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Tafadzwa Gwetai
While creations by African artists have been admired by Western viewers for their formal power and beauty, it is important to understand these artefacts on their own terms.
Many African artworks were (and continue to be) created to serve a social, religious, or political function. In its original setting, an artefact may have different uses and embody a variety of meanings.
These uses may change over time. A mask originally created for a particular performance may be used in a different context at a later time.
In art, a symbol is usually a solid, recognisable thing like an animal, a plant, an object that stands for something that would be hard to show in a picture or a sculpture. A force of nature, for example, or an idea. A symbol can also stand for someone’s whole story.
The decision to create abstract representations is a conscious one, evidenced by the technical ability of African artists to create naturalistic art, as seen, for example, in the art of Ife, in present-day Nigeria.
Idealisation is frequently seen in representations of human beings. Individuals are almost always depicted in the prime of life, never in old age or poor health. Culturally accepted standards of moral character and physical beauty are expressed through formal emphasis.
The human figure is the main subject that traditionally has engaged African artists. African figurative sculpture usually departs from natural proportions. There is often a conceptual basis behind artistic conventions such as the simplification and exaggeration of the human features. For example, in many African artworks, the head appears proportionately larger than the body.
This formal emphasis has symbolic meaning, as the head is believed to have a special role in guiding one’s destiny and success in many African societies.
Animals with special attributes such as antelopes, snakes, leopards, and crocodiles are represented in art for symbolic purposes.
Representations of animals consuming other animals may serve as a metaphor for competing spiritual or social forces. Features of different types of animals may also be combined into new forms that synthesise complex ideas.
The use of animal symbolism in African art is intricately woven into the fabric of their culture. Animals signify human character traits and are therefore used in abundance in many African artworks, including wood carvings and embroidered clothing. The lion symbolises royalty and strength; the female lion represents fierce motherhood and protection, the camel is a symbol of sobriety, the leopard stands for courage and aggression, the elephant symbolises dignity, patience, and wisdom.
Notwithstanding the particularity of traditional African iconography, it is, in general, essentially conceptual and evocative. It is not representational and illustrative, and it is not abstract.
Although the principal subject of African art is the human figure, there is rarely any concern to portray individual likeness, even where a sculpture has been commissioned to commemorate a particular person. There is rarely any attempt to visualise in material form spiritual powers, although an elaborately constructed masquerade of cloth, wood, or a sculpted figures used to suggest an ancestral presence, the god, or the spirit.
African iconography is primarily concerned with expressing the essential nature and status of those powers to which one must respond and with providing models of appropriate response to such powers.
It is evident that the iconography of African peoples must be understood in the context of ritual activity, where the world as lived and the world as imaged become fused together and transformed into one reality. There are essentially two types of rituals, those in which a person or group undergoes a change in status, usually referred to as rites of passage, and rituals of world maintenance, through which a person or group affirms and seeks to secure in the words and actions of sacrifice a worldview.
A significant body of African art could be said to represent the theme of power while others were simply created to show off the wealth of some of Africa’s royal courts. Aside from rock art, sculpture, and masks, art forms like beadwork and textiles have played important roles in Africa’s collective arts. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments.
Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Realism or physical resemblance is generally not the goal of the African artist. Many forms of African art are characterised by their visual abstraction, or departure from representational accuracy.
Artists interpret human or animal forms creatively through innovative form and composition. The degree of abstraction can range from idealised naturalism.
The art language has been and continues to shift. Zimbabwean artists in all genres have been searching for their voice and and it is finally being heard on our terms. Zimbabwe creatives have been seen gracing incredible platforms in fine art, spoken word, written word and this translates to mean that our symbols, messages are being understood and relatable on many levels.
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