NOK ART - THE SCULPTURES

Terracotta means baked clay; the "baking" is done after the modelling is over. The clay is fired to such a temperature that it becomes very hard, the hardness varying according to the temperature at which it is fired. The difference between terracotta and most Nigerian pottery is that ordinary pottery vessels are fired only at a low temperature. The firing of clay sculptures to produce terracotta requires a certain amount of technological knowledge, which involves mastery of the properties of clay. First, unfired clay contains many air bubbles and particles of moisture. Second, when fired, the clay shrinks by about one-tenth. So the sculptor must ensure that the clay contains no air bubbles, for these would expand on firing and might well crack the object. For this reason, it is dangerous to fire large clay objects, and the sculptor must devise a means of overcoming this danger. Large objects are therefore made hollow to allow air to escape, but small ones may be modelled solid and fired without much danger.
Terracotta sculptures are widespread spatially and temporally. They occur in pre-dynastic Egypt and in Mesopotamia, in the Aegean, in pre-Columbian South America, and in the Chinese T’ang dynasty. Their uses vary from being tomb furniture to representations of everyday life.
Nok sculptures provide the earliest evidence so far of plastic art in terracotta in the whole of Black Africa. A cursory examination of the finish of these objects would reveal the amount of effort put into their making and the aesthetic quality aimed at. The fact that many of them have survived in a good state of preservation in alluvial deposits, having been rolled around far considerable distances and far such a long time, attests to the skill and mastery of their makers. It shows that their makers were not only artists but technologists as well.

Nok Culture