Antique African Art: Bush Man with Spear- Relief on Copper Plate
Check this guy out- an African bush man, hammered into a 10"X13" sheet of copper.
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Crafted from a single plate of copper, this 3D relief was sent to my grandmother here in the States from my aunt, who was living in the Republic of Zambia, Africa at the time, back in the 1960's.
Below is an image of the reverse side, showing the depth of the piece.
This copper artwork is just one of many African art pieces that my grandmother ended up collecting while my aunt lived in Africa, including wooden masks and numerous animal carvings made from wood and bone.
Here's a globe image of Zambia, the region where the spear man art was created:
Before I put him back on the wall, here's one more photo, a close up shot of the spear man and his spear. Here we can see some of the details and workmanship in the copper plate:
Thanks for looking, and to see more variety and oddities, click below:
Wow, what a nice piece - Yeah African art is so different hey..?
Yes for a piece of copper, it has a lot of character, and very different for sure. After all these years, I feel like I know this spear man.
hahaha - maybe you were that spear man...
Got run off your land and ended up a druggy (hence previous post)
Ah finally found the pic I was looking for
Solid Coppe thinge-me-bob...
Wow that is spectacular, it looks like it's big too, like actual size. Really nice.
Yeah it is huge!!!
It is a wonderful piece, captures the forward-moving motion of the spear man. He is intent. Looks stealthy. Is he a hunter, a warrior? Impressive as the piece is, I never would have seen it if I hadn't been looking for a post on Borges. I was thinking of doing a blog on him and didn't want to repeat what others had done. I found your two-year old blog on making a film (Everything I know About Filmmaking I Learned From Jorge Luis Borges). My speakers are broken, so I couldn't hear anything, but I have a feeling that wasn't important to your exercise.
I don't know if you've read Borges' essays. One, read a long time ago, discusses Einstein, mathematics and perceptions of reality. There's no doubt Einstein influenced Borges, and Borges influenced generations of writers, not only in Latin America. Which has nothing to do, really, with your spear man, but someone, a circular path brought me here, so...
The extent of my Borges reading is the collection of essays in Labyrinths, so I have had a glimpse of his work. It's really been too long since I read any of those essays, but he did influence my way of thinking in subtle ways, and that probably shows up in my writing sometimes.
I would like to read your article on Borges, I haven't visited that world in a while. Thanks for commenting.
Sometimes I come up with ideas and they seem to have limited appeal to others. I felt that might be true about Borges, but with your encouragement I think I'll go forward. Since joining Steemit in February I've been learning a lot, doing research for my blogs. Familiar territory for me is actually literature and history. It's been a while, but I wrote really long papers comparing Borges to other writers. This would take some refresher reading, but for me, it's terra firma (much more so than cryptocurrency, which I find fascinating but confusing). I thought I'd try writing in Spanish and English. My Spanish is rusty--that would be a bit of a refresher too. Anyway, thanks for answering my comment. Your reply has influenced plans for my next blog. I've already begun my reading.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the blog works out, especially the Spanish part.
It would be appropriate to write about Borges in the Spanish language, I think. And there are a lot of Spanish-speaking Steemians I've noticed.
I'll be on the lookout for your next one, then, I'm glad I could offer encouragement.
Art and culture are the mirror, which show us our real picture, I think these beautiful artwork were the creation of beautiful heart .The artist was influence d greatly with the life style of their ancestors. Thanks for sharing such an amazing things, your grandma was great who knew the value of gold.
This artwork is beautiful, and really is a good reflection of the artist's heart. It's amazing how much character shows in the subject of the art, even though his eyes are covered by his arm. Thank you for stopping in to look.
I support African art generally and I even tried to take some craving classes some times ago.
Anyway, here you go. Another upvote.
I try to think of you carving something, but keep seeing a potato, carved into strips, deep-fried and salted just right.
I've taken on a few wood carving projects, always wore blisters on my hands obsessing over details, but I still have the carvings. I might have to take some pics, make a post, maybe earn a chip or two.
Ahah! I meant to write carving not craving!
Yes, do take those pics
'Craving' classes worked too, with that dog as the teacher.
The african art is really highly appreciable. The art refers the ancient world history like their living and tradition.
Nice art.....
This little piece of copper is truly one of my favorite things.
This is really awesome and in my opinion we all are following the art from thousands of years means in my opinion the initial stages of human beings, we can see that they communicated with each other by creating the artwork on different resources or on the rocks, so the art is the greatest communication tool and greatest language itself, and we should respect it because it's really push me to imagine that how they thought to create these kind of artistic ways of communications. Thanks for sharing and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
It is interesting to see how pictures have been used for such a long time for communication, even when language was available. There must have been great artists in prehistory doing amazing work, even if it was without modern artist's tools.
True.
Those Zambians must stay healthy and in good shape. it is neat to see it on copper thanks @therealpaul
How cool! There is really nothing like holding a piece of art in your hands that was crafted by someone who is now gone from this world. A link to a different time.
There's a relationship between me and the artist, since now I've been looking at this piece for most of my life. I feel like I'm friends with this spear guy from way back.