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I decided to change the way I have been approaching the northern portion of Africa. First I do not set Egypt alone as Civilization by itself. I included it in Nile Valley Civilization where it belongs. Egyptian Civilization developed out of Africa not Mediterranean. Egyptians had trade and contact, plus most of Africa’s domesticated hoofed animals came from the Fertile Crescent, everything else of real importance came from the south.
People along the North Coast were involved in Egypt and West African Civilizations. Some of the people in that region were from the European continent and their languages reflect the European language family of linguistics rather than Africa linguistics. The art sections in Africa are divided into several regions and there is one area in Diaspora titled “African Americans”. Use the black menu bar for navigating this page. It takes too long to scroll.
Africa is the cradle of Homo Genus. Africa is the birth place of Homo sapiens. Human Civilization began in Africa. The earliest forms of agriculture began along the Nile. Cattle razing began in the Near East along the Fertile Crescent and quickly spread to North Africa. Iron smelting was started in the Sudan. The first cities and metropolitan centers began in Africa. Egypt is the birth place of the worlds first metropolis. The oldest Egyptian gods were Nubian gods. Egyptians learned the arts of stone cutting and pyramid construction from the Nubians. The ancient Egyptians learned writing, math and sciences from both the Nubians, Kush and Ethiopia. During the 18th Dynasty between (c. 1385 B.C. - c. 1350 B.C.) the pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akenaten) created heresy by proclaiming there was one god "Aten", thus making Egypt the birth place of monotheism. Egypt helped spread the blessings and evils of civilization to the rest of the world outside of Africa. The basic concepts and principles of civilization began in Africa. Egypt was one of the last in a long line of Nile Valley Civilizations and Egypt was the world's first monumental civilization. To find out more about the origins of people and civilization click on the pictures shown above.
Egyptians used a form of pictograph characters for writing. In Egyptian art all iconography was the same. You can see the same iconography used in writing, carved relief sculpture, free standing sculpture, furniture, architecture, painting, pottery and jewelry.
Before the invention of the plow in Egypt, Africans used a hoe and they organized their plots in a series of grids. Egyptians still continue to cultivate farmland inside rectangular grids. The squares and rectangles are much larger than the grids of people using the hoe. The plow was a much large farm tool so it needed a larger grid. CLC  ARID
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| Mossi Mask | Dogon Door | Senufo Mask | Bamana Head Piece | Bobo Mask | Kurumba | Mama Mask | Sankore Mosque |
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ARID STEPPE & WESTERN SAVANNAH
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West African is made up of Arid Steppe and Savannah Dry-Forest. The steppe region is located between the Sahara Desert in the north and Savannah Dry-forest areas in the south. The Western Steppe receives less rain than the Savannah and dry-forest regions to the south. This area of Africa has two seasons a year wet and dry seasons. Rain comes only during the six months of wet season. Western Steppe has many rivers and lakes that don't appear on world maps, because these bodies of water only exist when it rains. During the six months of dry season the temporary lakes and streams dry up. Occasionally a lake may last for several years; long enough to support large numbers of fish, boats and fishing communities; then it would eventually dry up and disappear. The Niger river and the Songhai people are the two constant bodies that remain in that area year after year. It has been said "If you want to kill a Songhai take him far away from the Niger". The same can probably be said about the Niger river as well. CLC 
West Africa is known for having the most abstract sculpture of mankind and it is the Arid Steppe region where the most extreme abstractions can be found. There has been no such thing as non objective art in traditional African art. All images in traditional African culture represent something and there was no image which could not be identified. Woodcarving was often the work of a blacksmith. Woodcarvers used the same principles used in farming, iron work and woodcarving. Farmers strike the soil with a hoe. Iron smithies strike metal using a stone or iron hammer and strike the wood using a steel adze. Blacksmiths made iron sculpture and often did bronze casting as well. Blacksmiths were the smelters. Blacksmiths in this region did not have to do any farming. They made hoes, cutlasses for farmers and hunting gear for hunters during periods of farming and carved wooden masks and sculptures during off seasons. Their wives in most cases made pottery.
The woodcarvings reflect the blacksmiths metal work. Metalwork, scarcity of wood and Islam seem to be the three major influences on woodcarving in the region. Islam seems to have influenced African art disappearance more than it has the appearance of design or artwork. Geometric designs were being used in that part of Africa long before Islam came into the region. Telem woodcarvings and Dogon woodcarvings are good examples of testimonial concerning before and after the influence of Islam. The wood cavers in this area were influenced by metal smiths first. The carvings reflect first and foremost “Iron against Wood”. The two media are integrated in the woodcarving in such away that the wood is respected for being what it is wood rather than trying to be metal. The scarcity of wood plays an important but lesser role in the appearance of the art.
