African Art in Polish Collections [antikvár]

Discovery of African ArtAs late as the early 15th century Africa, to the mind of Europeans, was enclosed within the frontiers of Mauretania, while everything to the south and into the interior was called Beledes Sudan, or Land of the Negroes. But to reach this land by the means of travel then available was difficult. Journeying by land it was necessary to cross the burning desert, and journeying by sea it was necessary to round the Cape of Good Hope where the ships went down in the stormy waters. The general conviction at that time was that the end of the earth lay beyond this desert and Gape. Scholars were aware of what Herodotus had written of Pharaoh Necho's African Expedition and what the Arab travellers had written in their chronicles of the Negro kingdoms. But no one bothered to check these reports. Thus, to all intents and purposes there was no Negro Africa at this time. Finally in 1434, Prince Henry the Navigator, fitted out Portuguese mariners who rounded the Gape and shattered once and for all all superstitions. News of the discovery of the land of the Negroes reached Europe. But for many centuries that followed the inaccessible jungle with its death inflicting fever guarded the secrets of the African continent. The white men who dared brave the dangers exchanged the percales and beads for gold sand and quickly departed this land. The next period was one of slave trading. The gold was replaced by slaves. Those who sailed for the south of Africa were not motivated by good intentions. They vere interested in little beside trade. The first travellers, explorers, scholars and missionaries appeared in South Africa together with colonizers at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. They began to observe and relate what they saw and in proof of their word brought back strange objects such as a shield or bow, a carved stool or exotic figure.