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similarly achieved in modeled and carved concave and convex forms of relief sculpture, and with incisions and painted lines and shapes in decorative designs. However, the most sophisticated examples of improvisation in the visual arts can be seen in textile designs throughout Africa. This visual improvisation is most markedly represented in the narrow strip textiles of the Mande cultural region and its extensions along the West Coast of Africa to the complex patterns of Raffia cloth of the Kuba people of Zaire. The intricate patterns, permutation of shapes, inventive articulation of space through color and form-field relationships in textile designs present a world of Black aesthetic achievement that has only in the last two decades received the scholarly attention that this genre of expression deserves. The study of African art from an art historical perspective is still in its infancy. Examination of the aesthetics of African art is less well developed. Happily, there are more African art historians working in the field and many of the earlier observations and interpretations of African art by Eurocentric anthropologists are being revised. From the material that has been analyzed and discussed to date from an art historical perspective, it is clear that the people of Africa developed one of the greatest artistic traditions of the world and that it stands equal to Asian and European artistic expressions. The Caribbean Mosaic - The African Dimension Africans, abruptly uprooted from their homelands, suffered the traumas of the Middle Passage, endured the brutal conditions of chattel slavery, and through it all, did not lose their heritage. The cultural patterns of West and Central Africa survived and have shaped Caribbean culture until the present day. African religious retentions and reinterpretations provided the structure for other cultural expressions. A virtual religious mosaic in all of its intricacies exists in the Caribbean: Trinidadian Shango, Cuban Santeria, Haitian Vodun and Jamaican Myalism, among others. Caribbean festival arts and masquerades exhibit African retentions and reinterpretations and can be seen in Jamaican Jonkonnu, Cuban Carnival, and Trinidad Carnival, the latter which has been in existence for over two hundred years. The African-Haitian nexus has produced one of the most fascinating cultures in the world. From the time the first slaves were introduced in Hispaniola in the early sixteenth century, the general culture of the character of the island has been shaped by Vodun. Haitian Vodum has its roots in the traditional belief system of the Fon, Yoruba, and Kongo peoples. Vodun ceremonies are begun by calling the loas (deities) through making the ritual ground painting called vèvè. Stylized cruciforms, hearts, and swords are among the images most often encountered. African sensibilities are expressed in the drum styles and surface decorations, in the ironwork of blacksmiths, wood carvings, calabash decorations, textiles, and paintings, creating a new tradition of African influenced art in the Caribbean. African retentions have long been observed in the art of the people of Suriname. Herskovits was to observe that the work of the people of Suriname was the most African of all New World Art.25 The people of Suriname Revolted against slavery and established their own communities, successfully defending themselves for generations against re-enslavement. Wooden stools and other carvings by these early Surinamese feature metal studs and decorative detail that show persistent shapes that recall Asante art. Among the Djuka maroons of eastern Surname, multi-stripped textiles were produced that can be linked to the multi-stripped cloths of the Mande. These are just a few examples of an African-influenced visual arts tradition in Suriname.26 Ejagham and Yoruba influences can be seen in Cuba. However, large number of slaved did not arrive in Cuba until the early part of the nineteenth century, when there was a pronounced increase in sugar cultivation on the island. In Cuba, the ideogram of the Ejagham, according 11
