African Art History:
Long before the recording of accounts, the colourful African art history has already been thriving, reshaping itself with the contours of time. Depicting the various and elaborate societies and empires, the history of African art illustrates the vibrant cultures and traditions each group has nurtured with each successive generation, allaboutafricanart.com writes.
The earliest forms of surviving examples are the rock carvings and paintings in Namibia, with an age of about 27,000 years old. The artwork of the San people presenting their beliefs in the power of the medicine men or the shamans and their interesting practices and rituals are well scattered throughout the region. In the Drakensberg Mountain, South Africa, alone; over 30,000 known paintings were discovered and were categorised into groups representing different period of ancestral artistry.
The first known sculptures in Africa are by the Nok people of Central Nigeria, dating back from 500 BC to AD 200. The sculptures moulded out of clay take the form of human figures and heads.
A very huge gap marks the history of African art after this period. Most of the surviving authentic ancestral masterpieces are crafted between the 14th to the 17th century. This is due to the fact that most of the materials that were available in this bridging period were perishable. The tribes had used various kinds of wood, textiles, plant fibres and leather. And these objects were sooner or later worn and eventually damaged due to their everyday and intensive use in rituals and ceremonies.
The ancient Egyptians belonging to the western tribes have greatly influenced the region’s art history. The Egyptian form of art is highly symbolic, as illustrated by the artefacts still being discovered from the monuments and tombs. They symbolise the ethnic group’s culture that gives life to mythical gods and goddesses, emphasizes life after death and upholds the knowledge of their ancestors. Due to the Egyptians’ resistance to internal change and foreign influence, their part in shaping the history has remained amazingly unvarying for a period of 3000 years.
Around the 10th century, in the regions within the sub-Saharan Africa, a more elaborate way of producing crafts was introduced in the African art history. Among the most ingenious and technically advanced innovation in African artwork include the bronze work of the Igbo-Ukwu. Excavations revealed a great number of intricately detailed bronze sculptures in the form of regalia castings and ritual vessels.
The most significant and among the earliest occurrence of realism is noted in the works of the Yoruba people of Ile-Ife. Among their native masterpieces include naturalistic stone, bronze, and terracotta sculptures. The sophisticated artistic culture of the Yoruba was more highlighted on the discoveries of sensational life-sized bronze and terracotta figures between the 1910 and 1930.
With the evolution of the different political systems, religious beliefs, culture and ways of doing everyday things, came the significant and remarkable advancement in African art history. With better tools and more medium to create beautiful objects of religious or functional importance, the number and design of crafts have become boundless. Statues, paintings, masks, textiles, furniture, pottery, beadwork, baskets and metalwork flourished throughout African art history, making the continent one of the most sought-after destinations among the connoisseurs of art and culture.

African art and culture are one and the same. Culture is the history, practices and beliefs that make up a society. In Africa, art was seldom used for decorative purposes, but rather to give life to the values, emotions and daily customs of the various ethnic groups throughout the continent.
African art and culture, in many instances, deal with making sense out of the world. It also deals with the religious aspects of life. The first African art were terracotta figures that didn’t bother with normal human representation. That’s because African art does not focus on recreating the world in another form, but rather concentrates on explaining the world to reduce the fear of the unknown.
They blend together to create an explanation of the universe which would not be possible otherwise. It is poetry built into objects used throughout daily life. It includes ritual and ceremonial objects, items used daily, adornments showing status or tribe and representations of those things in life which defy explanation. For example, masks of the dual god Gulu show his creative side which brings life and his destructive side which brings death.
For thousands of years, African culture was primarily passed on through direct teaching and through verbal communication. Instead of books and tablets, Africans used sculptures and objects to pass on their beliefs and customs from one generation to another. A sculpture may be of an ancestor or a particular mask may be used only during a special ritual or ceremony that is important to the tribe.