time. Each of these aspects of the object may convey symbolic meaning, reflect ideals of beauty, or disclose information about the society.

A Materials

The materials a particular African culture uses to make art depend to a large degree on the materials available to it. Wood, plant fibers, and clay are abundant in much of the continent. Few sculptures are created from wood in parts of southern Africa, where wood is relatively scarce. Where riverbeds provide good clay deposits, as in the Niger River valley of Nigeria, pottery and ceramic sculptures are plentiful. Soapstone is readily available in Zimbabwe and northern South Africa, where the Shona people reside. The Shona carved soapstone birds as early as the 14th century, and they continue to carve a variety of animal and human figures in soapstone today.

Some materials are used not because they are commonly available, but because they possess special properties. For example, the Mijikenda of eastern Kenya carve grave posts from a wood that is especially hard as well as termite-proof; this ensures that the markers will last at gravesites for many years.

Other materials, including beads, cowry shells, and silk, are prized because they come from far away. In the past, among the Yoruba of western Africa and the Kuba of central Africa, the right to wear beads and cowry shells belonged to the king alone. The Kuba used blue and white glass beads and cowry shells to adorn items such as drums, masks, and costumes for use by the king and other royalty. A Kuba royal mask called the Moshambwooy is covered in a rich array of beads that attest to its importance and represent water or forest spirits. A trunklike appendage on this mask recalls the elephant, which symbolizes strength and financial resources. The Kuba also sewed cowry shells and glass beads onto cloth. One costume of the Kuba king bore so many beads and cowry shells that it weighed 84 kg (185 lb).

B Form and Style

The form and style of an African art object depend primarily on the traditions and beliefs of the artist's culture. This contrasts with European art, in which form and style often reflect the artist's desire for personal expression or the effort to imitate nature's appearance. An object of African art must first of all perform its function well. Beauty is an attribute that enables it to do so, especially when an object acts as an intermediary between the human world and the world of spirits. Beauty makes an object pleasing to these spirits. The qualities that African artists may strive for in order to achieve this beauty include balance, clarity of form, straightness, exaggeration or distortion, and stylized or symbolic depiction.

Sculptures typically achieve balance through bilateral symmetry, which means that the right half and left half are mirror images. Balance and simplicity of form help convey meaning and aid clarity, and clarity helps the object carry out its purpose. Straightness, especially of the human figure, is a quality admired by a number of African cultures. For example, Baule spirit-spouse figures feature a straight, strong neck, which conveys the idea of an upstanding and upright person in both a physical and moral sense. Symmetry contributes to the stiffness of the figures.

When the hands, feet, head, or other parts of a figure are enlarged, it means that these parts are of particular importance to the society. Many Yoruba sculptures have enlarged heads, because the head is considered the location of a person's luck, wisdom, and destiny, and the center of character. The Yoruba also enlarge the eyes because they are windows to the soul. Baule spirit-spouse figures have large, well-formed calves, which are a desirable physical characteristic for both men and women and indicate a hard-working person.

African figurative sculptures show an idealized or generalized version of a human being rather than a realistic representation of an individual. For this reason, they traditionally depict youthful figures, without signs of old age. Bronze heads from the Kingdom of Benin, for example, may represent older, wise people of high rank, but they are made to resemble someone about the age of 20, with flawlessly smooth, tight skin.

Within the boundaries of tradition, however, African artists do have freedom to innovate. One artist noted for the individuality of his carvings is Olowe of Ise, a Yoruba artist from Nigeria who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Olowe is noted for his deeply cut carvings of human figures on doors and on posts that support verandah roofs. The doors that he decorated for a palace in Ikerre, Nigeria (1906?, British Museum, London, England), are divided into several panels, each of which records an important event in the king's reign. One panel shows the visit of a British official. Olowe's sculptures became so well known that Nigerians wrote songs of praise in his honor.

IV ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA

The architecture of sub-Saharan Africa is just as diverse as the art. Traditional architecture can be divided into two categories: buildings in rural settlements, and buildings in larger, self-ruling urban centers called city-states.

