Description
The chart is an interactive lineage map. Makonde art sits at the center, on a timeline that runs from older movements at the top to newer ones at the bottom. The movements that influenced it appear above it, any parallel movements it developed alongside sit on its own row, and the movements it later influenced appear below. Every line is a real, cited connection between two movements: a solid line is an influence historians broadly agree on, and a dashed line is an indirect, parallel, or contested link.
For Makonde art (1950s – Present), it traces one movement that shaped it, a well-established link: Folk art.
The name Makonde art refers to East African sculptures or, less frequently, modern paintings created by craftspeople or artists belonging to the Makonde people of northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania, separated by the Ruvuma river. Traditionally, the Makonde have carved ornamental boxes and pipes, ritual objects, and ritual masks out of soft njala wood. Masks are a predominant form of Makonde art and are culturally important to ritual and tradition. After colonialization, the Makonde people began to carve masks that were adapted for Western tastes. Read more ↗