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1	Missionaries' impact on the formation of modern art in Zimbabwe : a case study of Cyrene and Serima art works Zhou, Grace 11 1900 (has links) Focusing on Cyrene and Serima art workshops under the tutelage of Paterson and Groeber, respectively, the study acknowledges the foundational importance of Christian art (from the late 1930s up to the 1960s) in the rise of prominent first generation artists in Zimbabwe such as Mukomberanwa, Ndandarika, Khumalo, Songo, Sambo and many others. It rejects perceptions of African modernism as inauthentic imitations of artistic innovations that originated with European art. While accepting that there was a deliberate fusion of traditional art into mission mainstream education to produce Christian art forms with a strong Africanised identity, the study reveals missionaries’ conservatism and restrictions on artistic freedom. It, therefore, locates the formation of modern art in Zimbabwe largely within a broader spectrum of Africans’ encounter with colonialism or western culture which induced artists to invent new artistic expressions reflecting their own emergent political and socio-economic circumstances. The novelty and outright rejection of missionary impact are, therefore, alien to the natural synthesis that informed artistic modernism in Zimbabwe. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Art History) Missionaries Colonialism Art workshops African modernism Appropriation Hybridisation Artistic expression Homogeneity Heterogeneity Tradition and culture 704.9482096891 Artists -- Zimbabwe -- 20th century Christian art and symbolism -- Zimbabwe Art school -- Zimbabwe Groebel, John, 1903-1972 Paterson, Edward George, 1895-194 Cyrene Mission (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe)

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Missionaries' impact on the formation of modern art in Zimbabwe : a case study of Cyrene and Serima art works