Black art
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Black art (art nègre) can refer to:
- Art forms by persons of African descent (related articles: African art, African literature, African film, African American studies, African American art, African American literature, African American film, BLK Art Group Caribbean art, Caribbean literature, Caribbean film etc.)
- specifically to the American, Australasian or European Black Arts Movement.
- Magic
- from the 1400s through the victorian era, typesetting was referred to as the "black art".[1] [May 2007]
African art's influence on Western art
At the start of the twentieth century, artists like Picasso, Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh and Modigliani became aware of, and inspired by, African art. In a situation where the established avant garde was straining against the constraints imposed by serving the world of appearances, African Art demonstrated the power of supremely well organised forms; produced not only by responding to the faculty of sight, but also and often primarily, the faculty of imagination, emotion and mystical and religious experience. These artists saw in African Art a formal perfection and sophistication unified with phenomenal expressive power. The study of and response to African Art, by artists at the beginning of the twentieth century facilitated an explosion of interest in the abstraction, organisation and reorganisation of forms, and the exploration of emotional and psychological areas hitherto unseen in Western Art. By these means, the status of visual art was changed. Art ceased to be merely and primarily aesthetic, but became also a true medium for philosophic and intellectual discourse, and hence more truly and profoundly aesthetic than ever before.
