Earth Matters

Earth Matters: Land as  material and Metaphor in the arts of Africa

Karen E. Milbourne

Land, Landscape,earth, and territory are not synonyms. Indeed, even one of these words can mean different things in different cultures. The word earth conjures associations that can diverse according to personal perception and disciplinary focus. For some earth equates with nature, the whole ecosystem. But for some other, it represents only the land.

In this book the writer is trying to show how African art and literature, music and cinema are heavily based on earth metaphors. When we see visual arts or read written literature, land, forest, river, trees, animals are the metaphors used to show the human relation, psychology and temperament. 

Wangechi Mutu in The Power Of Earth in My Work writes " we are farmer people. My family is from Nyeri, the farthest north town in Kenya. Nyeri is very green land."

Giwoyo is one of the oldest and most longstanding genre of pende masks and it likely represents, in elegant and abstract form, a body resting on a funerary bier with its arms wrapped next to its sides, legs outstretched, and feet pointed upwards."

The metaphors used in this form of art are the nature or the earth. Any painting, poems, novel and movies have astounding description of rivers, hills, mountains, forests, oceans and so on. This means human life is interwoven with nature and a part of nature itself. 

This is a large book extensively elaborated on African arts in relation to nature or earth. A good book to read.