Decoding African Art: Painting Analysis Essay Example

Work of art outside of western culture Introduction Hello, I am going to discuss work of art outside Western culture. Art is the expression of human creative skills through visuals form like dance, painting and music. Art work is believed to have emotional and beauty power. I decided to discuss about painting in expense of other creative work. I have the reason why a decided to choose painting and I will tell you later in my presentation. Give me your attention as I get into the main part of presentation. The reason why I choose this type of art work is because this is the oldest form of art in the area which I got the work and beside that, it has a lot of meaning to the people of that area. It shows the political, social and cultural history of the people of that area. Art in this community is part of their lives and it unites them with the spiritual word. That is why I decided to choose this art of work. Fig “A” below is an example of the art work painting from that community (Williamson, 2004) Fig AFig B This is the work of an African artist by name Kowie. He is an original African artist where he specializes in this area of painting. He was born with this skills because nobody taught him how to paint he just got interested and decided to do it. According to traditions of his community they believe is a skill from the ancestors because art of paining is associated with spirits in this community. Kowie was born and raised in Africa (Archibald, 1968). The work is from South Africa which is the local home of the artist Kowei. The work mostly covers the spiritual, cultural and political history and nature of South African community. The work also covers other parts of Africa like in fig “B” it shows a Mursi which is an Ethiopian 2 trib. So the work covers mostly South Africa and also other parts of Africa. This is because most of African communities share almost the same traditions (Solomon, 1998). Since the artist did not get any information from books or anywhere, he trained himself and come up with his own style which is different from others. The work is done by use of Dana’s oil. This oil makes the image more unrealistic. He uses paints knives which enable him to paint an impasto structures which is the style of painting he does. This work is symbolic in many ways. Mostly it represents the African culture. For example fig A represents the beauty of African women. It also if studied carefully show emotions. But because people are unique, one person can see different thing in that image from another. That is why I said this paints are symbolic in many ways. Most of the people who can understand the information behind it are the members of that community. The general function of this work is to show the relationship between art work and the African culture (Peffer, 1998). Conclusion To wrap it up, I have discussed the art of painting in African community but mostly concentrated more on South Africa which is the place I got the work from. I have given in details the importance of this painting in the African communities and thus I would like to recommend a research to be done on ways in which the African art of painting will not be affected by modernization. References Williamson, S. (2004). Resistance art in South Africa. Cape Town: Double Storey Books. Solomon, A. (1998). The Essential guide to San rock art. Cape Town [etc.: David Philip Publishers [etc. Peffer, J. (2009). Art and the end of apartheid. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Archibald, E. H. H., & Hansen, H. J. (1968). Art and the seafarer: A historic. survey of the arts and crafts of sailors and shipwrights. New York: Viking Press.

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