FREE ESSAY ON THE ART OF INFLUENCE

THE ART OF INFLUENCE

THE ART OF INFLUENCE;
Africa And Its' Influence On Western Art Between The Mid-Nineteenth Century and The First
World War
During the mid 19th century up until the Great War of 1914, European countries began to
heavily colonize and come into contact with African nations. This was called "new
imperialism". During this contact, European culture was influenced by Africa. The
influence of the African people can be seen in the European society of the time. In the
19th and 20th centuries, modern artists embraced African art for its lack of pretension
or formal qualities. 
In the latter part of the 19th century, the "scramble for Africa," consolidated at the
Berlin Conference, divided the terrain of the African continent among the numerous
European contenders. Fourteen countries were represented by a plethora of ambassadors
when the conference opened in Berlin on November 15, 1884. The countries represented at
the time included Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway (unified from 1814-1905),
Turkey, and the United States of America. Of these fourteen nations, France, Germany,
Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal were the major players in the conference,
controlling most of colonial Africa at the time. At the point of the symposium, only the
coastal parts of Africa had been colonized. The idea behind the conference was to also
annex control over the resource rich interior. 
As a result of the scramble, the British received control over Egypt, Sudan Uganda,
Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, as well as, Nigeria and Ghana. The
French acquired, much of western Africa, from Mauritania to Chad, Gabon, the Republic of
Congo, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Italians established power in Ethiopia and Somalia,
and the Dutch controlled the Congo and South Africa. Portugal took Mozambique in the east
and Angola in the west. Germans claimed Namibia and Tanzania, and Spain was rationed
Equatorial Guinea. 
South of the Sahara Desert, there were three distinct types of societies; nomadic tribes
in the desert and steppe regions, sedentary farming cultures located in the savanna and
"rain-forest fringe" areas, and the ancient 
sophisticated kingdoms of Nigeria and the Guinea coast. All three sectors of the African
society had different art traditions. However, all three were similar in certain aspects.
These aspects being the similar attention to craftsmanship, a general use of
non-permanent materials, use of geometric abstraction, and religious orientation. 
Religion was at most often marked in masks and sculpture. Masks were used in many ritual
ceremonies to embody spiritual forces. Geometric and
naturalistic shapes were combined to represent a recognizable human face. As part of the
daily ritualistic routine, families would often present offerings to cult figures,
full-body images kept in homes as insurance of protection. The decorative arts,
especially in textiles and in the ornamentation of everyday tools, were a vital art in
nearly all African cultures. Wood was one of the most frequently used
materials—often embellished by clay, shells, beads, ivory, metal, feathers, and
shredded raffia.
As the contact between Europeans and Africans grew, parts of African culture assimilated
into that of the Europeans. Europeans would bring home treasures found in Africa on their
many journeys. These possessions were various forms of African art. Soon after the
European colonization, African art began making its' way into European culture. Some of
the African artifacts brought back from Africa with Europeans during the colonization
period, were displayed at Paris' Ethnographic Museum. These tribal or primitive arts of
Africa were virtually unknown to many artists until visiting the museum. Pablo Picasso
made his first visit in 1907. The artifacts he saw greatly influenced Picasso and his
coworkers, such as Georges Braque, who founded the European avant-garde artistic movement
of Cubism in the latter part of that year. 
Cubism was and still is the most influential movement in the history of modern art. The
epoch came in three stages. The first stage, Analytic Cubism, was characterized by the
simplification, distortion, and emphasis of the forms of objects. It consisted of facets,
or cubes, arranged in superimposed, transparent planes with clearly defined edges that
established mass, space, and the implication of movement. During this period, Picasso and
Braque employed a palette of muted greens, greys, browns, and ochre. Many cubists were
strongly influenced by the formal simplification and expressive power viewed in black
African sculpture. The second phase of cubism was marked by the disappearance of the
representation of objects and a slow phase-out of the separation of form and space.
