art history

 

1.) Choose one piece of art from chapter 13 and discuss at least three characteristics that place it in the period (high renaissance, reformation, counter reformation, mannerism) and place in which it was created.  Give at least two examples of how was it different from the previous period?  

2.) During a period when political and religious factions attacked each other with lethal fanaticism, works of art often played an important role in capturing the imagination and swaying the emotions of viewers.  Choose one piece of art from chapter 14 that you think does this.  Be sure to use at least three specific characteristics to support your argument.

3.) Choose a native North American work that was made to be used in social life or ritual. Explain the difference between its form and meaning while in use and while observed in the context of a museum installation.

4.) Choose a work in chapter 16/power point that was made for a political leader and discuss how its form and meaning relate to the political aspirations of its patron.

5.) Compare one Neoclassic piece of art/architecture and one Romantic piece of art/architecture.  Discuss the two pieces as cultural expressions of mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century Europe.  Focus on at least two characteristics of each piece.

6.) Discuss the ways in which the movement toward Realism in art reflected the social and political concerns of the nineteenth century.

7.) What were the new developments in Modern art and architecture in Europe between World Wars I and II?

High Renaissance

1500-1600

High Renaissance
Main centers: Rome and Venice
Combination of polytheistic architecture and Christian theme
Awe-inspiring projects emulated by Roman grandeur
Characteristics: balance, symmetry and ideal proportions
Triangular composition favored

The High Renaissance
The Beautiful, Spiritual, and Scientific in Italian Art
No singular style characterizes the High Renaissance, but the major artists of the period—Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian—exhibit a high level of technical and aesthetic mastery.
These artists also enjoyed an elevated social status, while their art was raised to the status formerly only given to poetry.

Leonardo da Vinci
(1452 – 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci’s wide-ranging interests and scientific investigations informed and enhanced his art.
He studied the human body and considered the eyes the most vital organs and sight the most essential function.

Detail, Last Supper Leonardo da Vinci 1498
tempera and oil on plaster Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan

Leonardo da Vinci Last Supper
Refectory of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, Milan c. 1495-1498
Experimental combination of painting : the paint began to peel off
Dramatic tension
Real human emotions
Unified architectural setting
Illusionistic room
Icon

Linear perspective:
orthogonals of ceiling and floor point to Jesus

Leonardo’s famous portrait of Mona Lisa shows a half-length figure seated against the backdrop of a mysterious uninhabited landscape.
Leonardo uses a smoky sfumato and atmospheric perspective to enhance the figure’s ambiguous facial expression, which serves to conceal or mask her psychic identity from the viewer.
Mona Lisa c. 1503–1505
Oil on wood
approx. 2’6″ x 1’9″
Louvre

In 1499, Michelangelo completed this Pieta for the Vatican.

Michelangelo Pieta 1499. Marble.
St. Peter’s, Vatican.

Michelangelo was only 23 when he carved this Pieta.

The detailed play of muscles over the figure’s torso and limbs serves to enhance the mood and posture of tense expectation as David watches for the approach of Goliath.
The pent-up energy of David’s psychic and muscular tension is contrasted with his apparently casual pose.
David is also represented as the defiant hero of the Florentine republic.
Michelangelo David
1501–1504. Marble
14′ 3″ high.
Galleria dell ‘Accademia, Florence

13

Returning, famous, to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo was commissioned by the new republican government to carve a colossal David, symbol of resistance and independence.
The monumental nude statue of David reveals Michelangelo’s early fascination with the male body.
Michelangelo, David,
1501–1504. Marble, 14’ 3″ high. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence

It is the twisting of the wrist, the agility of the joints, the movement of the head, the concentration of the look that pulls the features towards us.

In less than four years, (1508-1512) Michelangelo painted a monumental fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel organized around a sequence of narrative panels describing the Creation as recorded in the biblical book Genesis.

1536-1541
Fresco
48’ x 44’
Last Judgement Sistine Chapel

Raphael Santi (1483-1520)
In 1504, Raphael moved to Florence, where he remained until 1508.
These years were very important for his development.
He studied works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo there, by which he was greatly influenced.
Yet he proved, that his ability to adapt from others what was necessary to his own vision and to reject what was incompatible with it was faultless.

Madonna of the Goldfinch
Raphael
1506
Oil on wood
42 x 30 inches

School of Athens
Raphael
1509-1511
Fresco
Stanza della
Segnatura,
Palazzi Pontifici
Vatican

Plato and Aristotle are standing in the center of the picture at the head of the steps.

