Ghanaian Mythography: Ethical and Contextual Relevance to Contemporary Culture
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Date
2005-11-03
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Abstract
Many of the publications on Ghanaian art history tend to place more emphasis on the formal aesthetics of art that is, works are analyzed largely in terms of styles and materials used. There is hardly any account which delves into the origins of the rather ubiquitous verbal attributes of this symbolic art. There is no doubt that there are occasional references to proverbs, aphorisms, etc. as the main source of inspiration for many art works. And even though some sociological works may have been done in isolation on either the origins of the verbal and visual forms, a comprehensive art historical work, using myth as a reference point is a rare combination. Myths in themselves have been said to be good historical indicators especially in places where written records were absent. In this regard, they have been acknowledged to fill in the time gaps with folk stories which could have been facts, but because they were orally transmitted, they assumed exaggerated dimensions. As far as artifacts go, their role in the recording of history is also very well acknowledged. Archaeologists will testify to the immeasurable role artifacts have played in the dating of events as well as the revelation of sociological, psychological, cosmological and even cultural information of humankind in the by gone years. Therefore, using two important historical indices
- myth and visual art, for the ethical and contextual evaluation of Ghanaian art is unique. In this thesis, an investigation is done into the mythical equivalents of indigenous and contemporary Ghanaian art after an overview of mythical representations in art in general, which happens to preoccupy the study in the literature review.
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A thesis Presented To the School Of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi In partial fulfillment of the award of the degree Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in African Art, 2005