Page 234 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

art—africa 119

Two ancient designs from Ghana.

urally in Nigeria), demonstrating Ile-Ife’s long-distance
trading connections.
Christianity and Islam were introduced into Africa
soon after their inception and quickly found expression
in African art and architecture. At first African Christian-
ity was limited to Egypt and Ethiopia, where the rock-cut
churches of Lalibela (in Ethiopia) and boldly colored illu-
minated manuscripts and icons constitute important con-
tributions to Christian art.The Great Mosque at Kairouan
inTunisia, built of stone in the ninth century, is one of the
oldest mosques in existence.The Great Mosque at Jenne,
the Muslim city that arose next to Jenne-Jeno, is typical of
West African Islamic architecture in its use of sun-dried
mud bricks and strongly projecting engaged pillars and
towers along its facade.
When the earliest European explorers arrived in Africa
West Africa’s first city, Jenne-Jeno, was well estab- in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they found several
lished by 800 CE in the inland delta region of the Niger thriving kingdoms as well as smaller social units pro-
River in present-day Mali. Sophisticated and expressive ducing notable works of art. In the Kingdom of Benin in
terra-cotta sculptures were produced there, primarily Nigeria, ivory carvers and brass casters produced thou-
between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some sands of works of art for use in court rituals that strength-
depict figures with the trappings of leadership, while oth- ened the spiritual power, authority, and grandeur of the
ers are possibly in positions of prayer, and still others are Oba, or divine king. Notable among these were brass
tormented by diseases or snakes. Little is known about heads representing ancestors, ivory tusks carved in relief
the function of these figures, since the majority of them with figures from Benin history, and brass palace plaques
have been illicitly excavated. However, archaeologists that depicted the panoply of the Benin court hierarchy. In
believe they were used in domestic rituals, perhaps to the Kongo Kingdom luxurious textiles of raffia fiber and
ensure the solid foundation of a house and the family fly whisks made of ivory distinguished the rulers and
within it. Jenne-Jeno was part of a vast trading network other wealthy and powerful people. Brass crucifixes mod-
that stretched north across the Sahara and south to the eled after European prototypes testified to the adaptation
forests along the coast of West Africa. There, the site of to local styles and ideology of objects introduced by
Igbo-Ukwu in southeastern Nigeria produced lavishly Christian missionaries. At Great Zimbabwe, monumen-
decorated bronze objects using an indigenously devel- tal stone buildings, rare elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa,
oped lost-wax technique. Made in the ninth or tenth cen- were created as the residences and ritual centers for
tury, these were the regalia of a local priest-king.The city rulers from 1300 to 1450.
of Ile-Ife in southwestern Nigeria, still a political and spir-
itual center today, had its artistic flowering between The Modern Era
1000 and 1400. During that period the city’s artists cre- Most of the African art known today through museum
ated sculptures whose pronounced naturalism stands collections and publications was made in the nineteenth
out from most other African art, past or present. Most of century and twentieth centuries. This was a period of
these idealized portraits were made of clay, but others great change in Africa, as political, religious, and cultural
were made of brass and copper (which is not found nat- practices were forced to adapt to new conditions brought