Synthetic Cubism was the third and final stage of the movement. Synthetic cubists wanted
to improve reality with the creation of new tasteful objects. It is in this phase, where
African influence is most apparent in Picasso's work. His characters began to obtain
oddly shaped faces, resembling those of African masks and sculpture. The colors in his
palette changed to earth tones that were emblematic of African sculpture. Wild animals,
which were typically found in the African range such as bulls and other horned creatures,
also began surfacing in his work. His great curiosity with African sculpture was also
directly seen in the representations of African characters conventionally made of wood
and other materials.
Picasso's most famous painting, as well as the start of cubism, is considered by many to
be Les Mademoiselles d'Avignon (The Women of Avignon). This extraordinary painting,
fabricated by Picasso in 1907, includes many facets of African sculpture and art. The
painting depicts five female prostitutes in a brothel. In the artwork, three central
women obtain the "simplified structure of earlier creations" (McDonald, 12). These
figures are composed of flat, splintered planes. Arms raised above their heads, these
three forms strike seductive poses. Though the two additional figures at the right edge
of the work are still constructed having clearly defined planes, they are no longer
modeled by light but violently twisted in a system of "internal torques" which is applied
to the special framework and human form. The two somewhat distorted figures on the right
are also adorned with masks that emerge directly out of African culture. 
Other works done by Picasso such as Negro Dancer, also demonstrate elements of African
art. The Negro Dancer, also done in 1907, incorporates an African mask titivating the
dancer. In addition, this composition is done in the celebrated cubist structure.
Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein includes mask like treatment of her face, which was
influenced by African artists. Other Picasso paintings indicating African influence
include, Seated Nude done in 1907, Nude Figure of 1910, and Man with Mandolin completed
in 1911. Head of a Woman, done in 1909, as well as Mandolin and Clarinet, 1913
illustrates Pablo Picasso's interest in the sculptural form of African sculptures. 
Picasso was not the only European artist to find inspiration from ethnic art. Another
artist, whose work exemplifies African influence, is Paul Gauguin. After being drawn into
Impressionism, Gauguin realized that he did not agree with and later rejected the
formless movement. Gauguin wanted to return to a "primitive style of art with simple
forms and symbolism rendered in a decorative and stylized way", (Brommer, 383). Like
Picasso, Paul Gauguin also visited an exhibition in which he was subjected to African
art. The Exposition Universelle of 1889 opened in Paris on May 6th. This grandiose event
lasted six months. During this time the exhibit "brought together some 60,000 exhibitors
and attracted over 28 million visitors." (Merlhes, 81) The esplanade of the "Invalides"
was devoted to various pavilions, but principally to the Colonial Exhibition. 
The Egyptian sector of the exposition featured many panoramas from industrial life in
Egypt some 5,000 years before. The scenes at the showing were derived from the
Khnoumhospou tomb at Beni-Hassan. Many of the vistas depicted workers in the fields in
the form of a register. Egyptian registers were comprised of a group of people working or
carrying on in the form of a line. All subjects in a register stood next to each other,
with no feeling of depth. Registers could comprise an entire piece of art, or could just
be a part of the whole illustration. The Egyptian studio also demonstrated the spinning
and weaving in ancient Egypt. On one of the walls present in the studio, two men were
portrayed working leaning towards one another. The men were represented in perfect
symmetry complimenting one another. In the scene from Beni-Hassan, much double symmetry,
both vertical and horizontal, is apparent. This symmetry, so frequent in the art of
ancient Egypt, is later found in the works of artists such as Meyer de Haan, and Gauguin.

The Colonial Exhibition would have a lasting impression on Gauguin's art. Beginning in
1889, after his appearance at the exhibition, Gauguin manifested for primitive painters
and for Japanese and Egyptian art. After his exposure to the art of other ethnicities,
changes in Gauguin's work began to appear. Like Egyptian artists, he outlined his shapes
and even used Egyptian poses in several of his paintings. In Gauguin's work Harvest
Brittany (1889), these aspects are clearly visible. In The Day of the God, a young native
mother and her two children are near the water while an immense image of a god towers
over them. In the configuration of an Egyptian register, a line of natives performs their
daily tasks in the background. 
