Painting: Is It Indigenous to Ghanaian Culture?

Authors

  • Emmanuel Antwi Department of Painting and Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Art, College of Art and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa.
  • Martin Adi-Dako

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v3i9.552

Keywords:

Traditional African art, Autochthonous, Painting, Mural, and Body Painting.

Abstract

Painting could be said to be well grounded in all cultures worldwide. This is underpinned by the vast record of cave art as globally represented, even though this phenomenon does not seamlessly continue into some ancient traditions that followed. In the face of the above however, to find the traditional period of a people one has to identify the geographical area of this group in order to consider the autochthonous art practice of the place so as to determine its cultural beginnings, extent, and forms of art explored. In the case of Ghana, one observes that, art historians usually site the beginning of painting at the time when colonial educational training of the arts was begun in Achimota from the 1900s. The study was conducted using historical review and analysis, unstructured interview guides as well as participant and non-participant observational techniques in a descriptive design at Sirigu, Ahwiaa and Ntonso, revealing the forms of painting that existed in the country before the introduction of formal training by the colonial masters. The result showed that Ghanaians traditionally practiced different kinds of painting, long before the colonial art training programme was introduced. We feel it should be of concern for any people to be able to tell, not only how, and why but also when they started doing the things that matter to their existence and cultural heritage.

References

Antubam, K. (1963). Ghana’s Heritage of Culture, KoelerAmelang Leipzig. P. 76.

Anquandah, J. (1982). Rediscovering Ghana’s Past, Longman Group Limited Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex U. K. P. 96.

Arnaut, K. (2004). Performing Displacement and Rephrasing Attachments, Ethnographic Exploration of Mobility in Art, Ritual, Media and Politics. Published PhD. Dissertation. Ghent University Belgium.

Asihene, E. (1978). Understanding the Traditional Art of Ghana.Associated University Press. London. P. 79.

Bowdich, T. E. (1819). Mission From Cape Coast to Ashantee. London. John Murray.

Courtney, C. (1990). African Canvas. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. New York. P. 20.

Davidson, et al (1965). The Growth of African Civilization A history of West Africa 1000 – 1800. Longman Group Limited.

Farrington, L. E. (2005). CREATING THEIR OWN IMAGE. The History of African American Artists.Oxford University Press.P. 16.

Flam, J. D. &Deutch, M. (2003). Primitivism and Twentieth-century Art: A Documentary History. University of California Press.

Hartt, F. (1976).Art; a History of Painting Sculpture and Architecture.Vol. 1.Prehistory.Ancient World.Middle Ages.Prentice-Hall Inc. Engle Wood Cliffs. N. J. P. 19.

Ivins, W. M. Jr. (1953) Prints and Visual Communication. Cambridge and London MIT Press.P. 147.

Kasfir, S. L. (1999). Contemporary African Art. London: Thames and Hudson.

Lovejoy, P. E. (2000). Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Sec. Ed. Cambridge University Press. P.32.

Mate, C.M.O. (1966).Visual History of Ghana. Morrison and Gibbs Limited, London. P. 4.

Mount, M. (1936). African Art the Years since 1920.Indiana University Press Bloomington London.

---------------- (1981). Henry Moore visits the British Museum. British Museum Publications. (P. 11).

Mudimbe, V. Y. (1998). “Reprendre” Enunciations and Strategies in Contemporary African Art” in Africa Explore. New York: The Centre for African Art.

Nwanosike, Oba F. and Onyije, Liverpool E. (2011). COLONIALISM AND EDUCATION Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Teaching, Learning and Change. International Association for Teaching and Learning (IATEL).Retrieved: 8th February, 2014.

Okpeho, I. (1987). Principles of Traditional African Art.Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.Vol. 35.Part 3.Pp 301-13.

Oloidi, O. (1981) Modern Nigerian Art: The Implantation Development Direction and Analysis, From 1900-1960 (Unpublished Thesis) University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Ritchie and Lewis (2003).Qualitative Research Practice.A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Walter, R. (1972). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: Bogle – L’ouverture Publications Coldershaw Road, London.

Wingert, P. S. (1962). Primitive Art.Oxford University Press. (P. 7).

Downloads

Published

2014-10-05

Issue

Section

Article

Similar Articles

1-10 of 358

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.