A Rural Settlements

The way of life in Africa's rural settlements determines the types of dwellings built. Settled farming societies have different requirements than herding societies, which are usually nomadic. Other rural societies in Africa are based on farming, hunting, and gathering in various combinations.

Of the many types of traditional rural dwellings, relatively permanent houses grouped in villages are found only in agricultural settlements. A typical farming village consists of a number of family compounds along with structures that serve the larger community. Each family compound may have separate structures for cooking, eating, sleeping, storing food, and protecting animals at night. Structures may be round, rectangular, or semicircular. Communal structures, for holding meetings and teaching children, are located in a prominent place in the village.

The Dogon people of southern Mali cultivate grain on a plateau at the top of the Bandiagara cliffs near the Niger River. They construct villages on the steep sides of the cliffs. Their rectangular houses are built of sun-dried mud brick and stone. The roofs are thatched, and the dwellings rest on ledges along the cliffs. The Dogon store and protect their harvest in granaries that have beautifully carved wooden doors and decorative locks. Figures carved on many granary doors represent sets of male and female twins, which symbolize fertility and agricultural abundance.

The Zulu of southern Africa, who cultivate grain and raise livestock, have traditionally built houses shaped like beehives. They arrange these houses in a circular, fenced compound, and they keep their cattle in the middle of the compound. Zulu houses are made of thatch that covers a framework of wooden strips and is bound together with a rope lattice.

Nomadic herders need homes that they can easily build and take apart when they move their herds to different ground. The Masai of eastern Africa, for example, construct homes using a framework of sticks that they seal with cattle dung.

Many rural societies in Africa adorn the outsides of houses with painted designs or with relief (raised) patterns worked into a soft clay surface. The job of decorating houses generally belongs to the women. Frafra women of northern Ghana decorate the walls of houses and other buildings with geometric patterns that communicate information about the social status of a building's owner. Ndebele women in Zimbabwe and the northeastern part of South Africa paint the mud walls of their houses with geometric patterns based on the shapes of windows, steps, and other building features and everyday objects. Traditionally, Africans have used natural clays as paints, but today brightly colored acrylic paints are popular.

B Towns and City-States

Towns and city-states may have buildings that are larger and more elaborate than those in rural settlements. These buildings serve the purposes of government, trade, or organized religion. In general, towns and city-states have developed where trade has brought people together or where conquest has merged neighboring ethnic groups. Consequently, these settlements were built for diverse groups of people rather than for family units.

A good example of a diverse community is Whydah (Ouidah), a coastal city in the former Kingdom of Dahomey (now southern Benin). In the 17th and 18th centuries slave trade with the Americas turned this city into a major trading and commercial center. The presence of foreign traders greatly influenced the architecture in Whydah, where indigenous mud-brick buildings stand next to buildings in South American styles. These styles were transported from Brazil to Africa in the 19th century by returning slaves of African ancestry.

As a result of trade across the Sahara, many towns developed along the southern edge of the desert, especially in Mali. Mosques, palaces, and houses met the needs of the inhabitants: Arab traders, rulers, and common people. Tombouctou (Timbuktu) in Mali is one of the best-known settlements in this area, but the city of Djenné was even more important. Djenné served as a center of Islamic learning and as a commercial center for the trade of gold, slaves, and salt. It boasts one of the oldest mosques in the region.

The Great Mosque of Djenné was built in the 13th and 14th centuries to provide Islamic traders with a center for prayer. The Djenné mosque consists of a main structure of baked mud with vertical buttresses (wall supports) that rise to pinnacles; on the roof is a flat terrace lined with palm fronds and wooden or ceramic spouts that drain water from the terrace. The eastern facade of the structure has three hollow minarets (towers from which worshipers are called to prayer) rhythmically interspersed between 18 buttresses. The Djenné mosque has come to represent Islamic style in this region and has been imitated in many of the mosques along the Niger River valley in Mali.

