African Art Influence

Essay of Influence

All artists, be they painters, musicians, sculptors, or any other type of artist, all are influenced by the things around them. Some place, some thing, or even some person influences every stroke of the brush, every pluck of the chord, and every crash of the chisel. One such influence was the influence of traditional African art on Modernist artists, Expressionist architects, and many other artists. In fact, traditional African sculpture was a powerful influence on modernist artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, and Expressionist architects such as Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Hans Poelzig all of whom reflect the core of traditional African art

During the early 1900s, many

early modernist artists began to take notice of, particularly West and Central, African art. Modernist artists were infatuated with African sculpture because of its sophisticated approach to the abstraction of the human figure. African art demonstrated the power of supremely well-organized forms, responding to the sense of sight but also and primarily striking at the viewer’s imagination, emotion, and mystical/religious experience. Artists like Picasso, Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Modigliani were extremely impressed by its emotional and deeply religious meaning. Even though he was unable to understand the function and original meaning of the art he encountered, Picasso especially recognized its spiritual aspect and adapted these qualities into his own efforts to move beyond the naturalism that had dominated Western art since the Renaissance.
One such piece by Pablo Picasso, his Bust of a Man painting, really capitalizes on the idea that modernists drew extreme influence from Africa.

Picasso’s painting of a man’s head takes many aspects of African art. Picasso had reduced the bust to a few simple shapes and large masses, with the head having an African mask-like appearance. The highly stylized lozenge-shaped eyes and mouth are dark, open voids and were inspired by wooden African masks that the natives of Africa wore in their spiritual rituals. The piece is reminiscent of the same forms that Africans used in their art, using only simple shapes with dark, wide eyes and mouths, and visual abstraction rather than naturalistic representation.

Moreover, the influences of African art are not entirely limited to paintings. Expressionist Architecture draws a great deal from African art, especially in the visual sense. Expressionists discovered in Africa a new repertoire of proto-symbols. With this discovery the space is now composed by single forms that refer to human proportions and its

psychology.
Though containing a great variety and differentiation, a recurring point in Expressionist architecture is the distortion of the piece for emotional effect and an underlying effort at achieving the new, original and visionary. Distortion of a piece for emotional, spiritual, or religious reasons is a hallmark of African art. Perhaps the most well-known and iconic pieces of Expressionist architecture is the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Designed by Jørn Utzon, the facility features a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete “shells” forming the roof of the structure, set on a monumental podium. This modern expressionist architecture reflects the styles seen in African art because of its distortion of the usual form for a roof, choosing to instead use layered “shells” of concrete. Not only this, the opera house is also reminiscent of African art because the building itself achieved a new, original, and very visionary form, something African artists tried to do a lot in their works, being original. Certainly, the Sydney Opera House achieves a new level of originality.
One last example of African influence on western art and architecture which must be mentioned is its influence on Brutalist Architecture.
During the 1960’s African art influenced Brutalism in both language and symbolism. This is particularly apparent in the late Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer and Paul Rudolph. Perhaps one of the most well-known Brutalist-style buildings is The Art and Architecture Building (Renamed Rudolph Hall in 2008), which houses the Yale School of Architecture, built by Paul Rudolph and is one of his best-known works.
Designed by Rudolph and completed in 1963, the complex building contains over thirty floor levels in its seven stories. The building is made of ribbed, bush-hammered concrete. The building itself has drawn criticism for its oppressive monumentality however that is what makes it a stunning work of Brutalist architecture. Keeping true with its African influences the building itself, as well as other Brutalist buildings, the building’s structure is formed with repeated modular elements forming masses representing specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. What’s most noticeably African about these types of buildings is their use of simple shapes, namely rectangles and squares in the case of Rudolph Hall, all put together into one much larger and completed piece. Another noticeable African-like aspect of the building is its visual abstraction. Diverging from the usual styles you might expect from a building Rudolph Hall features many protruding walls that seem to serve no other purpose than originality and visual appeal, something African’s loved to do with their traditional art.
People find and draw influence from almost anywhere.

Seemingly non-artistic creations such as shovels, or things that others might not see as having true artistic merit like finger paintings can yield powerful emotional and spiritual reactions. Such reactions are the core of traditional African art. The study of and response to African Art by artists at the beginning of the twentieth century created an explosion of interest in the abstraction, organization and reorganization of forms and the exploration of emotional and psychological areas unseen by Western Renaissance art. With the influence of traditional African art, art in the west ceased to be merely and primarily aesthetic, but became a true medium for philosophic and intellectual discourse. Overall, thanks to the discovery and influence of African art on such prominent figures as Pablo Picasso, Jørn Utzon, and Paul Rudolph, art in the west has become more truly and profoundly aesthetic than ever before, and continues to inspire and give people profound emotional and spiritual

revelations.