African Art Vs. European Way Of Art

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African art is very unique in many aspects. African art is traditionally abstract, and beautiful in its own way. Many people believe that African art is so different that judging it based on the scale of the rest of the world is useless, due to the fact that African art is not like anything else in the world. African art seems to have never gotten the proper discovery it deserved, and here’s why. The process of the discovery of these artifacts were poor. The archeologists who found the arts were educated and wealthy white European men who just wanted to “try it”. They had no experience or skill at doing this. They put all of the artifacts into jeopardy. Jeopardizing the very history that the creators tried so hard to preserve and show in their …show more content…

European artists created works that were smooth and beautiful versions of the real world. Sculptures like Michelangelo’s David are more than what the person looked like. They were beautiful, flawless sculptures. The sculptures and paintings are of real things and portray real objects. This makes them more pleasing to the eye, more desirable and more popular. The European attitude to the arts of other cultures were negative, they were influenced by ideas of evolution. Both ideas put European culture at the top of the scales, using its works as the judgement standard for the arts of other cultures. And since most of the sculptures and masks from Africa were very abstract in style, European people looked down on them as "primitive" and a sad attempt at recreating life like images. Even though in the early 1920’s the discovery of terracotta heads and brass figures happened they thought it was the works of foreigners. They believed that it was the Greeks. African art was traditional, and abstract in style. In Europe artists created works of art for viewing. There was no other deeper meaning behind their art. That is one huge difference in art type. The African people had more connection with their art. The artists of Africa created figures for shrines, to worship their gods, in the pavement areas of the Yoruba

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