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As the longest inhabited continent and the cradle of human culture, Africa has an art history that extends back more than 20,000 years. The traditional arts of Africa are drawn from hundreds of ethnic groups and a wide array of climates from desert to rainforest. Differing environments and lifestyles result in very different art objects and styles. Most of these visual arts fulfill important religious, political, social and utilitarian needs in African cultures. The making of ritual objects reflects the predominant African belief in the integration of nature and a cyclical view of life and death. When a ritual object is destroyed, through usage and exposure to the elements, it is replaced by a new one, which is endowed with the history and power of the object that preceded it. The new object embodies the power of the spirit for which it was made, as well as the ritual for which it was created. As is true for the items on this tour, much of African art found in museums today is from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the fragility of the natural materials used.
Web LINKS
The Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of African Art
http://www.nmafa.si.edu/pubaccess/
The University of Iowa
Art and Life in Africa Online
http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Teachers’ Guide to African Art
http://www.thinker.org/fam/education/publications/guide-african/
Access ART
