The ram and his friend

The ram and his friend

Folktales Legend (Nigeria)

There was a ram and his mother and his sister. Every day they would go for a walk. One day his mother and his sister went away and left him. He ran about trying to find them. 

He came to a friend, another ram, and said, "Friend, did you see our womenfolks go along here?" The ram said, "No, I did not see your women folks here. Only your mother and your sister. I saw them pass here, but I never have seen your women folks."

The ram said, "Never did I see any one so dumb as you are. You are the dumbest person left in the world. Who is my mother, not to mention my sister? If a man has a mother and a sister, they are like a wife to him. Or is a mother not a woman? 

You are dumb, my mother is my head woman. A wife will do for you the same things which a mother will do for you."

This thing is true. A mother and a wife are about alike. 
Some say that a wife is better than a mother, but it is not true.

What do you think?

The Arrival of Lagos Biennial

Lagos Biennial, 2017

The inaugural edition of Lagos Biennial starts from  October 14 to 22nd November, 2017, at the Railway Compound, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria.

 Lagos Biennial, an art exhibition where artists from different parts of the world converge to display their various creative arts.

The exhibition holds in collaboration with Legacy Museum, Nigerian Railway Compound, Ebute Metta. 

 Artists from Rwanda, Ghana, Portugal, US, Kenya, South Africa and many others are expected to come with their unique works of art that can richly be appreciated when the artists take you through the ideologies and thoughts behind them.
 

“This is one of the biennial on the African continent that doesn’t just encourage an international audience. It also has  international participation.and  is a reflective of Lagos as a cosmopolitan city. 

Wisdom, Food and Wealth

Wisdom, Food and Wealth
Nigerian Legends

 

One day wisdom., food and wealth started on a journey. As they went along they came to a man sitting under a tree. The man said, "Where are you going?" They said, "We are hunting a place to live." The man said, "As for me, I want wealth to live with me." Wealth said, "You are a dumb man. If you had chosen wisdom, all three of us could have lived with you. But you have chosen me. This cannot be, because if I lived with you without wisdom, you could not have me long."

They started off again and they met another man. The man said, "Where are you going, young man?" They said, "We are hunting a place to live." The man said , "I believe that I would like to have food live with me." Food said, "You are not clever. If you had chosen a certain one of us, all of us would live with you. But look, you have chosen me. Do you think that you could keep me? No, you could not keep me. Let us go on."

Farther on they came to a man who was working. He said, "Where are you going today?" They said, "We want a place to live." The man said, "I would like for wisdom to live with me." Food said, "If you have chosen wisdom, then I will live with you, too. I know that you will be able to take good care of me." Wealth said, All three lived with him because he made a good choice.

 Can you identify a lesson from this story?

BISI FAKEYE - Adieu!

As reported by : Arts and Culture Place.

 The death of veteran artist, Bisi Fakeye, has thrown many into mourning. The news of his death came as what many described as shocking.

Fakeye died on Sunday, October 8, at the Ikorodu General Hospital in Lagos by yet-to-be disclosed ailment.

He was born in 1942 at Ila-Orangun, Ekiti. He was a renowned caver from the great Fakeye family of carvers - Lamidi Fakeye being the best known.

Bisi apprenticed under Lamidi Fake. Although he went through school up to teacher training college and abandoned teaching for carving. Moving to Lagos in 1968, Bisi interacted with formally trained artists, developed a more commercially based practice, and became part of the Lagos art scene. After FESTAC 1977, he settled into the studios on the grounds of the National Theatre, now Universal Studios of Arts.

Final painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Final painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Riding With Death

Jean-Michel Basquiat began his artistic career while in his teenage years, as a graffiti artist in Manhattan, before transitioning to painting later in life. 

His work quickly attracted widespread acclaim for its depth and composition and Basquiat was soon the toast of the art world. Unfortunately, the artist was also struggling with a heroin addiction and died of a “speedball” overdose (essentially a mix of heroin and cocaine) when he was only 27.

