African Art Patterns and Other African Art

African art patterns are often forgotten when people are thinking about African art. To Western people they equate African art to all sorts of African sculptures from masks, headdresses and other figures. This though is to miss one of the most vibrant and culturally significant forms of expression for African people and artists. This being African art patterns which are most usually created from textiles.

For modern African artists they point to textile instead of sculpture as the basis and inspiration for their work. If you look back in history even the famous western artist Matisse used textiles which relied on North African Cloths which goes to show that he found them as important as Picasso found Grebo mask for his own work.

The are three categories for textile African art patterns which are woven, dyed and printed or painted. In many designs of woven fabric the pattern is limited because of the structure of the loom for example the kente cloth in which many narrow hand loomed bands are later joined together.

This leads to the impression that the strip or band is to Africa what the grid is to postwar Western painting. Kente cloth can incorporate many resources such as linked aluminum caps from spirit bottles. 

An alternative to weaving African art patterns in textile can be viewed in adinkra and adire wrapper. This is made from Yoruba textiles made by stamping fabric with dark painting or pigment with a starchy paste that withstands dye.

The overall effect is to end up with African art patterns which are blocks of pattern rather than the more traditional bands and dyed a deep indigo blue. The reason for indigo blue is its connection with archaic African faith.

Back To the Basics Of African Art Patterns and Textiles

To use the example of the Bamana, the Senufo and the Dogon the fabric is woven in strips around 6 to 8 inches wide which are then sewn together for dying or painting. Traditionally the men do the weaving and the women spin the cotton into thread.

Still in this day and age most tribes still stitch their fabrics together by hand. The whole method of weaving is a principal reference to tales about the origin of the world as found in the writings of Griaule about the Dogon.

The Dogon and Bamana use comparable procedures to color their textile African art patterns. The method is to first completely dye all fabric yellow (though now and then brick red) using roots of certain plants. Then they paint on the designs with a mud mixture and then coat it with a highly corrosive soap forming a type of resist. When this task is completed the fabric is then treated with a very dark river mud which is nearly black. Once the corrosive effect has taken place the fabric is then soaked several times to bring out lighter patters against the dark background.

The overall effect are to create wonderful vibrant textile African art patterns that capture the essence of the peoples of Africa. The designs and methods to create these wonderful works of art as diverse as the people of Africa from those who reside near table mountain to the those of the Nile delta.