African Art Features

Art of the African people have been attracted by connoisseurs from all over the world because of their originality and dissimilarity to the usual Western art. Africa art has an undoubted advantage because of their unusual understanding of the reality of the image. Art of Africa covers several historical periods and provides a single historical type, characterized by integrity stylistic features that have little changes in centuries. African Art includes creation by many different cultures that often are not related to one another. However, there are common features of most African culture. The bulk of the traditional sculptures in African art constitute wooden products-figurines, masks, etc. In this unit response, I would like to explain the following common features. The common features are that the main focus is on the human figure and the art of static objects are transformed into moving objects (e.g. mask).
African figurines are mostly images of various spirits, ancestors or certain historical persons and gods. For African figurines is typical to highlight the most significant …show more content…
Every African culture has its unique mask. The general outlines of the mask, the ratio of the main features of the face, the shape of the eyes and eyebrows, nose and nostrils, the shape of the mouth, the ears, the presence or absence of teeth, haircut, and coloring usually allow a relatively accurate adjustment of its affiliation to a particular nation. The whole life of African tribes riddled with confident of existence of a parallel world of spirits. Every tree, the animal, the mountain has its spirit - friendly or hostile. African dancers, wearing masks and speaking out against the dark spirits, were convinced in safety as the spirit cannot see their faces, therefore, it cannot harm them. African mask features combine human and animal or several animals - a trunk or a beak can be combined with long