AP Art History Unit 6 Cheatsheet: Africa, 1100-1980 CE

What African art is:

• Objects, acts, and events in multiple media (vocal, aural, visual)
• Materials: wood, ivory, metals, ceramic, fiber, natural elements
• Processes: carved, cast, forged, modeled, woven, combined
• Created by recognized specialists for knowledgeable patrons

Key distinction: African art is expressive rather than representational—it presents a known world, not necessarily what is seen or available to everyone.

Requires: Specialized or supernaturally ordained capabilities for creation, use, and interpretation.

Earliest surviving evidence: engraved ochre and shell beads from southern African caves; surviving rock art in the Sahara and southern Africa is later.

Depicted subjects:

• Animals of each region
• Human pursuits: herding, combat, dance, regularized behavior
• Contact among different groups
• Technologies: horses, chariots

Historical context: The Sahara was once grassland and was an early center of agriculture and animal husbandry in Africa. As desert grew, it stretched toward the Nile valley and pharaonic Egypt.

Arts of authority: Legitimate traditional leadership (achieved and inherited status).

Leadership roles: Histories and accomplishments entrusted to historians, bards, and elders.

Personal and social functions:

• Personal identity, social status, relationships delineated by aesthetic choices
• Common ancestors link leaders, sanction behavior, define social order
• Education and incorporation into adulthood marked by art creation, manipulation, interpretation

African histories: Sung or recited by specialists. Much African art is performative—sung, danced, or masqueraded in holistic experiences for designated audiences—created for specific purposes to produce expected results, though other works (architecture, royal portraits and regalia, commemorative plaques) function in different ways.