This detail shows the portraits of Raphael and Sodoma.
Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower right), holds a sphere of the earth, next to him is Zaroaster who holds a celestial sphere.

Titian (1488/90 – 1576)
Titian trained with both Bellini and Giorgione before establishing his own workshop.
Giorgione had such a lasting influence on the young Titian to such a degree, that some works which are now thought to have been painted by Titian used to be attributed to Giorgione, and vice versa.

Madonna of the Pesaro Family
Titan
1519-26
oil on canvas
16 x 19 feet

Titian’s so-called Venus of Urbino shows a nude woman reclining on a luxurious pillowed couch.
Although she is posed as the goddess of classical mythology, the woman is probably a courtesan seen in her bedchamber.
This is an extremely fine composition. It invites us to dwell on more than just the warm, golden figure of this young woman with her cascading curls and the attractive, carefully studied movement of her arm.
Observe the way the sheet has been painted, with masterful blends of color, the small dog lazily curled up asleep.

Venus of Urbino Titan 1538 Oil on canvas 3’11” x 5’ 5”

Protestant Reformation
By the early 1500s, many people in Western Europe were growing increasingly dissatisfied with the Christian Church. Many found the Pope too involved with secular (worldly) matters, rather than with his flocks’ spiritual well-being. Lower church officials were poorly educated and broke vows by living richly and keeping mistresses. Some officials practiced simony or passing down their title as priest or bishop to their illegitimate sons. In keeping with the many social changes of the Renaissance, people began to boldly challenge the authority of the Christian Church.

Martin Luther and his 95 Theses
A German monk by the name of Martin Luther was particularly bothered by the selling of indulgences. An indulgence, a religious pardon that released a sinner from performing specific penalties, could be bought from a church official for various fees. Martin Luther was especially troubled because some church officials gave people the impression that they could buy their way into heaven. To express his growing concern of church corruption, Martin Luther wrote his famous 95 Theses, which called for a full reform of the Christian Church. In it, he stressed the following points:

A few of the Theses:
The Pope is a false authority.
The bible is the one true authority.
All people with faith in Christ are equal.
People do not need priests and bishops to interpret the bible for them. They can read it themselves and make up their own minds.
People can only win salvation by faith in God’s forgiveness.
The Church taught that faith, along with good works is needed for salvation.

St. Ignatius of Loyola – Society of Jesus
Counter-Reformation
Art as propaganda
Art as re-invigorator of belief/practice
Spiritual ecstasy
Counter-Reformation

By the end of the 16th century, the Catholic Church was once again feeling optimistic, even triumphant. It had emerged from the crisis with renewed vigor and clarity of purpose. Shepherding the faithful—instructing them on Catholic doctrines and inspiring virtuous behavior—took center stage.
While the Protestants harshly criticized the cult of images, the Catholic Church ardently embraced the religious power of art. The visual arts, the Church argued, played a key role in guiding the faithful.

Paolo Veronese 1528-1588
The painters of Verona between about 1510 and 1540 favored firm, regular volumes, strong colors that function largely in terms of contrasts, and conventionalized figures.
Veronese combined these elements of the local High Renaissance style with Mannerist elements, including complex compositional schemes that often employ a “worm’s-eye view” perspective.

Veronese’s huge monumental painting of Christ in the House of Levi shows Christ seated with other figures (robed lords, their colorful retainers, clowns, dogs, and dwarfs) in a great open loggia framed by three monumental arches.
Christ in the House of Levi Paolo Veronese
1573 Oil on canvas 18′ 6″ x 42′ 6“ Galleria dell‘Accademia, Venice

When originally titled the Last Supper, the Holy Office of the Inquisition accused Veronese of impiety.
Veronese changed the painting’s title to the present one.
Paolo Veronese. Christ in the House of Levi (detail) 1573
Oil on canvas. 18′ 6″ x 42′ 6“ Galleria dell‘Accademia, Venice

The Last Supper Tintoretto 1591-1594
12′ 0″ x 18′ 8″ Church of San Giorgio Maggiore

Albrecht Durer
Self-portrait
Oil on wood panel
1500
2’ 2” x 1’ 7”

Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed)
c. 1500, painting c. 1510-1515 painted and gilt limewood, oil on panel

Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (second position)

Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (open)

Sofonisba Anguissola
Self-Portrait
c. 1556
Oil on parchment on cardboard
3 ¼” x 2 ½”

