An Inscription Of Political Themed Paintings: Nigerian Situation

Abstract

RACT This paper aimed at discussing some paintings that addresses some political issues in their themes. Theme is the subject for all the activities carried out by man because, almost everything in the world is categorised in one group or the other such as human, plants, properties, daily activities to mention but few. According to Desta (2015), themes can generate excitement, experimentation, investigation and interest in the viewers passed through the artist’s message. Theme is the key to artists because, without it no concrete works of art is visible to the society. In painting, the exploration of theme started with the discovery of cave men and how they used it religiously to hunt animals, as they believed in the existence of the spirit in the art works using natural art materials. Artists later expressed their impressions using their immediate environment experiences to draw the attention of their viewers as close as possible. The contemporary painters explore themes in a diverse ways in order to initiate, innovate, invent, create and produce visual works of art through political issues. The methodology used was qualitative through a descriptive approach, in which art historical and analytical techniques were employed. The total number of eight works were purposively selected and discussed. Documentation of the past and present situation of things in Nigeria, giving hope for the future. It is therefore, recommended that scholars should study more artists’ works and asses how they can be of good discussion to the audience by appropriating them to our daily political deeds.