SEMIOLOGICAL AND UTILITARIAN INTRODUCTION OF MAPOLY ART SCHOOL, ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA

Abstract

The aesthetics of African arts have been appreciated by a lot of scholars and used as inspiration for their works. Upon getting motivation from African arts, Picasso stepped up his works and modernised Western arts through African inspiration. According to Picasso, most present-day Western arts were sourced from African origin and upon which he started a revolution in Western arts (Dereje, Liu and Zhou, 2013). Evidence from excavations and readily accessible works from various Nigerian Art cultures such as Nok, Benin, Igbo Ukwu, Owo, Esie and Ife were not enough to advance a developmental reason to fuel the passionate drive of Aina Onabolu that Art be included in Nigerian education curriculum as at 1915, 18 years after the discovery of first bronze works from Africa through the Benin punitive expedition (Alex Marshal, 2 1) and these works were deemed to have been made hundreds of years earlier. His clamour raged till 1922 when he was appointed to teach Art at King’s College, Lagos and in 1932 when he obtained approval for the Art syllabus he drafted to be used to teach Art. At the emergence of Aina Onabolu, he had to contend with European poor reputation for African artists as primitive and crude despite high and mighty skills seen in the works discovered in the art traditions earlier mentioned, the reputation of good standing was built over time when educational dimension was added to his practice and his students/apprentices or other notable artists whose training were facilitated or influenced by him such as Ben Enwonwu, Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Solomon Wangboje, Akinola Lasekan, etc