Stool
Culture: Nupe
Country: Nigeria
Wood, Pigment
The objects we call "African art" are crafted form a wide variety
of natural materials, including clay, metal, pigments, wood, fiber, leather,
ivory, and gourds. Beads are also used in nearly all regions, often attached
to garments, headdresses, masks, and regalia. Pottery, produced in Africa
since the Neolithic period, is usually created by women using coil handbuilding
techniques, or by molding. While cooking pots have little or no decoration,
other vessels, such as water storage jars, may be incised with patterns
or colored with a pigmented slip. The primary metals used in Africa are
iron, copper, brass, and gold. In general, male blacksmiths are highly respected
in Africa and are also the carvers of ritual wooden objects. another common
technique is lost-wax casting, used to create the famous Benin bronzes.
Wood is a popular material for figurative sculpture and masks. The type
of wood used is dependent upon the object's intended purpose. Most sculptures
are carved from a single piece of wood (rather that several pieces joined
together). African artists conceptualize their pieces without the use of
two dimensional sketches, and the "thinking" involved in creating
the piece is considered the hardest part. Leather may be incorporated into
clothing, masks, and shields. Fibers, made form wool, silk, cotton, raffia,
bark, or grasses, are used to produce cloth, mats, and baskets, which may
be dyed or adorned with beads or shells. Hollow gourds, sometimes called
"calabash", are used to make receptacles, utensils, and even musical
instruments. Paint is used to decorate many secular objects, such as boats,
carts, lorries, and to produce patterns on the walls of domestic and religious
dwellings. It is also employed, along with chalk or clay, in the elaborate
body decoration practiced in many regions of the continent.