African Art Essay

While I was unable to attend the museums in New York I was able to go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and The Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. While I was at both museums I saw that both African art collections had a number of bronze heads of leaders and kings. I noticed that both museums had almost the identical bronze head of the king, so I decided to dedicate this paper on the bronze heads of the Benin kingdom, and the Edo peoples. The bronze head to the upper left

For my visual and cultural arts essay I visited the James E Lewis museum at Morgan State University. For my essay I have selected key pieces of art that I believe express the African experience in terms of their social, ethnographical and theological beliefs. This paper will also attempt to draw a comparison to key themes features in the African Creation myths, which will further elucidate the meanings hidden in these various works of art. It is my belief that this paper will not only serve as a

specifically focusing on the role that activist art played during the civil right movements. Coming into this class, I was skeptical about the possibility of art actually playing an active role in political and social issues, but evidently activist art has contributed to numerous activist movements. Thus, this paper will aim to dispute such skepticism and analyze the impact of activist art during the civil rights movements to prove how this kind of art has and can contribute to political movements

Ancient African civilization was its magnificent art; reflecting the importance Africans placed on storytelling, the natural world, and spirits/ancestors. The Africans used art as a way to express life and culture within their generations. They believed there was "more than a mere representation of something concrete," and that "an artistic depiction of something made it an actual fact" (Bogucki). So unlike most cultures who passed on history by word of mouth, the Africans also used forms of art to create

between African and global art by arguing that the artwork of El Anatsui cannot simply be placed in a single artistic category. His artwork creates a visual and mental paradox of rich global significance and distinctive African experience, an anomaly that El Anatsui refers to as the nomad aesthetic. The nomad aesthetic is used in several ways to complicate the myths of African art. The material and visual representation of global dimension, as well as the physical movement of the art, disproves

a cultural movement where African Americans embraced their newfound freedom through various types of art. An important figure involved in this movement was a woman named Gwendolyn Bennett. Being one of the most versatile figures she was a Poet, short-story writer, columnist, journalist, illustrator, graphic artist, arts educator, teacher, and administrator on the New York City Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project (1935-1941). Bennett was the first African-American member of her school's

(1) What do you see? - The artwork called In the Hood by David Hammons is brilliant conceptual art about racism, class and identity in America. His work contains a wearing dim hood, placed on the world. The hood seems to be worn by a person, however, there is no sign of human head in his art work. Or perhaps there is a person's head inside the hood, but the person in this art is somewhat invisible, faceless, and hidden under the black color. (2) What does the image make you think about? - As an

Throughout the early 1900s, traditional African sculpture had become a significant influence with the European artists who would later be a part of an avant-garde movement within the growth of modern art. The image they received resulted in a vivid color scheme, fragmented cubist shapes, and an overall pictorial flatness. These are the features that went on to help define modern art. Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and their School of Paris associates, accomplished these techniques by mixing the

The display of Benin art in museum and galleries reflect the attitudes and perceptions of Europeans towards non-western artefacts, especially African. Thus as European attitudes change towards non-western art since the discovery of Benin art in 1897, Benin art has been revaluated and re-categorised. Initially there was a great deal of debate about Benin art and its display, as it did not equate with the perceptions then held about Africa. Until the British conquest of Benin in 1897, little was

subject and parameter of art; yet, there is no conclusive definition of beauty, just as no unanimous definition of art itself. Therefore, examining the art of a culture or time reveals priceless insights as to the aesthetics of the culture, which in turn reveal important facts and messages about the culture itself. More intriguingly, the aesthetics of beauty can change throughout time and in response to events. Therefore, aesthetics is a pure means of social commentary through art. This principle is easily