The Garden of Earthly Delights
Tryptich
Hieronymus Bosch
7’ 3” x 12’ 9”
Oil on panel
closed

Self-Portrait at the Easel
Caterina van Hemessen
1548
Oil on panel
12 ¼” x 9 ¼”

Burial of the Count of Orgaz
El Greco
1586–88
oil on canvas

Mannerism
The Late Renaissance in Italy

Mannerist art and architecture places an emphasis on staged and contrived imagery, elegance and beauty, imbalanced compositions, and unusual visual and conceptual complexities.
Space in may appear ambiguous, and traditional themes may be presented in unconventional or unexpected ways.
Mannerist art may be restless, with figures shown distorted, exaggerated, and with affected but often sinuously graceful postures.
Mannerism’s requirement of “invention” led artists to produce self-conscious stylizations involving complexity, caprice, fantasy, elegance, perfectionism, and polish.

The Deposition can perhaps justly be described as the artist’s masterpiece.
The composition is extravagant; an inextricable knot of figures and drapes that pivots around the bewildered youth in the foreground and culminates above in the two lightly hovering figures emerging from vague background.
This complicated bunch of forms is arranged in the shape of an upturned pyramid.
Deposition of the Cross (or the Entombment)
c. 1525-1528 Oil on wood 10’ 3” x 6’ 4”
Cappella Capponi Santa Felicità, Florence

Bronzino’s skill with the nude was best deployed in the celebrated Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time which conveys strong feelings or eroticism under the pretext of a moralizing allegory.
His intricate allegorical invention shows Cupid and his mother Venus together with personifications of Folly, Time, Envy, and Inconstancy.

Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
1540-45 Oil on wood
57 ½” x 46” National Gallery, London

17th Century Art in Europe

Chapter 14

Europe in the 17th Century

2

THE BAROQUE PERIOD
IN ITALY
Started in Rome
As a reaction to the Protestant Reformation
Also, in reaction to Mannerism
The Baroque period is also referred to as the Age of Expansion, especially in the arts.
Patron Popes of the Baroque period included:
Paul V
Urban VIII
Innocent X

3

The Roman Catholic Church supported Baroque art style in response to the Protestant Reformation (movement to reform Catholic Church) – communication of religious themes with viewer’s direct and emotional involvement
Aristocracy adopted Baroque style to impress visitors and to express triumphant power and control

Baroque Art of 17th Century – ITALY
Much of Italian Baroque Art was aimed at propagandistically restoring Catholicism’s predominance and centrality and was used as teaching tool.
17th century Italian Baroque Art and Architecture characteristics: dramatic/theatrical, grandiose scale, elaborate ornateness – all used to spectacular effect.

Baroque stemmed from Renaissance. Renaissance art generally depicted the moment before or after an event took place whereas baroque showed the actual climatic moment.
Baroque artworks are exaggerated, there is a sense of movement, energy and tension. There is a strong sense of light and dark which is created by illuminating figures out of dark shadows. At the time, this was quite revolutionary and became a hallmark of Baroque art.
The artists of this time were focused on natural forms, space, and unity. There are painterly brush strokes, recession of the plane, open forms and, an unclearness of the subject matter.

Bernini
A child prodigy who the pope demanded an audience of.
Deemed the “Michelangelo” of his generation.
Master of stone
-ability to transform into flesh, and dramatic action-decisive moments.
First sculpture to “freeze” moments in time.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria
Rome, Italy 1645–1652
Marble, height of group 11’ 6”
8
Bernini – Interior Niche of Cornaro Chapel
Ecstasy of St. Teresa – 1645-52
The whole chapel became a theater for the production of this mystical drama
Theatricality and sensory impact were useful vehicles for achieving Counter-Reformation goals

And between death and light, Bernini might be suggesting there are moments of ecstasy worth saving and remembering.

Bernini
David
1623
Marble
5’ 7”
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Modeled features after own face. Expression of intense concentration.
Different from earlier versions- incorporates action and time.
Most dramatic of an implied sequence of poses.
Time and space are united in an artistic theater.
Dynamic energy, cannot be confined in a niche-must be freestanding.
Baroque – theatricality and element of time.
After the Renaissance, an understanding of Progress and a new embrace of change began. Thus art began to demonstrate transience, rather than permanence and timeless ideals.

