Introduction

As with studying most works of art, many questions arise when studying an African object. There are questions of origin, such as who made the object, where it was made, and when it was made. Also of interest is the physical object itself; for example, how it was made, what materials were used to create it, what its compositional elements (volume, color, texture) are, and what the scale of the object is. Subjective inquiries also may be made, such as what its purpose was, what it symbolizes, what it indicates about the culture or creator, and what are your own first reactions and impressions of the work.

Questions such as these may get complicated in studying West African Art. Often, the exact person who made the piece is not known; in many African cultures, the emphasis falls upon the community as a whole, rather than the individual. As a result, the identity of a work's creator can not usually be traced to a particular artist. Also, most of African history has been an oral history; because there are no written records, it is hard to learn the complete history of both the objects and the culture which produced them. Another complication as a Westerner studying West African Art is that object is not made as a work of art; it is made for a specific purpose. While the objects do have a strong sense of aesthetics which may seem to qualify them in our own terms as works of art, they were not intended to be displayed or looked at in such a manner.