Between 1901 and 1906, several comprehensive exhibitions were held in Paris, making the
work of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cezanne widely accessible for the first
time. Gauguin's work had a particularly large influence on the novel art movement,
Fauvism. The Fauvists carried the idea of arbitrary expression further, translating their
feelings into color with a rough, almost clumsy style. This style mimicked that of
African artists. Vlaminck was one of the Fauves. A self-professed ``primitive'', he
ignored the wealth of art in the Louvre, preferring to collect the African masks that
became so important to early 20th-century art. Derain also showed a primitive wildness in
his Fauve period, Charing Cross Bridge, 1910, bestrides a strangely tropical London. His
late work, after 1912, showed the influence of many styles-including African
sculpture-and tended to become increasingly traditional and derivative, characterized by
muted color and fussily elaborated technique.
Emil Nolde was another artist who showed interest in the arts of Africa. His grotesque
faces, as seen in the Masks (1911), demonstrate this interest in primitive societies and
cultures. Nolde belonged to the group of artists characterized by German Expressionism.
German Expressionism was a movement in fine arts that accentuated the expression of inner
experience rather than solely realistic portrayal, seeking to depict not objective
reality but the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in the
artist. The German Expressionists were ardent admirers of Gauguin and other artists that
shared similar styles. Many artists belonging to German Expressionism studied
sub-equatorial African art in depth, trying to incorporate elements such as the
expressive masks and carvings into their production. 
Another painter associated with German Expressionism, was Franz Marc. While Marc painted
an array of subjects, he was most interested and proved the most talent in his portrayal
of animals. Before Marc, ethnic and primeval artists only placed such an emphasis on
animals in art. Franz Marc used " brilliant color in a symbolic and arbitrary way"
(Brommer, 398) combining it with shape and rhythm to dramatize the integration of all
creatures found in nature and on the open range. 
Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian painter who spent most of his life painting in Paris. At
first Modigliani's work was strongly influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec. However, he soon
developed a unique style distinguished by elongated distortion and strong linear rhythms
of African sculpture. His portrait sculptures are reminiscent of African masks in their
extended forms and stylized features. This representation is present in paintings such as
Nu Couche De Dos (Reclining Nude from the Back), and La Jeune Bonne (The Servant Girl).
A friend of Modigliani, Constantin Brancusi was a Rumanian artist, who had later moved to
Paris, involved in the Abstractionist movement. Brancusi's art heavily involved
sculpture. His limestone carving, The Kiss, fashioned in 1912 reveals his interest in
simplification and the elimination of detail. The simplification of
sculpture was an African characteristic he admired. Brancusi "cherished the basic upright
shape of the block of stone, considering it a strong primitive form, and carved it as
little as possible", (Brommer, 416)
Western artists had finally discovered the enduring qualities of African art. African art
has come to be appreciated for its intrinsic aesthetic value as well as continuing to be
a source of inspiration for the work of Western artists.
Bibliography: 
1. Brommer, Gerald F. Discovering Art History; Second Edition. Worcester, Massachusetts,
Davis Publications, 1988. 
2. Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, Turner. The Heritage Of World Civilizations. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey, Simon and Schuster, 1997. 
3. McDonald, Jesse. Pablo Picasso. Greenwich, Connecticut, Barnes and Noble Inc. by
arrangement with Brompton Books Corporation, 1993. 
4. Merlhes, Victor. Gauguin's Nirvana; Painters At Le Pouldu 1889-90. New Haven,
Connecticut and London England, Yale University Press, 2001. 
5. Pemberton II, John. Insight And Artistry in African Divination. London, England,
Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. 
6. Cole, Harns, Poynor, Visona. A History Of Art In Africa. Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2001
7. African Art, http://ln.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0802669.html 
8. Cubism Was Completely New, http://www.dirittoparlamentare.com/documento.html 
9. Georges Braque, http://www.sonic.net/fineart/bio/braque.html
10. Inspiration From The Art Of Different Cultures; African Art,
http://p…/aa100100b.htm?iam=dpile&terms=%2BAfrican+%2BInfluence+%2BCubism.html