By Elizabet H. Elys: Culture means the way in
which people understand themselves and interact with each other and their
environment. Culture combines many elements to create a unique way of living
for different people. In every culture exist four elements: Symbols, Language,
Value and Norms.
Element of Culture
Culture exists
anywhere humans exist, and no two cultures are exactly the same. These elements
look different across culture, and many changes with time a society evolves.
Symbols
The first
element that exists in every culture is a variety of symbols. People who share
a culture often attack a specific meaning to an object, gesture, sound or
image. For example, a cross is significant symbol to Christians. It represents
the basis of their entire religion, and they have great reverence for the
symbol.
Language
The second
element present in every culture is a language. It is a system of words and
symbols used to communicate with other people. This includes full languages,
such as English, Spanish, French, etc. But also includes body language, slang,
and common phrases that are unique to certain groups of people.
Value
Another
cultural element is a system of value, which are culturally defined for what is
good or desirable. Members of the culture use the shared system of value to
decide what is good and what is bad.
Types of Norms
The last element
of culture is collection of norms. Norms are culturally defined expectation of behavior.
They are guidelines we use to determine how we should behave in any given
situation and what would be considered inappropriate behavior.
19th
century was referred to as Victorian Era or Time of Transition. People learned
about different cultures, relations and the past. It was time of the Industrial
Revolution and the Enlightenment. This age of exploration concerned with human
physiognomy, psychology and value. Focus in contemporary human conditions
accompanied this empirical mindset, given rise to ideas about the role of
tradition in nature and society. People
were curious about the past; history became weapons of political propaganda and
instrument of politics.
Culture became a
social process whereby people communicate meanings, make sense of their world, construct
their identities, and define their beliefs and values. People start to be conscious
and aware about a society and culture. According to Karl Marx, he argued that
consciousness does not determine social being, rather social being determines
consciousness. Human existence is rooted in the economic dynamics of trade,
markets and production. He opposite the idealistic outlook from Plato to Hegel,
that culture is defined as an ideal realm of thought and meaning independent of
social dynamics.
People wanted to
turn to the nature. Nature means beauty and primitivism.
Primitivism was a
movement of late 19th century; people were interested in knowledge of
foreign cultures. The Europeans discovered the art and culture of Africa,
Micronesia, and Native Americans, and were fascinated and educated by the
newness, wildness and stark power embodied in the art and culture of those
faraway places.
In the early 20th
century African culture and their artwork were being brought to Paris museums
in consequence of the expansion of the French Empire into Sub-Saharan Africa.
It was natural in this climate of African interest that inspired Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso. Raw power and simplicity of this art fascinated not only Picasso
but another’s artists.
The first artist
to systematically use primitive effects was Paul Gauguin a French artist. He used
the specific characters like exaggerated body proportions, animal totems,
geometric design and contrasts.
In 1870 s,
thousands of African sculptures arrived in Europe, they were placed in view in
museums such as Musee D’ Etnographie Du Trocadero in Paris, also in Berlin, Munich
and London. At the time, these subjects were treated as artifacts of colonized
cultures rather than as artworks.
Modern artists
were drawn to Africa sculpture because of its sophisticated approach to the
abstraction of the human figure.
Amedeo
Modigliani, an Italian painter and member of School of Paris was such influenced
by African art, especially by Baule mask and figures from Ivory Coast.
Every African
country is and was a mix of tribes each with their own unique culture. P.
Picasso was so fascinated of Dan people of Africa, when he saw a mask and
others sculptures he was visiting and viewing over and over African art at the
Etnographic Museum. Picasso’s passion and discovery of African art influenced
the style of his painting; he continued to develop a style derived from African
art before beginning the Analytic Cubism.
During the early
1900 s, the traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among
European artists who formed an Avant- garde in the development of modern art. In
France Henri Matisse, P. Picasso and their School of Paris friends blended the
stylized treatment of the human figure in African sculptures with painting
styles derived from the Post-Impressionist works of P. Cezanne and P. Gauguin.
While these artists knew nothing of the original meaning and function of the
West and Central African sculptures, they recognized the spiritual aspect of the
composition and adapted these qualities to their own creation.
Matisse and
Picasso were key figures in the spread of interest in African-influence
modernism among the Avant- Garde in the USA, in 1914 on exhibition in the USA
was first time presented African sculptures as Art.
The work of
Picasso and Matisse continued to reflect the influence of African art well into
the mid-twenty century.
Picasso said: The African sculptures helped me to
understand a purpose as painter, which was not entertain with decorative images, but to mediate between
perceived reality and the creativity of the human mind-to freed for fear of unknown
by given form to it.
