History 241 African Popular Culture
Assignment: Write a 3-5 page paper on an aspect of the message in Tshibumba Kanda Matulu’s 100 paintings on the History of Congo/Zaire. Focus on a limited number of specific paintings, and clearly identify the paintings under discussion in the paper.
An excellent paper:
·
demonstrates careful
consideration of Tshibumba Kanda Matulu’s work.
·
contains arguments
based on specific paintings (and other specified sources, if you wish to add
them), not on generalizations.
· has a clearly evident one-sentence thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. This statement of the paper’s argument is systematically developed in each succeeding paragraph of the body of the paper, and summarized in a concluding paragraph.
·
uses active voice,
and avoids contractions and informal
language.
· notes all references to sources consistently following any standard form of citation.
Please give a letter grade to the following partial outlines of papers on the topic.
Thesis statement: Matulu’s portrayal of Mobutu and Lumumba show that he actually thought Lumumba was a good ruler and Mobutu was a bad ruler.
P1. Painting xx and xx of Lumumba, show him in a natural environments, paintings xx and xx of Mobutu, he is painted against a void.
P2. Painting xx, showing Lumumba as a Christ figure.
P3. Painting xx and xx of Mobutu, no people in the picture, he is ruling over nothingness.
Conclusion: Although Tshibumba Kanda Matulu must have been constrained by the power of Mobutu’s police state from saying what he really thought, the way he painted Mobutu, in contrast with the way he painted Lumumba, show that Matulu does not like Mobutu and he did think Lumumba was the right leader for Congo.
Thesis statement: We can see from the art in Remembering the Present that the people of Zaire have suffered a lot and the artist knew this.
P1. Tshibumba Kanda Matulu painted paintings that show he loved people and felt their pain.
P2. Paintings of war, violence, shooting and people dieing evoke emotions of sorrow and rage at colonialism in the mind of the viewer.
P3. The artist was proud of Africa, which you can see in the paintings of chiefs and village life.
Conclusion: People ought to know more about the artists of Africa.
Thesis: Tshibumba Kanda Matulu’s stark, empty pictures of mines, factories and urban spaces convey a criticism of the materialism and inhumanity of Belgian colonial rule.
P1. Painting xx, and xx, of xx mine and xx factory, are bleak, desolate, and have no people, only massive structures designed for the extraction of wealth.
P2. In contrast, paintings xx, and xx, of precolonial Zaire, all have people, and objects in the paintings do not dwarf the people.
P3. Paintings xx, and xx, of the future, indicate the ambiguity Matulu feels about industry.
Conclusion: Matulu’s paintings of industrialized life are paintings of oppression.
Thesis: The problems Matulu portrayed in his history of Congo are all being repeated now.
P1. Paintings xx, xx, and xx show fighting over control of copper and diamonds, like the present war.
P2. Paintings xx and xx show how women and children suffer most in war, also like the present
P3. Paintings xx, xx, and xx show the crucial role of mercenaries in wars in Congo, also happening now.
Conclusions: Tragically, Matulu’s main theme of the sacrifice of the masses for the ambition of their rulers,
is being enacted in Congo over again in the present war.