Basquiat was prolific and it isn’t clear exactly which is his final finished painting. But one of the likely candidates seems to be Riding with Death, which was completed in the months before his suicide in 1988.

The work features a skeletal creature being straddled by a human figure. Although much of Basquiat’s late work has been criticized as lazy and overly commercial, Riding With Death remains a firm critical favorite, with some critics linking it to the concept of spiritual possession (“being ridden”) in Haitian voodoo. 

Scull: by Basquiat

Story of a Painting of Jan van Eyck

Story of a Painting of Jan van Eyck

The Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434 by Dutch artist Jan van Eyck, is regarded by art historians as one of the most important paintings in history but also a constant source of controversy. For starters, the painting is done in oil—something conventional nowadays but pretty rare in Western European art of the early 15th century. 

This allowed Van Eyck to fully explore his talent for detail in ways that have seldom been seen in other paintings. If you look closely, you can see that the mirror on the back wall reflects the entire room, including two additional figures standing in the doorway. (The dog is conspicuously absent.) The artist even (somewhat) takes into account the distortion of the convex mirror. Incredibly, the even smaller medallions inside the frame of the mirror depict scenes from the Passion of Christ.
However, the controversial part of the painting isn’t the mirror but rather the couple itself. It was unusual for that time to paint contemporary people just standing around the house, so historians have argued that there might be a deeper meaning to the painting. Specifically, some have argued that the artwork depicts a newly married bride and groom with the mysterious figures in the doorway acting as witnesses. 

Not everyone agrees with this assertion, and experts have analyzed every minute detail in the painting from the way the couple is holding hands to how the woman is wearing her hair to try and establish the relationship between the two people.

The Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434 by Dutch artist Jan van Eyck, is regarded by art historians as one of the most important paintings in history but also a constant source of controversy. For starters, the painting is done in oil—something conventional nowadays but pretty rare in Western European art of the early 15th century. 

This allowed Van Eyck to fully explore his talent for detail in ways that have seldom been seen in other paintings. If you look closely, you can see that the mirror on the back wall reflects the entire room, including two additional figures standing in the doorway. (The dog is conspicuously absent.) The artist even (somewhat) takes into account the distortion of the convex mirror. Incredibly, the even smaller medallions inside the frame of the mirror depict scenes from the Passion of Christ.

However, the controversial part of the painting isn’t the mirror but rather the couple itself. It was unusual for that time to paint contemporary people just standing around the house, so historians have argued that there might be a deeper meaning to the painting. Specifically, some have argued that the artwork depicts a newly married bride and groom with the mysterious figures in the doorway acting as witnesses. 

 Not everyone agrees with this assertion, and experts have analyzed every minute detail in the painting from the way the couple is holding hands to how the woman is wearing her hair to try and establish the relationship between the two people.

The Monkey Trial.

Legends of Africa: The Monkey Trial.

This is a story of two boys who could not agree.

One day two boys were wandering in the bush and they found some meat. They could not decide which of them saw it first. Each one thought that he had seen it first and each one said, "I saw it first." They would not agree that each should have half of it . Each one wanted the larger piece. They argued and argued and almost fought.


Finally they decided to take it to the monkey court for a trial. As soon as the monkey saw them coming he decided that he was going to taste that meat. The boys saluted him and told him everything that had happened.
 Each claimed that he had seen the meat first. When they had finished talking, the monkey said, "I think that I had better divide the meat for you and have each person take his portion without argument."

The monkey divided the meat, but one piece was larger than the other piece. The monkey picked up the larger piece and took a bite of it and ate it. When he laid down the piece from which he had taken a bite, he saw that it was the smaller of the two. 

He picked up the other piece and took a bite from it and ate it. While the monkey seemed to be trying hard, yet he could not get the pieces equal. Each time the piece from which he would take a bite would be the smaller of the two.

When the monkey saw that both pieces of meat were getting small, he said to the boys, "Go home. What little meat there is I will keep for my fee. You shall not taste any of it." He drove them away without even giving them small pieces of meat.

This is how they lost all their meat. If they had been willing to agree between themselves each would have had a nice piece of meat.