Antique African masks, the best of tribal art!

 

African art is justly famous for its directness, and African masks tend to be outright confronting. Antique tribal masks, from whatever African people, ethnicity or tribe, have a quality that appeals to the ancient parts of the human brain: they hit our consciousness with an impact that is devastating and revealing at the same time. If you leave the often nefarious airport art aside, even into the present day many African masks have this haunting quality. One of the reasons is that African art is rarely made as "art only" - almost always it serves a purpose not only of beauty, but also of religious, spiritual and/or ceremonial character. In this sense it can be said that all traditional African art is by its very nature applied art. The modern African airport art has lost this characteristic, hence becoming decorative only.

 

The navigation links to the left give you a great range of African antique masks, ordered by people, ethnicity and/or tribe. The pages roam most, if not all, of Africa - that enormous continent with its plethora of cultures and traditions. Yet you'll see that, whatever group you pick, you're always confronted with something that quite literally "touches", or even "hits" your soul. Which, due to their traditional background, is exactly what these masks are meant and created to do! It has often struck me as remarkable, how much of this African quality has been preserved in African-American art.