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African folk art consists of a variety of items: household objects, metal objects, toys, textiles, masks, and wood sculpture. Most traditional African art meets many definitions of folk art generally, or at least did so until relatively recent dates.
Much African folk art consists of metal objects due in part to the cultural status of forging as a "process that is likened to the creation of life itself." [1] While in the past ceremonial pieces were exchanged as part of social rituals (i.e. marriage), today in Senegal, metal objects are recycled as utilitarian African folk art. [2]
In West Africa, the Asante are popular for their crafts and trade in gold. For the people of Ghana, not only does the colour gold represent wealth and status but there is also belief that it is a protection to whoever wears it. Necklaces have been made of gold bells, disks, and cross-shaped beads for those to wear around the neck. In the Alkan culture, each of these elements are made by getting shaped in wax then covering it with a heat resistance mould to form around the wax. After this process, the mould is heated meanwhile the wax melts in order for the melted gold to take its place. The gold is left to be cooled so that the mould can be taken apart to reveal its shine of gold. It is stated that the most important part of this necklace is a solid gold piece of jewellery that hangs from the neck; with this particular necklace, there is a pendent in the form of a small freshwater crab that is made from mould that’s found from a live crab. The crab symbolized the queen mother, meaning this is a way of knowing the royal status of its wearer (Richard B, 36). As mentioned, gold earrings were another form of Africa’s most magnificent jewels forms. "One of the most striking forms of jewellery in West Africa are the distinctive, four-leaved earrings worn by Fulani women" states Peter. They add that Fulani woman would have their earrings made larger than their family’s wealth would increase to show her fortune and proven her safekeeping. (Richard B, 46). The meaning of each piece of jewellery is considered to be unique. Just by owning one of the pieces, one could depict hope, wisdom, or well-being of its owner (About African Art).
Mini knives were used by the people of Zimbabwe, known as the Shona from southern Africa, to show respect for their ancestors. Most mini weapons were recently found as examples of honouring those who died in guerrilla warfare (Peter, 44). In another resource that'll be given below, offered some more information on weapons that was not displayed in any of the books. This website includes many styles of African Folk Art, including a few that are not discussed in the original article. On here, it is stated that most weapons were made of copper and brass but mainly iron. As you can imagine, most of the weapons included swords, daggers, knives, spears, axes, and other sorts of things; the weapons collected from the end of the nineteenth century and beginnings of the twentieth century could depict the ornaments collected on these weapons, probably to suggest wealth status. The weapons would be blessed at ceremonies then said to have magical powers to protect the warriors at battle. Interestingly enough though, not only were these weapons used for defence or to attack, but many were made of simpler tools by skilled blacksmiths (About African Art).
Sculptures are important to African folk art because it represents many things such as royalty. These sculptures represent when people are having a difficult time with their religion. The "headdresses called "farming animal hat," represented the mythical antelope, who taught man agriculture" (Davis 1981; 20). There are two different types of headdresses for men and women, for male "has a stylized open-work mane, and for female "has no mane, is depicted with an offspring on her back" (Davis 1981; 20). These headdresses are used for dances and to perform religious rituals. The materials that were used to make sculptures where pigment, wood, glass, wire, encrusted matter, nails, brass, metal, grasses, iron, fibre, and sacrificial materials.
Animal art is "traditions, ancient and modern" by creating what humans see in them and nature. Animal art is made from adults, they built a relationship in understanding both animals and humans. Women have a part in this, for them, are the use of fabric to create patterns from the animals. Animals were seen as an honour, power, and they were a symbol to them. Some common animals they use are crocodiles, elephants, and hornbills. But "while African artists portray some familiar animals (e.g., dogs, horses, rams), they tend to concentrate on curious menagerie of aardvarks and antelopes, bats and buffalo, pangolins, snakes, spiders, spotted cat, and a few others deemed meaningful and behaviour (Roberts 1995; 17). The animals they used to create their type of animal art are not just the common animals we know from film. The reason they create art with these types of animals is because of the details, and the "natural symbols". They represent "leadership, healing, divination, problem-solving, rites of passage, and rituals" (Roberts 1995; 16). They create this artwork on walls, craving on drums, masks, and pots. In creating this type of artwork shows them where they come from and how nature is important to them.