B1 Palaces

Palaces to house the king and his court were often built out of the same materials and in the same basic forms as ordinary houses, although palaces had thicker walls, more elaborate designs, and larger spaces. Some palaces were so large they resembled towns inside of towns. In what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the palaces of Kuba kings were mazelike in their complexity. They were typically situated on a mound in the center of town so that the king could see the entire town from the palace. A palace had two main sections: one for the king and one for his wives and children. Mats woven with beautiful designs formed the palace walls. Because of their fragility and impermanence, these mats required constant maintenance. Architects kept plans and records of palace and town layouts so that public buildings, streets, plazas, private compounds, and the palace itself could be re-created if the capital had to move.

In Nigeria, the Yoruba built more permanent palaces of sun-dried mud bricks. These palaces consisted of a series of courtyards, with each courtyard flanked by four rectangular units. Mud bricks formed the outer walls of each unit, and an overhanging roof shaded a veranda on the courtyard side. At the entrance to every Yoruba palace was a set of double wooden doors, intricately carved with abstract designs and images of human and animal figures. The Olowo Palace in Owo, southeastern Nigeria, had as many as 100 courtyards. Each courtyard had a specific function and was dedicated to a particular deity. The largest, said to have been twice the size of an American football field, was used for public assemblies and festivals. Some courtyards were paved with quartz pebbles or broken pottery. Pillars supporting the veranda roofs were carved with statues of the king mounted on a horse or shown with his senior wife.

In 17th-century Ghana, art and architectural traditions of the Ashanti Kingdom proclaimed the godlike powers of the king. For example, much of the art associated with the king was made of gold, a symbol of endurance, the soul, and the giving and safeguarding of life. The king represented the soul and vitality of the nation, and gold reinforced this image of him. The Ashanti king's palace had several oblong courtyards surrounded by rectangular buildings. The walls of the palace compound and the shrines included inside were decorated with curving, abstract designs modeled out of mud and painted. Although the Ashanti never converted to Islam, Muslims living nearby probably influenced these decorations. Indeed, the patterns recall those of Hausa houses in northern Nigeria, where Islam is strong.

B2 Great Zimbabwe

Ancestors of the Shona in Zimbabwe, the Karanga, built the ancient city-state of Great Zimbabwe. Great Zimbabwe flourished from the 12th to the 15th century, most likely as a center of trade. Some of this trade was with Arabs and Asians who arrived on the nearby east African coast by ship. The surviving ruins of numerous large stone structures testify to Great Zimbabwe's wealth and power. A massive wall known as the Great Enclosure rings the largest complex of buildings, which probably served as the palace. The Great Enclosure was skillfully crafted from locally quarried stones, without the use of mortar or cement, and rises as high as 10 m (32 ft), with walls up to 5 m (17 ft) thick. At the top, two rows of cut stones are arranged in a double chevron (V-shaped) pattern. Most of the buildings inside the wall were built of interwoven reeds and branches, known as wattlework, and were reinforced with mud bricks and sheltered by a thatched roof. (The use of wattlework as a building technique continues today.) Remains of enclosures for livestock, along with pottery figurines of cattle, show that the inhabitants were probably animal herders at one time, and continued to raise livestock after they became traders.

One of the most distinctive structures in the Great Enclosure is the Conical Tower, which is 9 m (30 ft) tall and built of stone. It may have provided a symbolic representation of the king's power. At a short distance from the Great Enclosure, another set of structures called the Hill Complex may have been used for defense or for religious purposes.

V REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

Africa is the second largest continent (after Asia) and comprises more than 50 independent countries. The continent is home to more than 1,000 ethnic groups with as many different languages (see African Languages). Differences in geography, politics, religion, and economics have shaped its numerous artistic traditions.

Western and central Africa seem to have had stronger artistic traditions than the rest of the continent to the east and south. Good conditions for cultivating crops, a settled rather than nomadic population, and the existence of large kingdoms and city-states may have strengthened the impetus to create in this region. However, African societies that were not primarily agricultural also produced rich artistic and architectural traditions.