11

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Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio
Outspoken disdain for Classical masters- the “anti-christ” of painting.
Recast biblical scenes or themes in new light
Used naturalism -did not idealize the narratives. Characters were common folk not idealized and angelic.
Accentuates the “sinner” or the lower classes in his works-harsh dingy settings. Figures that were relatable.
Strong use of light with deep pockets of shadow
– tenebrism
Action very close to surface of painting-like a “shop window”.
Strong personality violent criminal, thrived in Roman underground scene.
Enormous influence on subsequent generation of painters
(Caravaggista)

Caravaggio
The theatrical Baroque sculpture had its counterpart in painting.
Caravaggio (Michelangelo de Merisi)
Portrayed dramatic movement, tenebrism, emotionally charged subjects, and figures caught in time.
Tenebrism – exaggerated chiaroscuro. Translated as “dark matter” it is often characterized by a small and concentrated light source in the painting or what appears to be an external ”spotlight” directed as a very specific point in the composition.

14

Entombment, from the chapel of Pietro Vittrice, Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome, Italy
ca. 1603 Oil on canvas
9’ 10 1/8” x 6’ 7 15/16”
Musei Vaticani, Pinacoteca, Rome
15
Entombment: Sums up CARAVAGGIO’S Distinctive Style
1603 – large-scale painting for Chapel of Pietro Vittrice in Rome
Caravaggio places the figures on a stone slab that seems to extend into the viewer’s space, suggesting that Christ will be laid directly in front of the viewer.
The theological implications are that Christ is being laid on the altar of a church, thus making real the doctrine of transubstantiation (the transformation of the Eucharistic bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ); Christ would thus be present during Mass, the Roman Catholic church service

Caravaggio
The Calling of St. Matthew
Contarelli Chapel church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
1599-1600. Oil on canvas
10’ 7.5” x 11’ 2”.

Judith and Holofernes (c. 1598) Caravaggio Oil on canvas
Approx. 56 3⁄4” x 76 3⁄4”

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GENTILESCHI (Female) – “Caravaggista”
Caravaggio’s style (combo. of naturalism and drama) became popular and appealed to patrons and artists
Gentileschi was trained by her father (who was influenced by Caravaggio)

Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith Beheading Holofernes
c. 1619-20
Oil on canvas
6’ 63/8” x 5’ 4”
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Diego Velazquez
Leading artist in the court of King Phillip IV
Because of Velasquez’ great skill in merging color, light, space, rhythm of line, and mass in such a way that all have equal value, he was known as “the painter’s painter.”
Master realist, and few painters have surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on canvas with a few broad, sure strokes.

Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) 1656 Oil on canvas
approx. 10’ 5” x 9’
Museo del Prado, Madrid
After visit to Rome from 1648 to 1651, he returned to Spain and painted his greatest masterpiece – Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor)/ it hung in Philip’s personal office

Here you see the artist looking at the viewer; in the background there appears to be a portrait of the king and queen, but it could be a mirror rather than a painting, and if so, the king and queen would then be standing near the viewer. Or, if the artist were looking at the entire scene with a mirror, then there is a sense of almost endless reflection back and forth.

25

Primary patrons were rich Spanish monastic orders.
Devotional image for the funerary chapel of the Order of Mercy in Seville (Mercedarians) who worked towards the rescue of captive and ransomed Christians at hands of Muslims.
St. Serapion suffered martyrdom while preaching Gospel to Muslims.
Tied to a tree, tortured and decapitated.
Bright light brings attention to tragic death.
Note identifies him as St. Serapion.
FRANCISCO DE ZURBARÁN
Saint Serapion 1628
Oil on canvas
3’ 11 1/2” x 3’ 4 3/4”

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Peter Paul Rubens
The Raising of the Cross 1610-1611 Oil on panel center panel 15’ 1 7/8”x 11’ ½” Each wing 15’ 1 7/8” x 4’ 11” Now in Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp

Peter Paul Rubens
Henry IV Receiving the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici
1621-1625
Oil on canvas
12’ 11 1/8” x 9’ 8 1/8”
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Peter
Paul
Rubens
Prometheus Bound
c. 1611-1618
Oil on canvas
95 ½ x82 ½

Rembrandt van Rijn:
Self-Portrait (1658)
Oil on canvas
52 5/8” x 40 7/8”
The Frick Collection, New York.