This is also the region where the Great West African civilizations were born, such as Ghana, Mali and Songhai along the Niger River. The cultures in this region of Africa reflect the same instability as ecosystems and geography do. The civilizations in this area went trough considerable expansion and contraction like the seasons, rivers and lakes. The expansion of Islamic religion and the Arab slave trade was the cause of much upheaval. Many people living in the arid steppe, such as the Bamana, Mossi, Songhai, Bobo and Dogon were near the area or were apart of the Three Famous Niger Civilizations. The older Akan speaking people and Baga people, living in the Western Savannah, were in the arid steppe region at the beginning and /or height of Niger Civilizations. They later moved south to the Dry Forest.
In the Arid Steppe grains suchas millet, maize and rice were grown. Farmers used a hoe cultivating the land inside a grid. Much of the wealth in this region was acquired through trade. Salt came from East Africa, gold and timber came from the south. CLC
SAVANNAH
WESTERN SAVANNAH & DRY-RAINFOREST
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The Savannah and Dry-forest lie between the Arid Steppe and the Atlantic Ocean. This region receives rain for six months each year and is dry without rain the remaining six months.
Farmers in this region use hoes with long iron blades attached to a wooden handles. The principle behind the digging stick used by food gatherers before the invention of agriculture is the same. Farmers do not chop or swing at the soil. They bring the hoe straight down into the soil then lift it straight up. Woodcarving is done the same way. You don't chop the wood you strike it.
Each art area had artists specially trained in that craft. The divisions of craft labor for different trades were more clearly defined in the Savanna Dry Rain Forest than in the Arid Steppe region. In the past this region produced more art than any region outside the Nile Valley.
Traditional bronze casting, woodcarving and ivory carving from this region have no rivals anywhere else in the world. Ife and Edo (Benin) bronze casting during the 13th and 14th Centuries were unmatched concerning uniformity in thinness-thickness of the cast, possibly do more to the scarceness of metal resources rather than any esthetic considerations or concern recarding preservation of resources by the artists. In the two remaining art areas ivory and wood the story is much different. Ivory is limited by its size and shape and the artists respect that. They show a command for composition and reverence for material rarely seen in ivory carving elsewhere. Woodcarving is at the top of the chain of African art achievement. Composition and reverence for material go far beyond the period in which the work was created.
Late in the 19th Century as the European Camera began recording and printing chemical based pictures, European artists were concerned and worried about what to do next, since their art had been obsessed with perfecting natures work rather than creating new culture. Pablo Picasso and George Brock were studding the works of Paul Cézanne. The two artists noticed that Paul Cézanne’s art gave them a departure needed to create culture. Cézanne had noticed that everything in nature could be depicted using human made geometric shapes and forms, something that the Egyptian could have taught the Greeks thousands of years ago. Greeks probably thought Egyptians did not know how to make sculpture resembling humans look realistic or naturalistic, but they were wrong. They did not understand the nature of African cultures and African religions (an argument to be pursued in a separate chapter).
Meanwhile art critiques in Paris kept insisting that Picasso and Brock were painting these cubes. Brock and Picasso were busy studing Cézanne’s work. They did not know anything about "no little cubes". The two artists stumbled across Masks from Gabon in Central Africa and wooden statues from West Africa. They noticed that the art work made use of principles being used in Cézanne’s work, but there was a whole new “thang” going on there which was not about approximating nature at all, thus Cubism was born. Cubism is about painting and the term has nothing to do with African sculpture at all. African sculpture helped open European eyes to what art culture was supposed to be about. So Europe's discovery of Cubism and creation of Cubism is not an African creation or discovery at all. We never saw our sculpture as being cubistic until someone told us to see it that way.
Artists along the Guinea Coast were on to something unprecedented. They began using different iconography for different media and different art processes. A separate iconography was used in metal casting another iconography was used in Iron work. Separate iconographies were used in textile weaving another for stencil printed textile and still another iconography for relief printed textile. An evolution in that type of thinking process was still in effect when the first Europeans arrived. The iconography process that West Africans were using was wide spread. Artists as far away as Western Arid Steppe were using separate iconography for different media. As a result of Europeans trading for slaves and the decline of Traditional African art this evolution was never completed. CLC
BASIN
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| Kwele Mask | Kuba Art | Kongo Figure | Luba Stool | Mangbetu Cup | Pende Pendant | Songe Axe | Chokwe Figures |
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CENTRAL BASIN RAINFOREST & SOUTHERN SAVANNAH
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