African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize African art, the continent is full of peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African Americans. Despite this diversity, there are some unifying artistic themes when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa. The origins of African art lie long before recorded history. African art has a long and surprisingly controversial history. Up until recently, the designation African was usually only bestowed on the arts of black Africa, the peoples living in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The non-black peoples of North Africa, the people of the Horn of Africa, as well as the art of ancient Egypt, generally were not included under the rubric of African art. Recently, however, there has been a movement among African art historians and other scholars to include the visual culture of these areas, since all the cultures that produced them, in fact, are located within the geographic boundaries of the African continent. The notion is that by including all African cultures and their visual culture in African art, laypersons will gain a greater understanding of the continent's cultural diversity. Since there was often a confluence of traditional African, Islamic and Mediterranean cultures, scholars have found that drawing distinct divisions between Muslim areas, ancient Egypt, the Mediterranean and indigenous black African societies makes little sense. Finally, the arts of the people of the African Diaspora, prevalent in Brazil, the Caribbean and the southeastern United States, have also begun to be included in the study of African art.
The origins of African art lie long before recorded history. African rock art in the Sahara in Niger preserves 6000-year-old