Genre Painting:
Self-Portrait
Judith Leyster
Self-Portrait
1635
Oil on canvas
29 3/8” x 25 5/8”
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)
One of the most influential French painters
Recalled from Rome by Louis XIII
Influences Raphael and Carracci
Classicism official court style (1660-1685)
Ancient Greece and Roman as reference
Authority, power, order, and tradition
Poussin represents favored classicism

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)
Studies Raphael, anatomy, perspective, and ancient sculpture in Rome
Work becomes model for similar subject matter
Relays assassination of Roman general

Nicolas Poussin, The Death of Germanicus
1627-1628 Oil on canvas 58 ¼” x 78” Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota

France
Foreign and civil wars
King Henry IV assassinated in 1610; Marie de’ Medici (queen) rules as regent until 1617
1635: Cardinal Richelieu founds the French Royal Academy
1648: Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
Louis XIII dies; 5 year old Louis the XIV (le Roi Soleil) ruled in 1661 after death of Cardinal Mazarin
Louis XIV, ABSOLUTE MONARCH: longest reign in Europe

French Baroque
Leader during French Baroque Louis XIV, known as the “Sun King” because EVERYTHING revolved around him
Divine monarchy
Absolutism
Military campaigns against Spain, Dutch Republic, Germany, and England
Hyacinthe Rigaud Portrait of Louis XIV King of France and Navarre
1701 Oil on canvas 9’2” × 6’3” Musée du Louvre, Paris

French Baroque
France replaces Rome as the center of the art world
Henry IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV
French Baroque is characterized by elegance and restraint of emotion, pomp and circumstance, pageantry, emphasis on the glories of the monarchy
Louis XIV interested in classical influence epitomized in the work of Poussin
The French Baroque style reflects the king’s preference for Classicism
Sought distinct “French” style
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture formed in Paris, 1648
Charles Le Brun first director
Promotes virtues of Poussin and Raphael

French Baroque
Louis renovates what was a small hunting cabin into a Golden Cage
Begun 1669 by Le Vau, finished 1710
Every aspect of Versailles controlled, even gardens
Center Louis’ bedroom
Aerial view of the Palace of Versailles, France. Begun 1669

Gardens of Versaille
Bird’s Eye View of the Gardens of Versaille, 19th century

African Art

Chapter 16

Major Time or Stylistic Periods
8000-500 BCE – Sahara Rock Art
500-200 BCE – Nok
200 BCE-Present – Djenne
600-1100 BCE – Ghana Empire
Mid-Seventeenth Century – Islam Introduced
800 CE-Present – Ife
9th-10th Century – Igbo Ukwu
1000-1500 CE – Great Zimbabwe
1170 CE-Present – Benin
1250-1450 CE – Mali Empire
1465-1591 CE – Songhay Kingdom

Important Historical Events
2300 BCE – Egyptian envoy, Harkhuf, lands in Nubia (Egyptian relations with the rest of the African continent continued through the Hellenistic era and beyond).
1000-300 BCE – Phoenicians and Greeks founded dozens of settlements along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa to extend trade routes across the Sahara to the peoples of Lake Chad and the bend of the Niger River (when the Romans took control of North Africa, they continued this lucrative trans-Saharan trade).
600-700 CE – Expanding empire of Islam swept across North Africa, and thereafter Islamic merchants were regular visitors to sub-Saharan Africa. Islamic scholars chronicled the great West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. West African gold financed the flowering of Islamic culture.
East Africa had been drawn into the maritime trade that ringed the Indian Ocean and extended to Indonesia and the South China Sea. Arab, Indian, and Persian ships plied the coastline. Swahili evolved from centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking merchants and Bantu-speaking Africans. Great port cities such as Kilwa, Mombasa, and Mogadishu arose.
1400 CE – Europeans ventured by ship into the Atlantic Ocean and down the coast of Africa. They rediscovered the continent firsthand.

Nok
Some of the earliest evidence of iron technology in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Nok culture, which arose in the western Sudan (present-day Nigeria) as early as 500 BEC.
Nok people were farmers who grew grain and oil-bearing seeds, but they were also smelters with the technology for refining ore. Slag and the remains of furnaces have been discovered, along with clay nozzles from the bellows used to fan the fires.
The Nok people created the earliest known sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa, producing accomplished terra-cotta figures of human and animal subjects between 500 BCE-200 CE.

Nok 500 BCE-200 CE
Earliest evidence of iron technology (western Sudan, present-day Nigeria)
Terracotta Head, Nok, 500 BCE-200 CE, 36cm, National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria

Ife
Crowned Head of a Ruler
From Ife
Yoruba Culture
12th-15th century CE
Height 9 7/16”

Memorial Head of an Oba (King)

From Benin, Nigeria
c. 16th century CE
Brass
Height 9”

These men took part in the expedition made by the British in 1897.

