African Art Research Paper

African art and architecture refers to the area around the sub-Saharan Africa. It’s geographically located in Africa continent and south of the Sahara Desert. Since the African Generations exists even before the United States and the nations of Europe became great powers, Africa had witnessed the rise and fall of many kingdoms. The people from this continent has a very long historical culture. Their art work represents the ancient African histories, philosophies, religions, as well as the perceptions of their societies. They successfully portray their lifestyle through the art work which mostly are made of wood or rocks. They draw the men and women hunting, fishing, dancing, collecting foods, etc. on rocks which helps the sociologist now-a-days …show more content…
To understand the particular culture very well, first we need to understand the thoughts and ideas behind the creations of the art work of that culture. Like Western cultures, African art was a functional and necessary part of everyday life and it would be impossible to understand African culture without understanding African arts and architectures. There was a time when a large number of arts work use to made based on the religious views. Ancestor worship, spirits, magic, and other aspects of the religion of African peoples are reflected in their art just like, many other religions. Art was also requested to draw for marriage ceremonies, for funerals, for honoring leaders, and for celebrations. The different types of African art work describe different prospects of life. The ancient African art was mostly consisted with sculpture and paintings. These art work used to represent different body parts and also the outlook of an African individuals on many social occasions. Rock paintings are the best form of African arts. It is more than 27,000 years old and African used to use caves and rock faces to produce these type of rock paintings. These rock paintings shown the lifestyle of African people such as hunting, gatherings, collecting food etc. Since most of these paintings wasn’t saved for the future generations references, most of them are abstract now. African mask is …show more content…
African culture is more enlarge then American and European culture because of the length of the tradition. African art started to become popular to American’s and European around 1905, when artists began to realize the aesthetic value of African sculpture. Few of the artists started to work on African culture and arts among them Vlaminck, Derain, Picasso, and Modigliani were very popular during that time. They were influenced by African art forms and started to explore it more to create the diversity between the modern and African culture. After their great efforts; Interest in the arts of Africa has started to raise, and many modern Western artists began to feel the importance of African art and architecture. In the latter part of the 20th century, African specialty in art and architecture came to focus on western world artists and certainly it became some sort of inspiration for the western artists who later on get involved with African arts and architectures. Some artists even started the research projects on African arts. Some of them are self-taught at Europe, and began to do the exhibition on their arts and soon it gets recognized by the modern art society. More and more people come to know the rich African tradition that they were unware for long time. Since, the Contemporary Africa’s designed their arts in