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South African Art
a memory of the past and
a reflection of the present.
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Jaco Sieberhagen
The early years
Different types of tradition dominated the early art of
Southern Africa. The earliest tradition was that of the
indigenous people of this region. The rock art of the
San artists, some estimated as old as 20, 000 years and
the art of the people living in the northern parts of
South Africa (of which the oldest examples found are the
terracotta Lydenburg Heads dating back as far as 520 AD)
echoed African myths and beliefs. This tradition is
still alive today as found in the Venda sculptures,
Ndebele murals, Zulu weaving and beadwork and Xhosa
pottery.
In Echoes of African Art, Matsemela Manaka wrote that
“African art can be seen as a memory of the past and a
reflection of the present. It is the remembrance of the
past traditional practice transmitted in a form of
objects with function and aesthetic value.” Many
centuries were to pass before this heritage was
acknowledged and incorporated into the recorded history
of South African art.
Much later, yet another tradition of art developed
amongst the Europeans arriving in the Cape from 1652
onwards. Pioneers and travelers of Western origin like
Thomas Baines and Thomas Bowler were visual recorders of
events, scenery and people and left us with an observed
recording of everyday life in the Cape. Moslem art was
also introduced into South Africa from as early as 1658
with the arrival of slaves and people from the Eastern
Countries at the Cape.
In 1851 Cape Town arranged its first formal exhibition
of “fine art”. The exhibition was composed largely of
European exhibits borrowed from the houses of wealthy
residents. The first art School in the country – the
Roeland Street School of Art and Evening Classes was
founded in 1864. Up till the end of the 19th century,
artists came to Africa from overseas with their own
ideas and styles.
Art and artists became more organized
Many of the early members of the South African Society
of Artists (SASA) that was formed in 1902 were either
self-taught or guided by teachers schooled in the
Academies of England. Their romantic naturalism
possessed a fair degree of professional polish, which
won popular approval, and resulted in the emergence of a
South African “tradition” that has persisted to the
present day. Artists like Jan Volschenk (1853-1936) and
Hugo Naude (1869-1941) are regarded by most as the first
South African born professional painters and were the
first of a long line of South African landscapists in
the academic tradition.
As the 20th century progressed to its second quarter, a
growing number of artists were to make their first
encounter with the stimulating European art scene, but
at home they were confronted with more conservative
surroundings where even more dated art trends would seem
startling, bold and perhaps outrageous. Members of the
SASA under the leadership of Edward Roworth (1880-1964)
noted concerns towards the “decadent” French School and
its possible influence on the young South African
students. These concerns made the South African art
public very cautious towards any new developments in
art.
The turning point came in 1937 with the formation of the
New Group (1937-1953), a group of artists frustrated by
what they saw as the closed ideas and conservative
attitude of the establishment. Artists like Walter
Battiss (1906-1982) and Gregoire Boonzaier (1909 -)
participated in the first group exhibition.
The orientation of local paintings had begun to shift
from perceptual description of the landscape to the
mechanics of visual expression and the search for
personally valid methods of communicating experiences.
The artists of the new group were not linked by
adherence to any specific aesthetic attitude – other
than a shared and publicly – expressed contempt for the
amateurism prevailing in South African art. In its
general character the earlier work of the members of the
new group reflected the influence of European studies.
They managed to make the community of South Africa aware
that there were valid alternatives to the romantic
picture-postcards to which it was addicted. The artist’s
dedication to modern art highlighted in the invitation
to South Africa to exhibit for the first time on the
Venice Biennial in 1950 and the Sao Paulo Biennial in
1957.
Despite this slow growing identification with
international trends, the environment in which the local
artists worked was still very different from that of
Paris, London, or even New York. A strong national
movement had been stirring in South Africa and it was
now firmly set on the creation of a distinctive national
culture. Fortunately cultural expression is notoriously
unresponsive to decrees, thus regardless of preconceived
designs for the ideal of “national art”, better-informed
opinion prevailed and the course of South African
expression continued to be directed by the intrinsic
forces activating the country’s cultural development.
Melting pot
Cubists and Expressionists adopted elements of African
art, welding them into their sophisticated vision and
experience. But they took only the outer forms; they did
not probe the mystery.
The first European inhabitants of Southern Africa had
not even tried to penetrate the secrets of indigenous
race and culture. They only examined the outer visible
surface of the country: the landscape and the appearance
of people. Western art had however undergone a change:
physically with the development of non-figurative
conventions, and psychologically in its concern with
inner being, states of mind and abstract concepts.
The time was ripe for a more intimate look at the
mystique of Africa. Africa, not as a source of
traditional forms but as a context of experience, had at
last entered the consciousness of its most southern
community of artists. Walter Battis (1906-1982) and
Alexis Preller (1911-1975) were the pioneers in this
regard. This development introduced a problem in the
late 50s, and 60s, – that of choice between eclectic
internationalism and self-conscious Africanism.
In the search to identify with international currents
South African painting became a fermentation of
experimenting with every recent – and not so recent –
European style. But, amongst all the effort to bring
South African art into line with the 20th Century
development, a group of artists experienced a growing
realization that SA artists had never truly examined the
nature of their particular identity as South Africans.
During the sixties the intent of this group of artists
was to strip Africa of its mystique and to come to grips
with the un-romanticized reality. The Amadlozi group
formed in 1963 with artists like Cecil Skotnes(1926- ),
Sidney Kumalo (1935- ) and Edoardo Villa provided the
first deliberate emphasis on “Africanism”.