Benin
Queen Mother Pendant Mask (Iyoba) 16th century
Edo peoples
Court of Benin, Nigeria
ivory, iron, copper

Culture: Nigeria; Edo, Court of Benin
Title: Pendant Mask: Iyoba
Work Type: PENDANT, MASK, IYOBA
Date: 16th century
Location: Object Place: Nigeria
Material: Ivory, iron, copper (?)
Measurements: H. 9 3/8 in. (23.8 cm)
Style: Edo, Court of Benin
Repository: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Repository: http://www.metmuseum.org
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art – Images for Academic Publishing
ID Number: 11418
Source: Data From: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Credit Line: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1972 (1978.412.323)
Image Copyright Notice: Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rights: This image was provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Contact information: Image Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028, (212) 396-5050 (fax), Scholars.License@MetMuseum.org
Rights: Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rights: This image is available for uses permitted under the ARTstor Terms and Conditions of Use, such as teaching and study, as well as for scholarly publications, through the Images for Academic Publishing (IAP) initiative. If you are seeking to use this image for scholarly publication, you should click on the IAP icon below the thumbnail image.
10

Jenné (in Mali) – 200 CE – Present
Great Friday Mosque 13th century
rebuilt 1907

11

The Great Mosque of Djenne was built out of mud for weary travelers who wished to speak with God

Great Zimbabwe
Conical Tower in Imba Huru or “Great Enclosure”
18’ diameter on tower
30’ high
800 ft long masonry wall
17’ feet thick base
1200-1400 CE

Great Zimbabwe
Constructed of granite slabs.
Oldest monumental stone structure south of the Sahara 1200-1400 CE.
Consists of a series of walls and towers.
Massive stone masonry, without mortar.

Conical Tower
Aerial View
Herring Bone Designed Wall

Bwa Masks
Masks in Performance 1984
Wood with pigments
Used for initiation of young men and women into puberty.
They are taught about the world of nature spirits and about the masks that represent them.
Only boys wear each mask in turn and learn the dance steps that express the character and personality that each mask represents.

Kuba Funerary Rites
Kuba people are from the Democratic Republic of Congo
Believe that people are reincarnated after a generation or two
They perform funerary masquerades to honor the deceased men and the high-ranking from the council
For important senior title holders the Inuba appears for the ceremony

Ngady Mwaash Mask
From Democratic Republic of Congo
Kuba culture
Late 19th-mid 20th century CE
Wood, pigment, glass brads, cowrie shells, fabric, and thread.

Yoruba Sculpture
Yoruba Twin Figures (Ere Ibeji)
Nigeria, Yoruba culture 20th century
Wood height 7 7/8”
Highest rates of twin births in the world
When a Yoruba twin dies, the parents often consult a diviner, a specialist in ritual and spiritual practices, who may tell then that an image of a twin, or ere ibeji, must be carved to serve as a dwelling place for the deceased twin’s spirit.

Yoruba Architecture
Door from Royal Palace in Ikere, Nigeria 1925
Wood with pigment
Yoruba Culture
Classic theme of elongated breasts symbolizes fertility
Asymmetrical composition combines narrative and symbolic scenes in horizontal rectangular panels.

Democratic Republic of
Congo Sculpture
Power Figure (Nkisi n’kondi)
Democratic Republic of Congo 19th century
Wood, nails, pins, blades, and other materials
Figure begins as a simple sculpture bought from a market. Afterwards a diviner prescribes magical/medicinal ingredients that are plastered onto the body. It acts as a powerful agent ready to attack the forces of evil on behalf of the human client.

Baule Sculpture
Spirit Spouse
Baule culture 20th century
Wood, glass beads, gold hollow beads, plant fiber, white pigment, and encrustation
Height 19 ¼”
The Baule people believed that before life they lived in the spirit world, and had a spirit spouse whom they left behind. Those who have trouble getting married or having children have these made so that their spirit spouse may enter them. The person must treat this figure like a human, and hopefully they will one day find a real spouse.

Kente Cloth
From Ghana Ashanti Culture
C. 1980 Rayon
Symbol of wealth and royalty
Gold color = wealth
Green color = fertility of the land
Red color = blood of the people
Very difficult and intricate weave
Men normally wove these
Not many early examples survived because new ones were commissioned to replace worn fabrics
Originally produced under royal control
Patterns do not line up so as to look more dazzling