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The Art of South Africa
An Eclectic Mix of Diverse Cultures
The Willie Bester Home
One of the defining characteristics of
our species is the making of art.
(Art; from Latin 'ars' meaning worked or formed
from basic material.)
"Art of South Africa"
Is a term used to
denote creative output by human beings from South Africa.
 
Shells found by archaeologist Chris Henshilwood in
2004 at Blombos Cave near Cape Town are dated to be 75,000 years old.
The perforations of these shells indicate they were used as beads.
The oldest art objects in the world were
discovered in a South African cave. Dating from 75,000 years ago, these
small drilled snail shells could have no other function than to have
been strung on a string as a necklace. South Africa was one of the
cradles of the human species.
Twyfelfontein Namibia Brandberg Namibia
The scattered tribes of Khoisan/San/
Bushman peoples moving into South Africa from around 10000 BCE had their
own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings. They
were superseded by Bantu/Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of
art forms.
Alfred Thoba - 1976 Riots
Sydney Kumalo - Matriarch
Leap ahead to the present era, when
traditional tribal forms of art were scattered and re-melded by the
divisive policies of apartheid. New forms of art evolved in the mines
and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to
bicycle spokes.
William Kentridge
Add to this the Dutch-influenced folk art
of the hardy Afrikaner Trek Boers and the urban white artists earnestly
following changing European traditions from the 1850's onwards, and you
have an eclectic mix which continues to evolve today.
Paleolithic Rock Art
The pre-Bantu peoples migrating
southwards from around the year 30000 BCE were nomadic hunters who
favored caves as dwellings. Before the rise of the Nguni peoples along
the east and southern coasts and central areas of Africa, these nomadic
hunters were widely distributed. It is thought they entered South Africa
at least 10000 years ago.
San Woman (Bushman)
They have left numerous detailed cave
paintings (so-called 'Bushman' paintings) depicting hunting, domestic
and magic-related art. There is a stylistic unity across the region and
even with more ancient art in the Tassili N'Ajjer region of northern
Africa, and also in what is now desert Chad but was once lush country.
Brandberg Namibia
The figures are dynamic and elongate, and
the colors (derived probably from earthen and plant pigments and
possibly also from insects) combine ochre red, white, grey, black, and
many warm tones ranging from red through to primary yellow.
Brandberg Namibia
Common subjects include hunting, often
depicting with great accuracy large animals which no longer inhabit the
same region in the modern era, as well as warfare among humans, dancing,
domestic scenes, multiple images of various animals, including giraffes,
antelope of many kinds, and snakes. The last of these works are poignant
in their representation of larger, darker people and even of white
hunters on horseback, both of whom would supplant the 'Bushman' peoples.
Ken Karner
Brandberg - The White Lady
Many of the 'dancing' figures are
decorated with unusual patterns and may be wearing masks and other
festive clothing. Other paintings, depicting patterned quadrilaterals
and other symbols, are obscure in their meaning, and may be
non-representational. Similar symbols are seen in shamanistic art
worldwide.
Twyfelfontein Petroglyphs
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Twyfelfontein Namibia
This art form is distributed from Angola in the west to Mozambique and
Kenya, throughout Zimbabwe and South Africa and throughout Botswana
wherever cave conditions have favored preservation from the elements.
The African Era
South Africa has a multiplicity of races and cultures. In addition, the
recent political history has been divisive of societies across the
sub-continent. It is inevitable that this socio-political maelstrom has
produced a disparate variety of art forms. Very broadly speaking the art
of South Africa can be seen, in terms of rough division into categories,
as falling into a two by two matrix: traditional or modern, 'black' or
'other.'
    
African traditional tribal art typically has a range of recognizable
forms within which the artisans work and which allows recognition of
their tribal origin. A few examples include: the wall decorations of the
northern Ndebele of South Africa (though some would argue these to be
modern), the beaded aprons worn by Zulu and Xhosa girls (and other
tribes) before marriage, the patterns on the Dhlo-dhlo headband, Sotho
blanket designs and various other fairly rigid genres showing typical
tribal influences.
20th Century Contemporary Art
Willie Bester - Forced Removal
On the other hand, the apartheid policies of the 20th century forced
mass dislocation of peoples into rural 'bantustans' and urban areas or
'townships'. The mining culture in particular produced characteristic
decorated travel trunks, decorated transistor radios, blankets with
urban motifs, and the like. Art of this era represents a 'modern' black
art form less easily recognized as belonging to a particular tribe.
Carvings and paintings also recorded various urban difficulties,
lifestyles and objects: queues, busing, drunkenness, urban poverty,
vehicles, the 'dompas,' police activity, etc.
Cecil Skotnes
'Other' art in South Africa, both modern
and traditional, has been essentially by white artists, though the
Indian and the 'Cape Malay' or 'Coloured' traditions have certain
recognizable clothing and musical art forms. Again, as with black art,
the white art has tended to fall into: art based on traditional
European/'white tribal' forms, that is, two-dimensional oil painting in
the European realist mold (usually urban artists) and the folk art or
rural art of the Boers, and secondly: modern art, (1910 onwards) which
itself can be divided into two groupings: 'apolitical,' usually realist
or influenced by European and American Modern movements; and distinctly
local 'political' art produced through the apartheid years.
Apartheid Art
This 'political' art of the apartheid era
often originated in the universities and large cities and was often
ephemeral in the sense of being graffiti, protest cartoons or similar
works published in university publications. These were often banned, and
anyway not intended for deliberate preservation. Many white artists also
exhibited works critical of the white apartheid regime. Several
exhibitions were closed by government order for their political or
'obscene' content, or items within the exhibitions were ordered to be
removed from display.
Elephant Dance - Craig Foster
Detail - Craig Foster
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