Abstract :
My purpose in this paper is to look at the work of
a number of scholars who have challenged
popular and mainstream accounts of Western
and pre-Colombian American history and to
assess the implications of their work to art education.
There are three of these scholars whose
works are pivotal. They are: Cheik Anta Diop, Ivan
Van Sertima, and Martin Bernal. What is the
substance of their challenge? They assert that
Ancient Egypt was an African civilization, whose
achievements in science, philosophy, and the arts
exerted a powerful formative influence on the
ancient world of Greece and pre-Columbian
Middle America. This has been misrepresented
in popular and mainstream European accounts of
world history. The implications of their work for art
education are considerable, especially to art
history as it relates to multicultural issues.
Indications are that we must move beyond the
cultural chauvinisms that persist in texts and
curriculum structures if we are to achieve truly
democratic situations and these revisionist historians
help us to do just that.
