African art
Parent category: Africa - visual arts
Influenced: Pablo Picasso, especially Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) during his "periode nègre" (black period) or African period. It lasted just a couple of years, to 1909 - but it turned Picasso into an avid collector of African art, masks and sculptures that inspired him for the rest of his career.
By medium: African music
Definition
African art is any form of art or material culture that originates from the continent of Africa. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_art [May 2006]
Influence of African art on Western art
At the start of the twentieth century, artists like Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani were profoundly inspired by abstract African sculptures in their search for new forms of expression. For the West, the cubist movement was the first time 'traditional' African masks and sculptures were analysed as works of art rather than ethnographic pieces. Picasso's African influenced period lasted between 1907 and 1909 where he based many works on African art and sculpture. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_art#Influence_on_Western_art [Mar 2006]