Ways of life change, and scholars can sometimes trace changes in a society through its works of art. For example, the Chokwe people of Angola, in central Africa, created very dignified wooden statues of Chibinda Ilunga, a legendary hero who introduced a new hunting technique to them in the 1600s. The Chokwe are now farmers, but the honor accorded this figure in their art indicates that hunting must once have been central to their survival.

Vigorous artistic traditions developed in many towns and city-states of western Africa, where trade was the driving economic force. Yet the presence of trade in parts of eastern and southern Africa did not produce artistic traditions of comparable importance.

Religion also differs from region to region and influences the kind of art produced. In western Africa, trade and flourishing agricultural communities produced city-states in which kings were associated with divinities and with bountiful harvests and the fertility of the land. In eastern Africa, grasslands lent themselves to cattle herding and rural settlements, where people tended to worship sky divinities associated with ancestor spirits.

Community associations guide religious practices in many areas of Africa and take responsibility for education, rituals of initiation into adulthood, and the well-being of the community. Such associations have helped shape many artistic traditions. In western Africa, for example, the Poro men's association has helped develop a strong tradition of ritual masks. The Poro association is active among the Mende, Gola, and Vai peoples of Liberia and Sierra Leone; the Senufo of Côte d'Ivoire; and other groups.

Religions from outside sub-Saharan Africa, such as Islam and Christianity, have also influenced artistic traditions, especially in the north. But African artists have always transformed symbols or forms borrowed from foreign sources, either by using local materials, altering shapes or designs to conform to local traditions, or attaching their own uses or meanings to them. Mosques, for example, are a borrowed building type, but each African region that builds mosques has developed its own standards of mosque design. In the region along the southwestern edge of the Sahara the inhabitants have developed an elaborate design of buttresses and minarets, while Moslems in eastern Africa tend to build simpler, flat-roofed structures.

Christianity has influenced church architecture in 20th-century Africa, but in some places Christian symbols have taken on new meaning. The Kongo people of central Africa began to make small brass crosses after European missionaries introduced this symbol of Christianity. To the Kongo the cross served as a sign of authority, an object for healing, an oracle, and a hunting talisman.

A Western Africa

Western Africa is the home of many of the sculptural traditions for which African art has become internationally known. Wood carving is especially prominent among the Baule and Senufo of Côte d'Ivoire, the Mende of Sierra Leone, the Dogon and Bamana of Mali, the Fon of Benin, and the Yoruba and Igbo of Nigeria. Western Africa also claims an extensive range of other art forms, including clay sculpture, bronze casting, jewelry, and weaving. Some of these traditions are driven by religious practices in agricultural societies, others by the patronage of kings.

A1 Variety of Art Forms

Along the southwestern edge of the Sahara, many groups have long traditions of carving masks and other objects for use in rituals related to agriculture. For example, the Senufo people of Côte d'Ivoire hold a hoeing competition as one of several rituals that initiate men into adulthood. The winner of this competition is awarded a wooden cultivator's staff. A seated female figure is carved at the top of the staff; it symbolizes both the power of humans to reproduce (a power that the initiate, as a new adult, has just gained) and the fertility of the soil.

The Akan of Ghana and neighboring countries are noted for their Kente cloth, carved wooden stools, gold jewelry, and gold-plated wood carvings. The privilege of wearing gold once belonged to the king and his court alone and was a sign of the prosperity and well-being of his kingdom. Akan rulers wore so much gold that they inspired the proverb, “Great men move slowly.”

Among the Hausa of northern Nigeria, members of the male aristocracy wear a riga, which is a beautifully embroidered robe of honor. Rigas are decorated with stylized Arabic writing that refers to Dhu l'Fakar, an Islamic prophet. Hausa men wear the riga to indicate their piety as Muslims, their wealth, and their high social status.

A2 Nok Sculptures

Among the oldest surviving art objects of western Africa are fragments of Nok terracotta (baked clay) sculptures found in central Nigeria; these works date from 500 bc to ad 200. The fragments are primarily from human and animal figures, some of which were probably attached to large pots. The human figures range in size from about 10 cm (4 in) to more than 120 cm (47 in). Patterns in the clay represent elaborate hairstyles, jewelry, and clothing.

