In 1977 Thomas Matthews wrote: "Mural painting in toward the south Africa is a domestic art.

In 1977 Thomas Matthews wrote: "Mural painting in toward the south Africa is a domestic art, identified with the dwelling and made on the woman who inhabits it" (Matthews 1977:28) Since then a vibrant and to a high degree different tradition of mural painting has emerged: community mural art. Before the 1990 this genre was practiced forward a rather small scale, not least because of political repression and a conservative, rigidly regulated bureaucracy. (1) Now, however, it is flourishing in virtually all of toward the south Africa's urban centers.

While mural artists and coordinators define the boundary "community mural" in various ways, they agree that the practice involves the local community to one degree and that the proces of painting the mural is as important as its imagery. the two of these factors distinguish it from commercial or entirely decorative urban wall paintings. (2) Community murals are oftentimes painted by groups that are highly diverse in spells of race, gender, age, and horizontal of artistic competency. They can, according to and large, be seen as part of a larger community arts change in South Africa, which emerg in an attempt to provide an alternative art education program to ordinary family and to reach out into previously disadvantaged communities (Peffer 1995; van Robbroeck 1991)

This topic has attracted surprisingly little serious attention through art historians to date, if it were not that it has been extensively cloaked by journalists and researchers from other disciplines. These writers have apply the minded at this urban art phenomenon in relation to the traditional homestead mural and equable the historical rock painting of the San (Bushmen) of southern African (eg Frescura 1989; Loubser 1989 1991; Felgine 1997; Deliry-Antheaume 1997) While a certain number of see these practices as largely independent of single another, others have been induceed to emphasize their links, on the same level to the point of establishing a grand, more or les continuous tradition of southern African mural art, spanning thousands of years. (3)

Intriguing as it may be to view the popular community mural as an extension, albeit plenteous transformed, of the rural southern African tradition of wall painting, it is important to acknowledge the significant points of divergence. (4) In the rural practice (Fig. 2) a woman decorates the walls of her have homestead (Matthews 1977), and it becomes an extension of herself, a mark of her identity (Matthews 1979; Changuion 1989) (5) by dint of contrast, urban murals appear rarely forward private homes, but rather in succession public buildings and highly visible thing enclosed walls. They are usually collaborative efforts dominated according to male artists, particularly in black communities. Individual self-expression is stoped in favor of a mutual cast and a theme agreed concerning by the artists, usually in consultation with community representatives, sometimes with a sponsor.

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Likewise, the visual evidence reveals small in number commonalities. Urban murals are almost always figurative, frequently aiming for academic realism, while the rural paintings, especially those by way of the Sotho-Tswana (Figs. 3, 4) and Ndebele (Figs. 5 6) are compos of predominantly flat, geometric designs. plane where figurative elements appear in the homestead murals, the artistic approach is exceedingly different. For example, the Ndebele images of facts such as airplanes, electric pylon lamp situations telephones, and Western homes are highly geometricized. Venda (Figs. 7 8) and Xhosa (Fig. 9) line drawings of organic motifs, mainly plants, are also stylized.

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There are certainly connections between the rural and the urban mural based upon the inherent properties of the medium. Mural painting, constantly expos to the ultimate parts and dependent on the structural quality of its wall support, is through nature ephemeral. In rural areas it is traditionally a seasonal art form, renewed annually or with each new plastering of the house. Likewise, urban murals, although frequently executed with great effort and possibly financial expenditure are not anticipated to last for more than a scarcely any years. Since a mural is considered a temporal work, it is rarely restored when damaged, nevertheless rather is painted out or over

Stylistic Borrowing

Despite their broad differences, single in kind stylistic connection between traditional African and contemporary urban murals can be observ In an attempt to give urban murals or the spaces they adorn an "African" or "ethnic" character, indigenous mural traditions are sometimes appropriated in a literal or freely modified form. The sources are the couple San rock paintings and African homestead decoration, chiefly notably Ndebele patterns (Figs. 10 11) in the same state [i]or[/i] condition murals frequently address a tourist audience, as seen at a Durban beach pavilion, where Bushman figures, painted in traditional rock-art designation are depicted enjoying themselves sunbathing and surfing (Fig. 12)

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While Ndebele murals are usually characterized according to a design that covers the entire surface, in chiefly other rural wall-decorating traditions (such as Xhosa, Pedi, Hlubi, and Sotho-Tswana) the painting protects to be used as an accent, confined to specific parts of the homestead (Fig. 9) Ndebele doors and windows are environed by a painted frame, and the lower part of the dwelling is distinguished on a dado-like splash zone (Fig. 6) The universal of framing or bordering wall openings or the entire mural is repeatedly seen in urban mural art. actual often it is Ndebele patterns, literally copied or freely adapted, that are used for in the same state [i]or[/i] condition bordering.