The word art is derived from the Latin "ars" which means skill. In a broader sense, anything accomplished with great skill is art.

There are liberal arts in modern universities. However, the term "art" generally refers to the fine arts of music, literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Years ago, "arts" was one of the major occupations in the Ghanaian society. The community at that time understood and appreciated the art of music, fine arts and the others.

This perhaps caused the great churches and cathedrals that served the basic social and religious needs at the time to combine these arts to tell the story of Christianity.

In the Ghanaian society the arts serve as the supreme pursuit of humanity, integrating in a unique fashion, the people's emotions with intellect and the aesthetic with revelation. It sharpens thoughts and focuses feelings, bringing reality up against imagination and presses creativity to the ever-expanding limits of human potential.

It also creates permanent impressions of passing moments. For example, a piece of music ends after it is played, but it may be heard again in a live performance or on a record. In another angle, natural flowers grow and die but the flowers in a "still life" painting remains young and fresh. These examples demonstrate how art prevents man from forgetting what he has seen, heard or learnt.

However, art has lost its fame and power in the contemporary Ghanaian society due to acculturation through globalisation. There is a critical shortage of the artistic know-how. Very few can do the intricate steps and body movements in "Agbadza" or the graceful hand and leg movements in "Adowa" or the hand movements depicting bravado in the "Fontomfrom."

In Ghanaian society, the arts serve as the supreme pursuit of humanity, integrating people's emotions with intellect and the aesthetic with revelation.

Many Ghanaians lack even the understanding of how a painter works, how musical notes are formulated and interpreted and how dramatic performances are performed.

The canker eating the fibre of Artistic Ghana is the growing tendency to glorify anything American or European while classifying anything traditional as "bush" or "primitive," especially among the youth. Under the circumstances patronage for Western culture increases, while that for authentic Ghanaian culture is ebbing.

Currently, most traditional institutions have been transformed while others have been destroyed with the death of old patrons thus the original purpose and meaning of art forms in Ghana is getting lost. Relics of the good old days have lost their glamour and they pass for the mundane since the youths have no sense of appreciation and are, therefore, not interested in replicating them to restock the museums in the countryside that had had to be closed down because of lack of artefacts.

Natural disasters also seem to be contributing to the efforts of eradicating the artistic past with the recent fire out break at the Yaa Asantewaa Museum in the Ashanti Region.

Dr. Ephraim Amu, the renowned Musicologist is gone; even though some of his contemporaries are around, theirs is a dying generation and efforts should be made to rekindle the fire ere the last embers peter out.

It was said that the Ghanaian was artistic through and through. The way the Ghanaian woman walked with poise to ensure the rhythmic movement of the behinds; the holding of the breast as she runs; the up and down movement of the breast as she pounded the fufu and the graceful way she stirred the banku were or so artistic and gave the men the elixir to keep on living, for there was indeed something to live for. But alas all these are not appreciated by the youth. They have eyes but cannot see.

The sonorous and sanctimonious music of old has given way to cacophony of debauchery as modern day musicians are engaged in a competition to outdo each other in profanity.

All is not yet lost as the elderly once in while during festivals display traditional splendour.

The institution of cultural competition among schools is a step in the right direction and this must be pursued with vigour. The drum language must be understood for before the path was cut the stream was flowing through the lush forest.

The Adinkra motif should never be lost on the youth for they constitute a store of knowledge that is authentic.

The promotion of tourism must be inextricably linked with the development of the arts. Indeed the European or the America would not spend hard earned money to travel to Ghana to see a caricature of his or her own way of life.






Contributed by Kafui Kanyi. Reprinted with permission from Ghanaweb.

To read another Global Envision article about the impact of globalization on design, see A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization.