Information about the history of African Art.
The Dogon style has evolved into a kind of cubism: ovoid head, squared shoulders, tapered extremities, pointed breasts, forearms, and thighs on a parallel plane, hairdos stylized by three or four incised lines. Dogon sculptures serve as a physical medium in initiations and as an explanation of the world. They serve to transmit an understanding to the initiated, who will decipher the statue according to the level of their knowledge. Carved animal figures, such as dogs and ostriches.
Bambara art
The Bamana people adapted many artistic traditions. Artworks were created both for religious use and to define cultural and religious difference. Bamana artistic traditions include pottery, sculpture, weaving, iron figures, and masks. While the tourist and art market is the main destination of modern Bamana artworks, most artistic traditions had been part of sacred vocations, created as a display of religious beliefs and used in ritual.
Bamana forms of art include the n’tomo mask and the Tyi Warra.

slideshow of artist's work and links to other creative sites

The n’tomo mask was used by dancers at male initiation ceremonies. The Tyi Warra (or ciwara) headdress was used at harvest time by young men chosen from the farmers association. Other Bamana statues include fertility statues, meant to be kept with the wife at all times to ensure fertility, and statues created for vocational groups such as hunters and farmers, often used as offering places by other groups after prosperous farming seasons or successful hunting parties.
Each special creative trait a person obtained was seen as a different way to please higher spirits. Powers throughout the Bamana art making world were used to please the ancestral spirits and show beauty in what they believed in

Up until recently, the only art we have seen of any value from Africa is pre colonial and 'primitive', of anthropological interest. This imprisoning attitude killed, stifled creativity and it has remained behind because of outside forces.

African artists never had a chance to improve their art, poetry, architecture, carving and drawing as in one way Africa also had the introduction of a new religion, Islam with its ideology regarding representation of figures and on the other hand you had colonization with its rules and catogration as anything fron Africa as primitive, or exotic. These 2 facts caused the evolution of African Art.