Begin preparation with the introduction in the readings book (section M). In there you will find addresses of web sites which have many images of African art. I’ve suggested a few below, but you can find links to others on the C&T main course Blackboard site. At the end of the introduction is a suggested assignment (see M-4). I’d suggest you follow that but with a couple of modifications. I’d encourage you to have several images (the assignment says three) but I’ll ask only that you have at least one to suggest for discussion.
Downloaded images will be less useful than links to sites, so I’d suggest that either you send links to me in advance by e-mail or that you be able to identify the image and know how to reach it again. (Web addresses don’t always work for this, so I’d encourage you also to write down some reference to the image; I’ve indicated good ways of doing that for each of the sites below.)
Indianapolis Museum of Art.
http://www.ima-art.org/africanCollections_gallery.asp
• Clicking on the link to the collection highlights at the top right of this page will take you to a thumbnails of 24 works from the collection that you can click on to see more. If you find something here, keep track of the code number at the bottom of the info about the work. (The code consists of a date, a period, and a one to four digit number.)
• Clicking on the link to “Cycles: African Life Through Art” or going to this address:
http://www.ima.museum/cycles/index.html
will take you to an introduction to the collection that, in several cases, permits you to zoom in on images or rotate sculptures. If you find something here, just note the segment of the circle it is associated with.
National Museum of African Art
http://africa.si.edu/collections/index.html
• Clicking on the first image under “Menu” on the upper right will take to a page which allows you to explore the collection in many different ways. If you find something here, record the “object number.” (That’s a series of three numbers separated by hyphens that you will find at the end of the info on the work and just above the descriptive text.)
Indiana University Art Museum
http://www.iub.edu/~iuam/online_modules/wielgus/
• You will see links at the left to the two regions in Africa for which images are available. Clicking on a thumbnail will take you to a larger image and descriptive text and clicking on “enlarge” will take you to an even larger image without text. (There’s no way to search for works by number, so remember which part of the collection the work is in since we’ll have to scroll to it.)