West African Earthworks

Abstract

The Western study and appreciation of African arts has historically, with few exceptions, been narrowly confined to sculpture in wood and metal. In recent years the so-called decorative arts, in particular textiles and articles of personal adornment, have been welcomed into the fold of artistic respectability. More recently, furnishings and furniture have begun to receive serious consideration. Despite this broadening tendency, however, it was only last year, with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, exhibition of The Four Moments of the Sun, that an attempt was made to reintegrate these various art forms, hitherto divorced from their topologic context, into the aesthetic framework of space. With that exhibition, the door was opened to an entirely new perspective on the perception and definition of aesthetic expression in Africa.