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| Ashanti (also Asante) artists tend to place
fewer stylistic limits on themselves than many other makers of
African art and masks. Once an autonomous nation known as the Asante
Empire, and ruled by a powerful king, the Asante spent much of the
18th and 19th centuries in territorial disputes with British and
Dutch forces. Finally in 1902, after decades of defeat and decline,
the Asante Empire was made part of the British Colony of the Gold
Coast. Nonetheless Ashanti kings retained figurehead status after
colonization, and even today great pride in the Ashanti King lives
on in the tradition of the Golden Stool. In 1960 the Gold
Coast achieved independence from British Colonial rule and took the
name the Republic of Ghana. It is here in Ghana, Togo and the Ivory
Coast that the Ashanti people continue to make their homes. |
