The terracotta statuary of the Nok
Culture is a
classic art style whose sudden
appearance has
radically challenged the traditional art
history of
African Sculpture. Four main
characteristics
distinguish the Nok style. (1) The
treatment of
the eyes, which form either a segment of
a circle
or sometimes a triangular form, with the
eyebrow above balancing the sweep of the
lower
lip, sometimes making a circle. (2) The
piercing
of the pupils, the nostrils, the lips
and the ears.
(3) The careful representation of
elaborate
hairstyles, with complex constructions
buns,
tresses, locks and the profusion of
beads around
the neck, torso and waist. (4) The
realism in the
modeling of the curled lips, the
straight nose
with flaring nostrils and the large
overhanging
forehead.
The earliest known sculpture of large
size in the
Sudan is that produced in pottery by the
Nok
culture, which flourished extensively in
northern
Nigeria from the 5th century BC into the
early
centuries AD. These people were the
first known
manufacturers of iron in western Africa,
furnaces
at Taruga having been dated between the
5th
and early 3rd centuries BC; they
continued,
however, to use stone tools. Of well-
fired clay,
their sculptures represent animals
naturalistically; human figures,
however, are
depicted with heads that are usually
tubular, but
sometimes conical or spherical, and with
simple
tubular trunks and limbs. The art of Nok
indicates the antiquity of many basic
canons of
West African sculpture, but the precise
relationship between ancient and modern
forms
is obscure.
Nok figures were made for religious
purposes as
proved by subject and attitude. Nok
terracotta
figures are cult objects representing
deities,
spirit figures, mythical beings or
deified
ancestors.
- (SP.575)
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