Africa Quarterly April-June 1961: Vol 1 Iss 1
HARSIMRAN MALIK
Art in Nigeria today is passing through a period of adaptation, of experimentation, of rediscovery. In the past, Nigeria’s greatest contributions to world culture were its arts of wood carving and bronze casting and masks – its traditional arts, which in the early twentieth century influenced European painters including Vlaminck, Derain, Picasso and Modigliani, who found in these art forms a strength of creativity which made the representative conventions of European art seem rigid and sterile.
But in Nigeria today, as in so many other countries which have only recently regained their political freedom, there is going on an intellectual struggle between the many who feel that the traditional arts should be repudiated as reminders and remnants of archaic, backward ways of life, which must give way to completely new and better ways, and the comparatively few who recognize the value of ancient traditions in helping to build a stable and sound modern Nigeria.
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