African Art

Ivory Head Carved in the 16th-century in Benin

No one seems to know exactly how old the art of African is.  We don't know where it started, how it grew, or how much it was influenced by other countries, We do know, however, that African art has developed from traditions as old as those European and Asiatic art.  Africa and its arts were once thought of being primitive.  But generations before, England, Frnce, and the United States had become great powers, Africa had known the rise and fall of many great kingdoms.  The organization, discipline, laws, and religions of these ancient kingdoms show that Africa has been civilized for many centuries.

The History of Art

Art is one of mankind's oldest inventions.  It existed long before a single farm was planted, before the first villages were built.  Art was already thousands of years old when writing appeared; in fact, the letters of the first alphabets were pictures.  People were probably shaping objects and scratching out images even as they turned their grunts and cries into the first systematic spoken languages.  Indeed, man was making art before he knew what are was.  He seems to have made art without questioning why, as if making art was simply something that human beings did in the natural course of their lives.