During the tenth millennium BP, pottery was developed throughout the southern Sahara and the Sahel. [3] Along with basketry vessels, pottery was essential for storing and transporting goods. Zambian pottery is particularly known for its geometric patterns. [4]
In the Zulu culture, specifically in the early 1800s, a chief named Shaka established the Zulu state by uniting smaller cultures of Southern Africa. In the early nineteenth century, growing tobacco had already been popular among them because of importation from the Americas in the 1600s. At this time, the crop was to be inserted in the nose and that was the most popular way of using it; this offering to ancestors was a way to appreciate them and show them good manners and respect. For this, culture in particular, containers were made to hold the crop. They were made of small gourds decorated with patterns of wire and belonged mostly to the Zulu men. Furthermore, these containers were passed down from generation to generation to obtain a rich shine of applications of oil. It is stated that, "People of the Zulu culture admire elegant design and fine craftsmanship in everyday object serving dishes, tools and utensils, smoking pipes, and accessory boxes" (Richard B, 50). On the other hand, most traditional African baskets were made of materials like grass and leaves that would be considered textile weaving. They used these baskets oftener than not; it was a way for women to carry food from the market, collect harvested crops, and collecting goods for sale.
The Shoowa people, a small population on the northwestern fringe of the Bushoong kingdom, Congo, have created visually delightful and colourful ceremonial panels that combine tradition and innovation in a complex artistic fashion. Despite maintaining a different language and loose political ties, the Shoowa share many cultural practices with the peoples of the Bushoong kingdom.
Ceremonial Panel — 1885–1910
An early example of Shoowa textiles is the Ceremonial Panel. [5] This piece dates from 1885 to 1910, and is 17" × 59" (41.91 cm × 149.86 cm) in size. This ancient cloth is composed of two pieces joined across the centre; and bordered by pompoms, a technique reported for textiles on the Kongo coast in the seventeenth century. The basic weave is typical for Shoowa with close warps and weft of similar thickness and even distribution. The designs are shaped by two embroidery techniques: lines of stem stitching and cut-pile. To create the plush effect, an embroiderer twists a strand of raffia into an iron needle which she inserts between the warp and weft, leaving a short tuft. After pulling the fibre strand through to about two millimetres in height, she cuts it with a narrow knife held vertically in the same hand and brushes both ends.
Ceremonial Panel — 1910–1930
A second example of the Ceremonial Panel [6] from the Shoowa people, made of woven raffia palm fibre, cut pile and linear embroidery, dating from 1910–1930, is 23" × 24" (58.2 × 59.69 cm) in size. This piece is a classic model of quality for a mid-century Shoowa cloth. It retains the major features of the late nineteenth-century style and fine workmanship. Unlike the Bushoong, the Shoowa typically, as here, dye the foundation cloth red before embroidery and execute their designs in natural beige and dark brown. The pattern of two wide columns of interlacing is a long-standing favourite Shoowa theme. The manner in which the broad columnar outlines are formed by multiple dark and light rows of stem stitching, interspersed with tiny light and dark plush motifs, called tunjoko, is another characteristic of Shoowa style. Because of the subtle distribution of light and dark across the surface, there is a convincing sense of balance despite the asymmetry.
Ceremonial Panel — 1950–1975
A third example of the Ceremonial Panel [7] from the Shoowa people, also made of woven raffia palm fiber, cut-pile and linear embroidery, dating from 1950 to 1975, is 24" × 4+1⁄4" (60.96 cm × 61.28 cm) in size. The colourful dots (diamonds, rectangles, triangles) belong to the familiar tiny tunjoko designs seen in many Shoowa cloths. However, here, instead of filling in the intervals between major motifs, they become the principal designs that fill the entire cloth. Intruding upon this dot-filled ground we see a grid of squares drawn by multiple, fine, dark-and-light embroidered lines. In front of this grid two large vertical interlace designs begin at the bottom as thin curved forms and rise criss-crossing to the top.
The Museum of International Folk Art [8] in Santa Fe, New Mexico, US, has an extensive African Folk Art collection [9] built in part with donations from the private collection Alexander Girard. [10]
A recent acquisition and ongoing collecting area is metalwork from Africa. Metal objects represent a rich area for interpretation because their manufacture and use encompasses the development of technology, trade, adornment, ritual and religion, and core cultural values.
African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, such as: African-American, Caribbean or art in South American societies inspired by African traditions. Despite this diversity, there are unifying artistic themes present when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.
Phulkari refers to the folk embroidery of the Punjab region and Gulkari of Sindh in South Asia.
Persian embroidery is a type of Persian art and handicraft.
The Kuba Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Bakuba or Bushongo, is a traditional kingdom in Central Africa. The Kuba Kingdom flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries in the region bordered by the Sankuru, Lulua, and Kasai rivers in the heart of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Maya textiles (k’apak) are the clothing and other textile arts of the Maya peoples, indigenous peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize. Women have traditionally created textiles in Maya society, and textiles were a significant form of ancient Maya art and religious beliefs. They were considered a prestige good that would distinguish the commoners from the elite. According to Brumfiel, some of the earliest weaving found in Mesoamerica can date back to around 1000-800 B.C.E.
