L’ART AFRICAIN

Description

The infinite universe of African sculpture is the result of a complex and diverse evolutionary process. This is an extremely varied mosaic produced by a rich history, multifaceted, made of stylistic contamination caused by contact, migration, wars and alliances. The aim of this book is to present traditional African sculpture to its highest level by a selection of works that have not been created for the art market but to meet the religious needs, political and even aesthetic of ancient African societies, and expose in a simple and synthetic form the state of current knowledge about its historical, formal, symbolic and functional. The illustration and commentary of several groups of sculptures – Figures, masks and utilitarian objects – used to ask some fundamental practical problems of African art and to make the responses by current research: dating and historicity, for example, the relationship with the first European sponsors, or the award of works to reviewers. The works are presented and illustrated wooden or less frequently ivory sculptures but some may also have been made in other materials such as metal or terracotta. These are also uncovered in number of increasingly important by the excavations which have intensified in recent decades and are changing the artistic panorama of the continent, revealing unsuspected ancient cultures alongside conventional crops and most famous Ife and Benin.