The abstract character of African art refreshed and inspired pioneers of modern
European art such as painters Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and Amedeo Modigliani
and sculptors Constantin Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti, and Henry Moore. Spanish
artist Pablo Picasso's Les demoiselles d'Avignon is probably the best-known
Western painting inspired by African art. It features a group of female figures
whose angular forms and large facial features resemble African masks. Although
Picasso denied any African influence on this painting, his friend and colleague
André Derain wrote that he introduced Picasso to African art in 1905, and Picasso
himself later spoke of the strong impression African art had made on him. African
art also inspired many 20th-century American artists. In 1902 American artist
Meta Warrick Fuller created Talking Skull, a sculpture based on reliquary figures
from the Kota of Gabon. More recently, American sculptor Martin Puryear borrowed
the forms and traditional techniques of African basketry and carpentry, adapting
them to the more formal and abstract aims of modern Western art. In the 1990s
American artist Rene Stout based her sculptures on figures created by the Kongo
people of central Africa.
The study of the history of African art presents a number of challenges. Most
surviving objects are of relatively recent origin because so much African art
is made of perishable materials, such as wood or grasses. It also is subjected
to vigorous use, in contrast to most Western art, which is displayed in houses
or museums. Moreover, researchers have no scientific tests that can accurately
date objects of relatively recent origin. In many cases, they must rely on records
provided by those who collected the art. Because early ethnographers collected
works of African art as cultural artifacts rather than as art, they generally
failed to record the names of individual artists, precise dates for the objects,
or information on why or how the objects were used. Nor did they concern themselves
with the aesthetic or cultural values that Africans associated with these objects.
As a result, the topics that routinely concern historians of Western art-the
style and development of specific artists, the chronology of artistic trends,
or the more subtle aspects of those trends-are considerably more difficult to
research in studying African art. It was not until the end of the 19th century
that Western perceptions about African art began to change.
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