"لقد كانت القبائل الأفريقية تؤمن بوجود قوة إلهية عليا ،
الملخص الانجليزي
"African tribes believed in the existence of a supreme divine power, but besides
that, we find that African wood carving also represents secondary deities that
control the forces of nature such as rain and lightning, the fertility of crops, and
human activities such as hunting, war and sex.“However, the main activity in
religious belief was the sanctification of ancestors and ancestors, because it was in
the belief that the soul of the dead continues to live because part of it goes to the
other world where it is connected to the gods to work on the care of the living.”
Hence, the African mask had a great suggestive power. It affects individuals and
groups in African tribes through the ambiguity it contains, and this ambiguity
confirms the raw materials that are added to the raw wood, such as feathers, hair,
bones and leather, and sometimes unfamiliar materials were added for a ideological
purpose, such as the sunken nails in the huge and prominent “Konko” idols. Yes,
tingling the still soul.” “Every tribe had its example inspired by the heritage, and
this example meant the artist’s commitment to sculpt a specific work from the head
of the tribe or group who takes care of this work so that he sees it consistent in its
form and function with the requirements of religious rituals” “And since the
African example was one of the participants In the ceremonies in which he uses his
wood carvings, he has become able to take care of their distinctive characteristics,
while they perform their task in display and then develop some of their traditional
features to become more effective and effective. In other words, we can say That
the ritual task is what determines the form of the sculptural work executed from
wood and the survival of its symbolic effect derived from the heritage of the tribe..
We find in each of the African arts the tribal methods that make their way between
devotion to nature and the aesthetic development of these methods. Abstraction
often prevails as a method in one tribe and may tend towards the natural tendency
in another tribe. The following is an exposition of the classification of African
masks in terms of “First: Classifying African masks from a social point of view and
divided into: A- Tribal dolls “carried by a young married woman looking forward
to an easy pregnancy and childbearing.” Males or females, according to the shape
of their doll, as well as helping her during childbirth. Dolls are characterized by
simplifying the components of the hands and arms in the wooden carving and
almost eliminating the legs. They are also characterized by the cylindrical body and
attention to the head. They are circular or rectangular with an elongation of the
neck. It is composed of geometric elements such as a circle, cylinder and cone in an
organic style. We find the organic style in these statues depends on treating the
human figure from acute angles, and often determines the general features of the
carved wooden figure associated with certain deities from the point of view of the
African example, a method that results in dropping the details , while we find in it a
certain inherited type of memorial characteristics, there is a dual relationship
between the intellectual contents of the sculpture Wooden, and its expressive form,
which needs expertise and an aesthetic experience to push it into the circle of
conscious aesthetic attention, which the African example did not neglect in building
its wood carvings and did not hesitate in ways to achieve interaction between the
two sides of the relationship by mixing more than one element, mediator and style
in one sculpture B - Statues The predecessor:
أ.د/عصام محمد محفوظ | Prof.Dr.Essam Mohamed Mahfouz | 20968