The Magic of African Arts And Crafts

Africa is well known for its art and craft works, most of these arts works are found in the form of sculptures, fabric work, decorative items, musical instruments like drums, and paintings. Most of the statues will be carved in the form of humans, which represents great leaders. They make their art work in such a way that each and every piece of art reveals their tradition and culture.

Most of the time the statues of animals will be included with human sculptures to honor great people and to respect them. Because animals like horse are well known as noble animals, when a persons figure is carved with this kind of animals, that person is considered as a noble person, who should be respected. The carvings are mostly made out of wood and stones.

There are many evidences which show that African arts could be found as early as 500BC. In some places of Sahara and Nigeria there are sculptures carved on rocks and woods. Metals like Bronze were also used by the people to make statues out of it. They even used terracotta and ivory to make their art work more rich, which was usually reserved for royalties. These kind of unique art pieces were the decorative items for many houses in those days. People use to wear fabrics made with art work, which resembles the wearer as a part of an art piece. They even made wall paintings which were made out of wood and they used it as decorative items.

Most of the African arts and crafts resemble its tradition and culture. Each and every art piece resembles the daily life and culture of African peoples. And today those arts can be found in museums, one good example is African masks. African people used masks on some occasional days or on some regional ceremonies, and even in wars and also on the day of harvesting.

They design the masks according to their county or tribe, each design has its own kind of pattern and style. For example the Dan people of Ivory Coast and Liberia carve their masks with features such as wide fore head, flattened nose, full lips, and the strands of rope attached at the top of masks to make it look like hairs. The people of Congo in Punu make their masks with wood and paint it in white color, which resembles rich women. And they use these masks to scare off evil spirits and witches.

African baskets are another art which was made in old African tradition. There are some particular places in Africa where baskets are famous, like Esths and Gumare tribes. In those day's the basketry were usually carried over the head, as the culture grew, two ropes were tied on each side of basket and they were carried in hands and named as handbags. As a result many unique and rich varieties of hand bags were made with some appealing arts on it. They even used materials such as mud cloth and suede to make bags. Even today African arts and crafts are in a great demand among people as they are very magnificent.

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