European Expansion

Portuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast, early to mid-16th century, oil on panel, 31 x 57 in. © National Maritime Museum, London.

•Marco Polo (1254-1324)•China’s emperor, Kubliai Khan •Marco Polo•The “best selling book” gave Marco Polo instant fame.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) Italian in the employ of Spain discovery of the Americas

World Exploration, 1271-1295; 1486-1611Explorers are represented according to the nation for which they sailed.

Cultural Heritage Different tribes

shared some distinct cultural characteristics, a kinship system

The oba (ruler) of Ife wearing a bead crown and plume, from Benin, twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Cast brass with red pigment, height 14 1/8 in. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Africa, 1000-1500.

Muslims in front of a mosque in the town of San, Mali, 1971. Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art,

Native folk traditions orally rather than in writing.

Griots – a special class of professional poet-historians who preserved the legends of the past by chanting or singing them from memory.

Sundiata – an epic describing the formative phase Mali history.

Bambara ritual Chi Wara dance Mali, imitate the

movements of the antelope, the totemic (important tribal object) figure, honored in this ritual

Bambara ritual chi wara dance, Mali. Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. VIII–58, 4A). Photo: Eliot Elisofon.

meant to function like an electric circuit; it was the channel through which spiritual power might pass.

Congo nail fetish, 1875-1900. Wood with screws, nails, blades, cowrie shell, and other material, 3 ft. 10 in. high. Detroit Institute of Arts.

heal the sick, communicate with the spirits of ancestors

holds the bones of an ancestor and guarded the dead from evil.

Kota reliquery figure, from Gabon. Wood covered with strips of copper and brass, 30 3/4 in.

ceremonies for the installation and death of a ruler,

Songe mask, from Zaire, nineteenth century, based on earlier models. Wood and paint, height 17 in.

earliest known 3-dimentional artworks of African.

Found in 1931, Nok. Niger River in Western Sudan.

Head, Nok culture, ca. 500 B.C.E.-200 C.E. Terracotta, height 14-3/16 in. National Museum, Lagos/Bridgeman.

African sculpture had a major impact on European art of the early 20th century.

Pablo Picasso - “magical objects”.

Bambara antelope headpiece, from Mali, nineteenth century, based on earlier models. Wood, height 35 3/4 in., width 15 3/4 in.

WILLIE COLE       (American, born 1955)Speedster tji wara, 2002Bicycle parts46 1/2 x 22 1/4 x 15" (118.1 x 56.5 x 38.1 cm.)Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 2002

•Very few of Africa’s wooden sculptures date from before the 19th century.

•Country of Origin: Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Africa. Culture: Luba. Date / Period: probably late 19th C. Place of Origin: Buli region. Material Size: Wood, h=53.5 cms.

Congo (Afrique centrale), atelier de la Basse Lukuga, 19e siecleLocation: musee du quai BranlyCity: ParisCountry: FrancePeriod/Style: AfricanGenre: Sculpture

Note: Bois. 35 x 16 x 23 cm, 700 g. Inv.: 70.2004.36.2. Expose : Afrique

Yoruba-Benin Bronze Maternity Figure, Possibly the Goddess Orisa Ibeji - LSO.566Origin: Southwestern NigeriaCirca: 1600 AD to 1800 AD

African Art / Yombe Wooden Pfemba Sculpture of a Mother and Child - PF.3890Origin: Northwestern CongoDate: 20th Century AD

African Art / Benin Ivory Head of a Mother Queen - PF.5563Origin: Benin City, NigeriaDate: 1600 AD to 1897 th Century AD

 African Art / Nok Terracotta Head - PF.5766Origin: Northern Nigeria Date: 500 BC to 200 AD

 African Art / Bassa Wooden Sculpture of a Seated Woman - PF.4803

Origin: Central LiberiaDate: 18th Century AD to 19th Century AD

African Art / Yoruba / Yoruba Ivory Sculpture of a Kneeling Woman - PF.3955Origin: Southwestern NigeriaDate: 20th Century AD

 

African Art / Nupe Bronze Bell - PF.4005Origin: Central NigeriaDate: 1500 AD to 1800 AD

Benin Bronze Head of an Oba- LSO.568

African Art / Baule Wooden Mask with Two Faces - PF.3173

Origin: Central Ivory CoastCirca: 20th Century

Origin: Nigeria Circa: 18th to 19 th Century AD

www.artofancientafrica.com/

African Art / Benin Sculpture of a

Leopard - PF.6194Origin: Nigeria

Date: 16 th Century AD to 19 th Century AD

African Art / Bamun Ivory

Sculpture of a Monkey and Child - PF.6132

Origin: CameroonDate: 20 th Century AD

African Cow

Water Buffalo

African Marsh Owl

African Elephant

African Hunting Dog

African Rock Python

The Thunderbird House Post, replica totem pole. Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1988. Carved and painted wood, 12 ft. high.

North America fashioned their tools and

weapons out of wood, stone, bone, and bits of volcanic glass.

Wooden poles carved and painted with totems- heraldic (coat of arms) family symbols

The largest and most advanced Native American societies were those of Meso- and South America.

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, Anasazi culture, Pueblo period, c. 1200 CE

Anasazi seed jar, 1100-1300. Earthenware and black and white pigment, 14 1/2 in. diameter.

Lacking the potter’s wheel, women hand-built vessels for domestic and ceremonial uses.

Lacking the potter’s wheel, women hand-built vessels for domestic and ceremonial uses.

1200 b.c.e., Meso-America - Olmecs.

They were called “Olmecs” (“rubber people”) by the Aztecs, because of the trees that flourished in their region.

Castillo, with Chacmool in the foreground, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. Maya, 9th-13th centuries. AKG Images/Erich Lessing.

Between 250-900 C.E. Blood sacrifice and

bloodletting The only known Native

American culture to produce a written language.

blood-letting ritual

Maya culture, Lintel Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico,

Reconstruction drawing of post-classic Mayan fortress city of Chutixtiox, Quiche, Guatemala. (from Richard Adams, Prehistoric Mesoamerica,

late 15th century - mightiest power in South America.

Machu Picchu, Inca culture, near Cuzco, Peru, 15th-16th centuries.

Peruvian cultures noted for their fine pottery, richly woven textiles, and sophisticated metalwork.

Ceremonial knife, from the Lambayeque valley, Peru, ninth to eleventh centuries. Hammered gold with turquoise inlay, 13 x 5 1/8 in

Coatlique, Mother of the Gods, Aztec, 1487-1520. Andesite, height 8 ft. 3 1/4 in.

During the 15th century, the art of monumental stone sculpture.

terrifying icons of their gods and goddesses.

They produced the “Calendar Stone,” a huge votive object that functioned not as an actual calendar, but as a symbol of the Aztec cosmos.

Sun disk, known as the "Calendar Stone," Aztec, fifteenth century. Diameter 13 ft., weight 24 1/2 tons.

The Spanish in the Americas Cortes (1485-1547) overcame the

Aztec armies in 1521. The Spanish completely

demolished the island city, from whose ruins Mexico City would eventually rise.

Theodore de Bry (1528–1598), Spanish Cruelties Cause the Indians to Despair, from Grands Voyages. Frankfurt, 1594. Woodcut.

The Americas before 1500.

“The most important of these idols, and the ones in whom they have most faith, I had taken from their places and thrown down the steps; and I had those chapels where they were cleansed for they were full of blood sacrifices’ and I had images of Our Lady and of other saints put there, which caused Mutezuma an the other naives some sorrow.”