African textiles are textiles from various locations across the African continent. Across Africa, there are many distinctive styles, techniques, dyeing methods, and decorative and functional purposes. These textiles hold cultural significance and also have significance as historical documents of African design.
The Andean textile tradition once spanned from the Pre-Columbian to the Colonial era throughout the western coast of South America, but was mainly concentrated in what is now Peru. The arid desert conditions along the coast of Peru have allowed for the preservation of these dyed textiles, which can date to 6000 years old. Many of the surviving textile samples were from funerary bundles, however, these textiles also encompassed a variety of functions. These functions included the use of woven textiles for ceremonial clothing or cloth armor as well as knotted fibers for record-keeping. The textile arts were instrumental in political negotiations, and were used as diplomatic tools that were exchanged between groups. Textiles were also used to communicate wealth, social status, and regional affiliation with others. The cultural emphasis on the textile arts was often based on the believed spiritual and metaphysical qualities of the origins of materials used, as well as cosmological and symbolic messages within the visual appearance of the textiles. Traditionally, the thread used for textiles was spun from indigenous cotton plants, as well as alpaca and llama wool.
Paraguayan Indigenous art is the visual art created by the indigenous peoples of Paraguay. While indigenous artists embrace contemporary Western art media, their arts also include pre-Columbian art forms. Indigenous art includes ceramics, baskets, weaving and threading, feather art and leather work. It is a hybrid nature includes the embroideries, lace, woodcarving and different metal products. Paraguay is particularly known for its indigenous featherwork and basket weaving.
The visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes Central America and Greenland. The Siberian Yupiit, who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yupiit, are also included.
A lamba is the traditional garment worn by men and women that live in Madagascar. The textile, highly emblematic of Malagasy culture, consists of a rectangular length of cloth wrapped around the body.
The Brigham Young University Museum of Peoples and Cultures, located in Provo, Utah, is the university's museum of archaeology and ethnology. The Museum of Peoples and Cultures has a wide variety of collections containing over a million objects. Most of the 7,000 collections come from the regions of South America, Mesoamerica, Central America, the American Southwest, the Great Basin and Polynesia. However, there are many objects from other parts of the world which are available for study and research.
The textile arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are decorative, utilitarian, ceremonial, or conceptual artworks made from plant, animal, or synthetic fibers by Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, leather, or ivory. Such techniques have been very widely used in a great number of cultures.
The textiles of Sumba, an island in eastern Indonesia, represent the means by which the present generation passes on its messages to future generations. Sumbanese textiles are deeply personal; they follow a distinct systematic form but also show the individuality of the weavers and the villages where they are produced. Internationally, Sumbanese textiles are collected as examples of textile designs of the highest quality and are found in major museums around the world, as well as in the homes of collectors.
The Chancay were a pre-Hispanic archeological civilization that developed between the valleys of Fortaleza, Pativilca, Supe, Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, Rimac and Lurín, on the central coast of Peru, from about 1000 to 1470 CE.
Kuba art comprises a diverse array of media, much of which was created for the courts of chiefs and kings of the Kuba Kingdom. Such work often featured decorations, incorporating cowrie shells and animal skins as symbols of wealth, prestige and power. Masks are also important to the Kuba. They are used both in the rituals of the court and in the initiation of boys into adulthood, as well as at funerals. The Kuba produce embroidered raffia textiles which in the past was made for adornment, woven currency, or as tributary goods for funerals and other seminal occasions. The wealth and power of the court system allowed the Kuba to develop a class of professional artisans who worked primarily for the courts but also produced objects of high quality for other individuals of high status.
Kuba textiles are a type of raffia cloth unique to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, and noted for their elaboration and complexity of design and surface decoration. Most textiles are a variation on rectangular or square pieces of woven palm leaf fiber enhanced by geometric designs executed in linear embroidery and other stitches, which are cut to form pile surfaces resembling velvet. Traditionally, men weave the raffia cloth, and women are responsible for transforming it into various forms of textiles, including ceremonial skirts, ‘velvet’ tribute cloths, headdresses and basketry.
In the Kongo Kingdom and its vassals, the woven arts were emblematic of kingship and nobility. The coarse filament stripped from the fronds of the raffia palm tree served as the foundation of the Kongo weaving arts. This material imposed constraints that were overcome to produce varied and ingenious textile formats and structures. Raffia cloth was used as currency.
Jalisco handcrafts and folk art are noted among Mexican handcraft traditions. The state is one of the main producers of handcrafts, which are noted for quality. The main handcraft tradition is ceramics, which has produced a number of known ceramicists, including Jorge Wilmot, who introduced high fire work into the state. In addition to ceramics, the state also makes blown glass, textiles, wood furniture including the equipal chair, baskets, metal items, piteado and Huichol art.
Embroidery was an important art in the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam until the Industrial Revolution disrupted traditional ways of life.