Title: Visual Literacy and the Cultural Authority of African Mythology
Introduction
African mythology is a tapestry of spiritual understanding, remembered ancestors, and cultural
identity stitched over many centuries by custom, visual image, and oral recounting. Visual
representations of mythology bring these rich, multidimensional tales to life, using line, color,
shape, texture, medium, and style to invoke meaning and identity.
The above image makes use of such visual aids not only to transmit mythological significance,
but also in attempting to make reference to the overall cultural link between myth-making and
African identity. This essay reflects upon how the different visual components of
the work achieve such meanings and how mythology continues to be a
cultural occurrence which instructs and is instructive in regards to community values.
Use of Colour and Atmosphere
The image employs a color palette dominated by warm tones of ochres, oranges, earth browns,
and reds that are set against cool tones of indigo, dark blues,
and subdued greens. Warm colors suggest the vitality of life, ritual, fire, earth, and sun, all
representative of creation myths and reviving spirituality.
Cool colors, on the other hand, reflect serenity, mystery, the unknown, and association with the
spiritual world.
This combination of warmth and coolness contributes
to an enchanted atmosphere, implying duality in African legend: life and death, known and
unknown, human and spirit. The
atmosphere is enchanted but grounded, drawing the spectator into a world in which the physical
and metaphysical coexist together. The warm halos around central figures or
symbols can indicate divine
or ancestor presence, and the cool, dark zones along the periphery evoke secret worlds and
the mysterious nature of myth.
Warm and Cold Colours: Magic and Mystery
Warm colours tend to surround mythic characters or figures—such as a narrator, an ancestor,
or an animal spirit—giving them hegemony and reverence. They draw notice and convey life and
cultural rootedness. Cold colours recede into the background or form the
sky, woodlands, and other worlds. This technique heightens the depiction of African mythology
as earthy and yet expansive and spiritual, rooted in the ordinary yet embracing and sacred.
The opposition of warm and cold colours mirrors the mythic dualities of: life and death, good
and evil, material and spiritual. Through this vibrant use of colour, visual
storytelling is enriched to support the multi-layered significances in the myth.
Introduction
African mythology is a tapestry of spiritual understanding, remembered ancestors, and cultural
identity stitched over many centuries by custom, visual image, and oral recounting. Visual
representations of mythology bring these rich, multidimensional tales to life, using line, color,
shape, texture, medium, and style to invoke meaning and identity.
The above image makes use of such visual aids not only to transmit mythological significance,
but also in attempting to make reference to the overall cultural link between myth-making and
African identity. This essay reflects upon how the different visual components of
the work achieve such meanings and how mythology continues to be a
cultural occurrence which instructs and is instructive in regards to community values.
Use of Colour and Atmosphere
The image employs a color palette dominated by warm tones of ochres, oranges, earth browns,
and reds that are set against cool tones of indigo, dark blues,
and subdued greens. Warm colors suggest the vitality of life, ritual, fire, earth, and sun, all
representative of creation myths and reviving spirituality.
Cool colors, on the other hand, reflect serenity, mystery, the unknown, and association with the
spiritual world.
This combination of warmth and coolness contributes
to an enchanted atmosphere, implying duality in African legend: life and death, known and
unknown, human and spirit. The
atmosphere is enchanted but grounded, drawing the spectator into a world in which the physical
and metaphysical coexist together. The warm halos around central figures or
symbols can indicate divine
or ancestor presence, and the cool, dark zones along the periphery evoke secret worlds and
the mysterious nature of myth.
Warm and Cold Colours: Magic and Mystery
Warm colours tend to surround mythic characters or figures—such as a narrator, an ancestor,
or an animal spirit—giving them hegemony and reverence. They draw notice and convey life and
cultural rootedness. Cold colours recede into the background or form the
sky, woodlands, and other worlds. This technique heightens the depiction of African mythology
as earthy and yet expansive and spiritual, rooted in the ordinary yet embracing and sacred.
The opposition of warm and cold colours mirrors the mythic dualities of: life and death, good
and evil, material and spiritual. Through this vibrant use of colour, visual
storytelling is enriched to support the multi-layered significances in the myth.
