African art
The term covers only the African art, and especially the sculptures and the carvings (mainly in wood) of large areas around the valleys of the Niger and the Congo (the ancient Egyptian art and painting of the Bushmen of South Africa discussed separately). Furthermore, a distinction should be made between the courtier art (especially of Ife and Benin), which is an art with naturalistic and festive features in durable materials like stone, terracotta, bronze, etc. and the often abstract art that is intended for religious ceremonies and includes masks or ancestral forms carved in wood (this type of African art is one that strongly influenced many European artists in the 20th century). The various tribes of Africa are inspired of similar beliefs. In African religions, the "being" treated not only as "the state of living" but as a vital energy. Everything that exists has a vital force or energy, and if the humans properly understood and approached these powers, may use them. However, to ensure the preservation and the enhancement of vital energy, both within each individual and the race must at regular intervals and in certain circumstances be performed religious rites. The masks and the statues are used for communication with the world of spirits, for the worship of the ancestors as a sort of protective amulets in the direct "exploitation" of the vital energy in the world. The artist works within the limits of some types of contracts, in order to "integrate" in his sculpture a concept that is associated with the issue and give it the necessary mobilization and generation. Both the realistic reproduction of his subject and the production of "beautiful" forms are indifferent. The head of the statue is often disproportionately large due to the belief that it is the seat of vital energy and is therefore more important than the body. African figurines are almost always carved on a single tree trunk, thus producing a tendency to prolong the body with the hands to remain stuck in the side and a kind of perspective of performance characteristics (Ashanti, Bakuba, Baluba, Bambara, Dahomey, Dogon, Fang, Mende, Knock and Yoruba).