The neglected tradition
In November 1988, the Johannesburg Art Gallery mounted
an exhibition called “The Neglected Tradition”. This was
the first comprehensive large-scale show of black
artists in a major gallery in South Africa. The title
itself was an admission of just how pervasive the
marginalization and denial of black art by the white
establishment had been. Artists like John Koenakeefe
Mohl (1903-1985), Gerard Bhengu (1910 - ), Samuel
Makoanyane (1909 – 1944), are the fathers of this
neglected tradition of black artists.
During the late 50s, items of intensely humanistic
figurative expressionistic works by urban black artists
like Gerard Sekoto (1913-2002) and artists from Polly
Street Art Center (1949-62), appeared in the galleries.
“The art produced at Polly Street can be broadly divided
into two distinct streams: “township” style and
“neo-African” style.” (ADA, 6) This synthesis between
African and Western traditions became part of a number
of Polly Street artists like Lucas Sithole (1931- ) and
Leonard Matsoso (1949 - ). The sculptor Sydney Kumalo
was among the first black exhibitors from the Polly
Street Centre to establish a professional image.
Where the Polly Street Centre was urban, the Evangelical
Lutheran Church Arts and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift
(1962 -82) in Natal, was rural. Walter Battis wrote in
The State of Art in South Africa: “The center is the
result of a unique and successful venture in
cross-cultural art and craft production – a delicate
combination of Swedish technical assistance and
traditional African design and skill.” Artists like
Bongi Dhlomo (1957 - ), John Muafangejo (1943-1987), and
Azaria Mbatha (1941- ) became very successful
printmakers producing distinctive work. The art centre
became a model for arts and craft centers like the
Johannesburg Art Foundation (1972), Community Arts
Project, Cape Town (1997) and many more centres all over
South Africa.
In the 80s, the work of a number of sculptors working in
the northern parts of the country, Gazankulu and Venda
came to the attention of the art public of which the
sculptor Noria Mabasa, is the most famous. Ivan Powell
wrote in the Weekly Mail of 10 January 1986: “Much more
important, though, was the realization that there is an
indigenous independent and vital art in South Africa and
that it has flourished for years, unheeded by, and
regardless of, the machinations of the art world in
general”.
Isolation and mobilisation of art
Toward the end of the sixties more and more
international doors were closed to the South African
artists because of the policy of Apartheid. The
humanistic tendencies that was apparent in the art of
the sixties, where South African artists had begun to
examine their identity, to question their commitment to
the human situation and to direct their artistic effort
towards achieving greater relevance to their South
African experience came to its full dynamic potential in
the seventies, with the appearance of Protest or
Resistance Art.
The two previously disparate streams of black and white
expression began to merge during the 1970s, as black art
outgrew its earlier Township image and white artists
identified themselves increasingly with the expression
of joint social concerns. Unlike some artists that were
pre-occupied with the search for an African idiom, whose
concern, to some extent was an African style, these
artists were more concerned with the content of their
work. Their form was not that different from what was
going on in the art world of Europe.
Sue Williamson wrote in Resistance Art in South Africa
on the subject: “This was but a development of the old
principle governing traditional African art, which is
that art must have a function in the community”. Basil
Dube wrote in The New Nation of 3 September 1987, “Art
cannot exist without society”. There can be no line
separating the artist from his community…. He (Black
artists) must avoid clenched fist protest and make an
effective contribution”.
Sue Williamson, William Kentridge, Penny Siopis, Willie
Bester, Alfred Thoba, John Muafangejo, Helen Sebidi,
Jane Alexander, Sfiso Ka Mkame, Paul Stopforth and many
more artists (Black and White) took stands and dedicated
their artistic energy towards change in South Africa.
Their artwork had the same goal in mind but they used a
dynamic variety of styles and material, confirming the
maturity of the South African art scene.
Post Apartheid South Africa
Hundred days after the formation of the new South
Africa, Sander Gillian wrote in an Internet article
titled: “Truth-seeking, memory and Art”:
“Art in the new South Africa is not without direction,
quite the contrary. Certainly every school of
international and national art is present here in
varying degrees of quality. South African art has become
one of the spaces in which memory of collective
experience come together for all of the citizens of the
nation. Art became an expiation and acknowledgement of
trauma – they can and must speak from the vision of the
old South Africa for the new South Africa”.
The New South Africa will celebrate its 10th birthday
with in a few months time. Like an adventurous teenager,
the South African artists are ready and capable to
confirm their place in the international art scene.
Artists like William Kentridge, Willie Bester, Willem
Boshoff, Kendell Geers, Moshekwa Langa, Santo Mofokend
and many others have already confirmed the ability of
South African artists to make a profound mark in the
world of art, not only on a national scale but also on
the international stage. To quote from Matsemela Manaka
again, we can say that South African art is a memory of
the past and will always continue to be a reflection of
the present.
References:
ADA, 6, David Philip Publishers, 1989
Esmé Berman, Art and Artists of South Africa, Southern
Book Publishers, 1994
Merle Huntley, Art in Outline, Oxford University Press,
1994
Sidney Littlefield Kasfir , Contemporary African Art,
Thames & Hudson, 1999
Matsemela Manaka, Echoes of African Art, Skotaville
Publishers, 1987
Grania Ogilvie, The Dictionary of South African
Painters, Sculptors, Everard Read, 1988
Sue Williamson, Resistance Art in South Africa, David
Philip Publishers, 1989
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