A3 Kingdom of Benin

The ancient Kingdom of Benin, centered in Benin City in what is now southern Nigeria, produced impressive cast bronze sculpture, ivory carvings, and other art. When Europeans first reached the area in the late 15th century, they found a complex and expanding kingdom with which they established trade and diplomatic links. Although British soldiers looted and burned the old Benin City when they annexed it to British Nigeria in 1897, descriptions of the city's splendor, as well as many artifacts, survive.

The king of Benin, known as the oba, had an especially impressive palace. At one time its walls were covered with beautiful cast bronze plaques that were said to shimmer like gold. The plaques depicted aspects of warfare, court and ritual customs, and merchants and soldiers from Portugal. The three main buildings at the palace were each topped by immense turrets supporting giant bronze birds and pythons. On the royal palace altars, bronze memorial heads and sculptures were displayed for private and state festivities.

The bronze casters who provided the palace with these objects belonged to a hereditary guild, as did the royal ivory carvers, who carved tusks to be displayed on ancestral altars as well as ivory regalia for the king. A pair of ivory leopards inset with copper spots stood on either side of the king on state occasions. Leopards were a symbol of royal power.

Although it is now subject to the Nigerian government, the Benin court still exists at Benin City. Groups of artists continue to supply the palace with regalia for annual festivals held to assure the prosperity of the people.

B Central Africa

Central Africa stretches from Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic southward to Angola and Zambia; it also encompasses Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Burundi, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A number of ethnic groups have made notable contributions to artistic traditions in this region; they include the Fang, Kota, Kuba, Luba, Mangbetu, Kongo, Lunda, and Chokwe. Like western Africa, central Africa has been dominated by kingdoms and other forms of strong central government. Much of central African art is designed to reinforce the authority of a leader or to fulfill roles in ritual or religion.

B1 Fang and Kota

Ancestor cults have been especially important in the traditional culture of the Fang and Kota peoples of Gabon and of many neighboring peoples. Among the Fang, cylindrical bark boxes traditionally held the skulls and other relics of ancestors. On top of the boxes, seated male or female figures, or in some cases just heads, protected the relics from outsiders and communicated complaints and appeals to the ancestors. Fang reliquary figures sometimes played a role in ceremonies that initiated young men into adulthood—performers held the figures above bark screens and manipulated them like puppets.

Kota reliquary figures served a similar function to those of the Fang but took the distinctive form of large concave oval heads over tiny bodies, the whole sheathed in copper or brass.

B2 Kuba

Kuba peoples in the DRC developed an elaborate culture of court ceremonials and art that focused on the king. This royal art reached its height in a series of seated wooden figures that represent each of the Kuba kings. When the king was absent from his capital, his wives would invoke the necessary presence of royalty in the palace by rubbing his statue with oil. Scholars believe that most of the surviving king figures date from the mid- to late 18th century.

Much of Kuba art features geometric patterns, which are used in a variety of ways. They may be embroidered on raffia cloth, painted on women's bodies, carved on wooden cups and boxes, or woven into mats for the walls of houses and palaces.

B3 Luba

Art of the Luba kingdom, in the southeastern part of the DRC, also emphasized the power of the king. Symbols of royal authority included carved three-pronged stands to hold bows used in hunting. The bow stands were considered too sacred for public display and were kept in carefully guarded rooms within the palace. They were decorated with a seated female figure, hands placed on her breasts. Her gesture symbolized women's power to reproduce and was in turn a symbol of political power. Luba artists also created carved wooden stools supported by similar female figures, as well as headrests and bowls decorated with figures.

B4 Mangbetu

Royal patronage was also the driving force behind artistic traditions of the Mangbetu kingdom, in the northern DRC. Among the objects produced for the rulers were decorative clay cups in the shape of women's heads, with elongated foreheads and fanlike hairstyles. The cups' shapes made them awkward for drinking, so they doubtless had another function. Some scholars have described them as portraits of ancestors or as memorials for dead rulers, but recent research has revealed that they were made for display and tourism. Mangbetu rulers, especially Chief Okondo, who ruled the Mangbetu until 1915, gave the cups as gifts to visiting African and European dignitaries. Among the other art forms of the Mangbetu were freestanding figures, pots, mural painting, decorated bark cloth, and metalwork.

