Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving and modelling, in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast.
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.
The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria. Collectively, the objects form the best examples of Benin art and were created from the fourteenth century by artists of the Edo people. The plaques, which in the Edo language are called Ama, depict scenes or represent themes in the history of the kingdom. Apart from the plaques, other sculptures in brass or bronze include portrait heads, jewelry, and smaller pieces.
The Nok culture is a population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in southern Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok people and the Gajiganna people may have migrated from the Central Sahara, along with pearl millet and pottery, diverged prior to arriving in the northern region of Nigeria, and thus, settled in their respective locations in the region of Gajiganna and Nok. Nok people may have also migrated from the West African Sahel to the region of Nok. Nok culture may have emerged in 1500 BCE and continued to persist until 1 BCE.
A Chiwara is a ritual object representing an antelope, used by the Bambara ethnic group in Mali. The Chiwara initiation society uses Chiwara masks, as well as dances and rituals associated primarily with agriculture, to teach young Bamana men social values as well as agricultural techniques.
Traditional African masks are worn in ceremonies and rituals across West, Central, and Southern Africa. They are used in events such as harvest celebrations, funerals, rites of passage, weddings, and coronations. Some societies also use masks to resolve disputes and conflicts.
Esigie, originally known as Osawe, was the son of Oba Ozolua, who reigned in the late 15th century, and his second wife, Queen Idia. He was the sixteenth Oba who ruled the medieval Benin Kingdom, now Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria from c. 1504 – c. 1550. Works of art commissioned by Esigie are held in prominent museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum.
Idia was the mother of Esigie, who reigned as Oba (king) of the Edo people from 1504 to 1550. Historians do know that Idia was alive during the Idah war because she played a role that led to a great Benin victory. It has been argued that Idia, therefore, was the true power behind the throne of her son. She played a significant role in the rise and reign of her son, being described as a great warrior who fought relentlessly before and during her son's reign as the Oba (king) of the Edo people. Queen Idia was instrumental in securing the title of Oba for her son Esigie following the death of his father Oba Ozolua. To that end, she raised an army to fight off his brother Arhuaran who was supposed to be the Oba by right and tradition but was subsequently defeated in battle. Esigie’s mother became the 17th Oba of Benin.
Benin art is the art from the Kingdom of Benin or Edo Empire (1440–1897), a pre-colonial African state located in what is now known as the Southern region of Nigeria. Primarily made of cast bronze and carved ivory, Benin art was produced mainly for the court of the Oba of Benin – a divine ruler for whom the craftsmen produced a range of ceremonially significant objects. The full complexity of these works can be appreciated through the awareness and consideration of two complementary cultural perceptions of the art of Benin: the Western appreciation of them primarily as works of art, and their understanding in Benin as historical documents and as mnemonic devices to reconstruct history, or as ritual objects. This original significance is of great importance in Benin.
The Yoruba of West Africa are responsible for a distinct artistic tradition in Africa, a tradition that remains vital and influential today.
The Ethnological Museum of Berlin is one of the Berlin State Museums, the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in the Humboldt Forum in Mitte, along with the Museum of Asian Art. The museum holds more than 500,000 objects and is one of the largest and most important collections of works of art and culture from outside Europe in the world. Its highlights include important objects from the Sepik River, Hawaii, the Kingdom of Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, China, the Pacific Coast of North America, Mesoamerica, the Andes, as well as one of the first ethnomusicology collections of sound recordings.
The Songye people, sometimes written Songe, are a Bantu ethnic group from the central Democratic Republic of the Congo. They speak the Songe language. They inhabit a vast territory between the Sankuru/Lulibash river in the west and the Lualaba River in the east. Many Songye villages can be found in present-day East Kasai province, parts of Katanga and Kivu Province. The people of Songye are divided into thirty-four conglomerate societies; each society is led by a single chief with a Judiciary Council of elders and nobles (bilolo). Smaller kingdoms east of the Lomami River refer to themselves as Songye, other kingdoms in the west, refer to themselves as Kalebwe, Eki, Ilande, Bala, Chofwe, Sanga and Tempa. As a society, the people of Songye are mainly known as a farming community; they do, however, take part in hunting and trading with other neighboring communities.
The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visual form. Visual art can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating fine arts from applied arts; inclusively focusing on human creativity; or focusing on different media such as architecture, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and graphic arts. In recent years, technological advances have led to video art, computer art, performance art, animation, television, and videogames.
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.
The Nigerian National Museum is a national museum of Nigeria, located in the city of Lagos. The museum has a notable collection of Nigerian art, including pieces of statuary, carvings also archaeological and ethnographic exhibits. Of note is a terracotta human head known as the Jemaa Head, part of the Nok culture. The piece is named after Jema'a, the village where it was discovered. The museum is located at Onikan, Lagos Island, Lagos State. The museum is administered by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
The Fleming Museum of Art is a museum of art and anthropology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. The museum's collection includes around 24,000 objects from a wide variety of eras and places.
Some African objects had been collected by Europeans for centuries, and there had been industries producing some types, especially carvings in ivory, for European markets in some coastal regions. Between 1890 and 1918 the volume of objects greatly increased as Western colonial expansion in Africa led to the removal of many pieces of sub-Saharan African art that were subsequently brought to Europe and displayed. These objects entered the collections of natural history museums, art museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. About 90% of Africa's cultural heritage is believed to be located in Europe, according to French art historians.
The Bronze Head from Ife, or Ife Head, is one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and former royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent a king. It was probably made in the fourteenth-fifteenth century C.E. The realism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged the offensive and patronising Western conceptions of African art. The naturalistic features of the Ife heads are unique and the stylistic similarities of these works "suggest that they were made by an individual artist or in a single workshop."
The Bronze Head of Queen Idia is a commemorative bronze head from the medieval Kingdom of Benin in West Africa that probably represents Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, made during the early sixteenth century at the Benin court. Many Benin works of art entered the European art market after the Benin Expedition of 1897 – Four cast bronze heads of the queen are known and are currently in the collections of the British Museum in London, the World Museum in Liverpool, the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos, and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
The Benin ivory mask is a miniature sculptural portrait in ivory of Idia, the first Iyoba of the 16th century Benin Empire, taking the form of a traditional African mask. The masks were looted by the British from the palace of the Oba of Benin in the Benin Expedition of 1897.
