An Exceptional Suite Of African Arts And Crafts.
African arts and crafts are often found in the form of statues, figures and figurines, as well as decorative cloths, and musical instruments, particularly drums. Most African art is sculpture, with statues in human form as the most popular, as these statues serve to give praise or tribute to a great leader, or an honorable man or woman. Since Africans don’t typically find it proper to show affection towards each other, a figure in someone’s likeness is an important gesture.
The statues of animals in African art are included with human figures, to further give praise to the person being honored. For example, a horse is considered a very noble animal, and including one in a sculpture of a man or woman means that person is being held in very high regard. Most contemporary statues are made of either stone or carved of wood.
You can find many evidences which prove that African arts were found as early as 500BC, with carved rocks in Sahara and sculptures in Nigeria. People even used metals like bronze to carve statues, and they even used Ivory and terracotta to make their art look even richer. And these rich arts were reserved for royalties. People used these arts and craft works to decorate their houses. People wore hand made fabrics with full of artistic works, which reveals the wearer as a part of that art piece. They even used wall paintings to fill their houses with traditional art.
Most of the African arts and crafts resemble its tradition and culture. Each and every art piece resembles the daily life and culture of African peoples. And today those arts can be found in museums, one good example is African masks. African people used masks on some occasional days or on some regional ceremonies, and even in wars and also on the day of harvesting.
The styles and designs of African masks differ according to each country and each tribe . For example, the Dan people of the Ivory Coast and Liberia have wooden masks carved with African features, such as wide foreheads, flat noses, wide and full lips, accented by attached strands of rope to look like hair. The Punu people of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon have wooden masks with wooden hair, usually piled high as they represent wealthy women, and decorated with long strands of raffia along the jaw line. The whitened faces of these masks serve to scare off witches and evil spirits.
Other African art and craft include the old African tradition basket. Esths and Gumare tribes of Botswana are the two places which is famous for African baskets. These baskets were usually carried over the head, but as the culture grew, they modified the baskets and were carried on the shoulders. As a result hand bags came in to existence and they were made with some of the artistic work of African culture. And they used some of the rare materials like mud cloth and suede to manufacture bags. Even today there is a great demand of African arts among the people around the world. Africa has a great name on its culture and tradition.