he African continent has produced a great diversity of art from prehistoric times to the present day. In many instances, art production has been related to ritual or [religious] ceremonies, as well as serving more secular decorative functions, but it is not always easy to determine the function of a particular work. It is also problematic to label as 'art' the productions of African craftspeople who frequently considered their work as an essential part of secular or religious life. In many [communities], the artist had a high status, but the artist would not necessarily have been the equivalent of the western [conception of the] fine artist who relied on patronage or the marketplace to regulate his or her production. With these strictures in mind, it is possible to isolate different areas and different practices of African art. From c. 7000 BC rock drawings include representations of animals and hunters. From the beginning of  differentiation of [ethnic communities], [ethnic art communities] has become a way of isolating one [community] from another, and [ethnic group] art can take the form of scarification, body painting or sculptural masks used in religious ceremonies. "Such diversity also appears in separate geographical regions, where natural resources dictated the materials used, while [ethinic group] power, wealth or sophistication was responsible for the type of objects produced. The Ashanti of Ghana used gold and bronze which were readily accessible in their territory, whereas the Baluba, a people in the Congo, specialized in carved images of women holding bowls. The Fang . . . produced high-quality funerary sculptures which were dominated by geometric patterns. The Bambara of west Africa were known for their elaborate head-dresses, which were used during ceremonies, in contrast to the simple wooden masks of the Dogon people of west Africa. The art of Ife and Benin — both cities in western Nigeria — was lavish and naturalistic during the 12th – 17th centuries when those areas were infiltrated by European influences, and the Bakuba people were known for its royal portrait carvings. The dark wood of the Ivory Coast was the basis for sculptural figurines of the Baule people, who produced classically naturalistic masks, and terracotta was the material used for heads produced by the Nok peoples of central and north Nigeria. Nigeria was also the home of the Yoruba, one of the most prolific peoples in African art. "In the 19th and 20th centuries, African art was 'discovered' by Western colonizers and embraced by modernist artists for its lack of pretension and exciting formal qualities. With the Westernization of much African society, 'traditional' art has become commercialized. . . ." *For more information on the African and World art presented here e-mail:  mharden@texas.net