The understanding of a well defined cultural or ethnic style was a significant reason for the study of African art. Through the exploration of the various ethnic styles, it becomes easier to recognize the standards of value and beauty that the African artists try to achieve and by which their artworks are evaluated by others in society.
The significant reason why naturalism is evident in some African art is that the intent of the artists is not to replicate the evident reality but rather to accommodate the spirit for which non-naturalistic technique is most appropriate. Some of the masks used appear terrifying and so this is used to demonstrate the wealth of material expressiveness. From the African viewpoint, each of the facades utilized has a particular role. Abstract art describes the appearance of the artistic work in current terms and the last few years or decades. With abstraction, the study of artistic work as believed can present an important common quality of African art. In Africa, the use of forms with greater or lesser levels of abstraction was natural just like the impulsive correspondence to the intention of the African to create something much beyond the visual reality, for instance, to personify a spirit. At times the forms have an explicit symbolic connotation or may refer to specific mythological occasions or occurrences.
All through history from the Neolithic periods to date, man has preferred abstract art and has tried to deviate from naturalism to construct forms and combinations in a conceptual style. This has particularly been an attempt to materialize man’s fears and desires as vital as they appear to his being and as indescribable as they continue to be, originating from the inmost self.
Abstract forms are concrete connections to the indefinable inner world. What was considered indistinct and formless becomes somewhat concrete, present and actual. Just like an individual’s inner vision has no equivalence in the real world, it is rational for the creative person to reject any natural object as a method of figurative expression and to produce forms that their designs are in line with the non-figurative nature of the inner image. The abstract forms of African art have captivated many individuals who had little concern for the study due to little knowledge of the objects. The abstraction allows individuals to visually grasp the indescribable.
Naturalism is simply impersonating the appearance of objects as they appear at present as viewed by an observer. It fails to depict the reality regarding the objects but rather provides projections of particular interpretations.
Abstraction comprises shapes and forms which are not a reproduction of the real objects in nature. They are perceptible projections of what takes place in man’s inner life. Due to man’s intense indulgence in the creative activity and the resulting amount of the experience, the design of such forms is awarded additional vitality and significance. Abstraction centralizes on the instinctive and pressing need to resolve man’s fears and anxieties externalized in or projected onto concrete forms. Man’s visual altercation with his being makes him believe that his inner world is existent and that it has a form. This nature is perceived as the advantage of plastic language in the use of abstract form because it is nonverbal, silent and of the same intensity as the initial unconscious experience.