B5 Kongo

The Kongo people live along the lower Congo River in the western DRC and in neighboring countries. In addition to the brass crosses discussed earlier, the Kongo are noted for several distinctive types of sculpture. Wooden figures known as nkisi nkondi, or power sculptures, embody spiritual potency. They are used to harness spiritual forces to heal illness, seal agreements, protect against thieves or mishaps, or weaken an enemy. The body of the figure is simplified, while the face, hands, and feet are more elaborate. A person activates the figure's powers by driving nails and iron blades into it, or in some cases putting items in a medicine bag attached to the figure .

Among Kongo women, dress and body decoration, including elaborate scarification patterns, were important markers of status and beauty. Although scarification is rarely practiced today, many of the patterns are recorded on small, finely carved images of nursing women, known as phemba. Other Kongo sculpture includes carved soapstone figures that marked the graves of wealthy Kongo traders from the late 19^th century to about 1920.

B6 Mukanda Masks

The Chokwe, Lunda, and other groups in northern Zambia, northern Angola, and southern DRC create a series of masks for use during and after mukanda rites, which initiate boys into manhood. Performances with these masks serve to educate the boys about their social responsibilities as adult males. In contrast to other African masks, which are typically made of wood, most mukanda masks are made out of bark stretched over a framework of sticks and painted with resin. One such mask, the chikunza, is tall, cone-shaped, and painted with patterns in red, white, and black. The wearer acts as the father of the boys and teaches them a special initiation dance. Only one type of mask in this tradition is carved out of wood: the mwana pwo. It represents a beautiful young girl, and a man wears it in a performance at the boys' coming of age ceremonies.

C Eastern Africa

Eastern Africa stretches from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the south, taking in Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the island nation of Madagascar. This vast region encompasses a diverse range of peoples, environments, and historical experiences. They include seminomadic herders, ancient kingdoms, coastal trading ports, and even a few isolated communities of hunter-gatherers. An extremely wide range of art and architecture in the region reflects this diversity. Trade with Arabs and other groups along Africa's east coast also introduced a strong foreign influence.

C1 Influence of Religion

Much of the art and architecture of eastern Africa is religious in nature. Islam is the main religion in the northern part of the region, and mosques to house worshipers are a major architectural form there. Mosques in eastern Africa tend to be simpler in design than those in western Africa. Instead of minarets, eastern African mosques feature an open flight of stairs that leads to a flat roof from which the call to prayer is issued. Inside the mosque, columns in one, two, or three rows divide the space into rectangular chambers.

Ethiopia adopted Christianity as a state religion as early as the 4th century. In the 12th century, the king had 11 churches carved out of solid rock in the ancient capital city of Lalibela. Some of these red volcanic rock structures were carved below ground level and encircled by deep trenches, while others were attached to surrounding rock outcroppings. A network of tunnels and narrow passageways connected them. Wall paintings decorate the interior of the rock-cut Church of St. George at Lalibela; some depict the life of St. George, who is said to have supervised the church's construction. According to legend, his horse left a hoof print that is still visible in the courtyard of the church.

Indigenous African religions have had a greater influence on art objects than they have had on architecture, since most of these religions do not require buildings for prayer. Instead, they require statues, masks, or other objects for use in rituals of initiation, marriage, and death. The Chewa of Malawi, for example, developed a large repertoire of masks, many associated with male initiation. In many towns and villages, governing associations or councils were responsible for maintaining social order and a good relationship with ancestor spirits; they used art to help achieve these goals.

The Mijikenda of Kenya carved wooden posts called vigangu in honor of the dead. The posts were erected to keep important men of the past in continual contact with current male elders. Groups in Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Madagascar created similar post-shaped funerary sculpture in a variety of styles. In some cases these sculptures were erected on the graves of important people; in others they served as memorials, standing in groups away from the graveyard itself.

