The Art of South Africa
By: Nicholas Strauss
South Africa has a long and rich history of visual art created in the country. In fact, the oldest art in the world was discovered in a South Africa cave dating 75,000 years ago. The culture aspect of South Africa is a huge apart of what makes this beautiful country so unique.
The nomadic hunters of early Africa, the San Bushmen found a home in the caves of Africa and began using colors derived from plant and earth pigment to create beautiful pictures on cave walls. This began the long history of beautiful South African art that span till modern day. These pictures usually involved hunting or fighting other humans and accurately portray the complicated life of the nomads of Africa. The San people lived in caves for four millennia which gave a large sample size of beautiful art that defines the deep-rooted culture of old-Africa.
During the colonial era many artists in South Africa tried to focus on the “new world”. Many different artists, Pieter Hugo Naude, traveled the country to attempt to accurately portray the beautiful flora and fauna of the country for the people who lived back in the metropolis.
Apartheid was a troubling time for South African art, but it still gave way to many different art styles. While most black artists were ignored in this period of time, many white artists brought landscape painting and abstract art into South Africa. These artists not only made things that are undeniably beautiful, they also showed through their music their passion for their country in such troubling times.
South African art has a huge influence on many famous artists around the world as well. Famous artists like Walter Battiss have uses the rock art form the San Bushmen as the bases for his style of light, which he highlights in his book, Symbols Of Life. Cecil Skotnes was largely influenced by different woodcut African masks that were made in the colonial period. This influence allowed Skotnes to become a world-renowned artist by mixing African styles with European modernism.
South Africa does not only influence European artists though, the country has produced many of it’s own artists as well. Artists like Gerard Sekoto concentrated on depicting the real life South Africa and the struggles they faced. Through forceful expressionism Sekoto gave the truth about the area that he called home. Seketo’s painting, Yellow House, was the first work by a black artist to be bought by the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Sekoto was not the only one to have such a polarizing view in his work. Black artists such like Azaria Mbatha and John Muafangejo were also famous for their striking visuals and accurate portrayal of South Africa.
As apartheid became more and more repressive, many artists work became more and more polarizing. Artists Paul Stopforth began making a series of work focuses on police brutality and artists Robert Hodgins created art that turned South African leaders into ominous and sinister rulers of a corrupt country. While the entire country was in pain, that only brought out another side of South African art. Helen Sebidi created collages and pastels detailing her struggles as a human living in such a tough area and William Kentridge made drawings depicting the ironies of white South African life. During this time all this art was considered “resistant art”.
Without a doubt, no matter what the world throws at South Africa they will never stop making beautiful art. The vibrant culture of South Africa is the center of all of Africa and influences the rest of world with its artistic style while also providing the world with multiple artists that are unique to this vibrant and beautiful country. I was very familiar with South Africa before I began this study, but I had no idea how much of a cultural center it was for the entire country. So much art has come out of the country that it has to be considered one of the major art producers in the world.