Art-Literary Interface: The Creative Muse of Uche Okeke Through Chinua Achebe’s <i>Things Fall Apart</i>

Abstract

In this paper I approach art through some literary expositions of Uche Okeke. These expositions, I argue, are a direct influence of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart which Okeke illustrated in 1958. The paper postulates that Uli could present as a dominant ideology in the artistic genre if one juxtaposes it with the Western paradigm of Picasso’s cubism. While I attempt to underscore the importance of Igbo forklore to the creative enterprise, as exemplified by Achebe and Okeke, I also emphasize the role of Okeke’s drawings and literary landmarks in the institutionalization of an artliterary tradition at the department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Nigeria Nsukka.
This attitude, I argue, is largely determined by the singular act of Okeke’s illustration of Things Fall Apart, an incident that would transform the creative trajectory of graduates of the department in many years to come.