Madagascar's rich and varied culture bears traces of the Indonesian ancestry of the Malagasy people, some of the island's earliest inhabitants. These influences appear most notably in the Malagasy's rectangular wooden huts thatched with palm leaves. These huts resemble Indonesian buildings rather than the round huts native to most of eastern Africa.

C2 Nomadic Herders

A large number of peoples in eastern Africa have a seminomadic way of life, dependent on herding but with some reliance on settled farming villages. Among them are the Somali of Somalia, the Turkana of Tanzania, and the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania. Poetry is often said to be the primary art form of the northern Somali nomads, but the visual arts are represented by a number of items that can be easily transported, including finely carved wooden headrests, baskets, and a variety of decorated wooden vessels. The Turkana are noted for their headrests, wooden drinking vessels, and beadwork.

Beads play a major role in elaborate systems of body art among the Turkana, Masai, and other nomadic groups. Specific beadwork patterns combine with aspects of dress, hairstyle, jewelry, and in some cases body paints to distinguish ethnic groups from one another. More significantly, these adornments mark differences in gender, age, and status within each group. Male dress and hairstyles may mark progress from uninitiated youth to warrior to elder; they also indicate specific successes in war or hunting. Women's styles may indicate stages of initiation, marriage, number and status of children, or widowhood.

D Southern Africa

Southern Africa encompasses Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, and South Africa. The region is home to some of the oldest art in Africa, although it largely lacks the strong artistic traditions found elsewhere in Africa. In Namibia, a few images of animals painted on rock slabs were found within caves and have been reliably dated to 25,500 bc. These are by far the oldest surviving record of artistic activity on the African continent. Another important southern site is Great Zimbabwe, a city-state that flourished from the 12th to 15th centuries. Among its remarkable artifacts are large soapstone bird sculptures that most likely date from the early 15th century. Seven terracotta heads, known as the Lydenburg heads, date from much earlier—about 520.

D1 Lydenburg Heads

The Lydenburg heads were uncovered from the site of an early mixed farming village in the Lydenburg valley of the eastern Transvaal region. Pits at the site also contained animal bones, broken pottery, beads, and metal ornaments. No similar heads have been found elsewhere, but large numbers of smaller modeled figures from other sites in the region indicate a tradition of pottery sculpture. The heads, which once were painted, are hollow and have modeled facial features and bands of incised decoration around wide necks. Archaeologists at present can only speculate on the purpose of these small heads. However, initiation rites in southern Africa commonly make use of small pottery figurines. Only two of the heads are large enough to have served as helmet-masks; the others have small holes on either side of the neck that may have served to attach the heads to some structure. Small animal figures appear on the crown of the two large heads.

D2 Beadwork

Beadwork created by Shona, Zulu, Xhosa, and Ndebele women ranks as the strongest of more recent artistic traditions in southern Africa. Beads are used to make necklaces, headbands, bracelets, and leg ornaments, and to decorate aprons, loin covers, belts, and blankets. Beadwork patterns serve not only as decoration, but also as a means of communication, signaling the wearer's rank, wealth, stage in life, or profession. Among the Thembu, a subgroup of the Xhosa, a girl who likes a boy will give him a headband. If he accepts, a relationship is established and other beaded gifts follow.

In earlier times, these groups made beads from materials found in nature, ranging from ordinary clay to more coveted shells of ostrich eggs. Arab slave traders brought the first glass beads to southern Africa. Portuguese traders in the 16th century brought beads from skilled artisans in Venice, Italy. Glass beads became more freely available after English colonists settled in Capetown in the 1780s.

D3 Other Traditions

Rich traditions of woodcarving among the Zulu, Shona, Sotho, and others have produced small figures as well as headrests, staffs, pipes, doors, and ceremonial vessels. Women made finely decorated pots, particularly pots for storing beer.

Among several groups in Botswana and South Africa, women in the 20th century have used mural painting to express ideas about control over domestic space. Mural painting developed among the Ndebele in the 1930s and 1940s. It became a way of expressing ethnic identity on the isolated farmsteads where they lived after European colonists drove them out of their native homes.

VI INFLUENCE OF AFRICAN ART ON WESTERN ART

In the 20th century, African art has greatly influenced much Western art and the concepts of beauty that underlie it. For centuries, however, exposure to African art had little effect on European art. The concepts behind African art—its function in ritual and its emphasis on abstract patterning rather than representation—made it so foreign to European sensibilities that many Europeans did not consider it art at all. In the 20th century, a search for new artistic forms led European artists to look anew at the abstract forms of African art.

A Early Influence

Prior to the 20th century, anthropologists and others who were interested in African cultures viewed the objects these cultures produced as interesting cultural artifacts, but they did not consider them as art. The earliest documented entry of a piece of African art into a European collection occurred around 1470, with a work that a Portuguese collector acquired from the kingdom of Kongo. By the late 19th century, many more Europeans were collecting objects from sub-Saharan Africa. They housed them in ethnographic museums, alongside examples of flora and fauna, as artifacts of exotic cultures.

B Influence on Modern Art

Wider recognition of the artistic value of African artifacts began in the early 20th century. Western artists at that time sought to break free from established artistic conventions, and in doing so they rediscovered African sculpture. Their enthusiasm for African art was based on form; Western artists had only vague and romanticized ideas about the cultures that had produced the art.

Modern European art movements such as cubism, expressionism, and fauvism exploded with a new freedom of form that drew strongly on African art. The abstract character of African art refreshed and inspired pioneers of modern European art such as painters Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and Amedeo Modigliani and sculptors Constantin Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti, and Henry Moore.

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso's Les demoiselles d'Avignon (1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York City) is probably the best-known Western painting inspired by African art. It features a group of female figures whose angular forms and large facial features resemble African masks. Although Picasso denied any African influence on this painting, his friend and colleague André Derain wrote that he introduced Picasso to African art in 1905, and Picasso himself later spoke of the strong impression African art had made on him.

African art also inspired many 20th-century American artists. In 1902 American artist Meta Warrick Fuller created Talking Skull, a sculpture based on reliquary figures from the Kota of Gabon. More recently, American sculptor Martin Puryear borrowed the forms and traditional techniques of African basketry and carpentry, adapting them to the more formal and abstract aims of modern Western art. In the 1990s American artist Renée Stout based her sculptures on figures created by the Kongo people of central Africa.

C Studying African Art

The study of the history of African art presents a number of challenges. Most surviving objects are of relatively recent origin because so much African art is made of perishable materials, such as wood or grasses. It also is subjected to vigorous use, in contrast to most Western art, which is displayed in houses or museums. Moreover, researchers have no scientific tests that can accurately date objects of relatively recent origin. In many cases, they must rely on records provided by those who collected the art.

Because early ethnographers (scientists who study human cultures) collected works of African art as cultural artifacts rather than as art, they generally failed to record the names of individual artists, precise dates for the objects, or information on why or how the objects were used. Nor did they concern themselves with the aesthetic or cultural values that Africans associated with these objects. As a result, the topics that routinely concern historians of Western art—the style and development of specific artists, the chronology of artistic trends, or the more subtle aspects of those trends—are considerably more difficult to research in studying African art.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that Western perceptions about African art began to change. A British expedition in 1897, which destroyed and looted the city of Benin, brought back a number of artifacts, and in the early 20th century other expeditions were launched to acquire objects from central Africa. These objects are now on display in museums in the West, although an effort to have them returned to Africa was underway at the turn of the 21st century. As collections of African art have grown, Westerners have gradually come to a fuller understanding of African art, its cultural functions, and its aesthetic values.

Contributed By:

Jacqueline Chanda

Arched Doorway, Zanzibar

Elaborately carved doorways adorning the facades of houses in the East African city of Zanzibar evidence the influence of Arab cultures in the region. The rise of an Omani commercial empire during the 1800s established Zanzibar's importance in East Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Corbis/Stephanie Colasanti