Barry Kent MacKayArt by Barry Kent MacKay
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In this section are copies of original works of art. All of them are dedicated to helping us live according to unconditional love and compassion, which is the foundation of our peaceful means of bringing true and lasting peace to all of God's creatures, whether they are human beings or other animals.

San Boy


(Artwork - 162)
San Boy

This painting of an African subject, is a species I don’t draw as often as I used to, my own. It shows a child of a group of people in Africa called the San, or Saan, people (once called the “bushmen”, a term now regarded as derogatory). I encountered this little guy in the Kalahari Desert, many years ago. The San fascinate me on many levels, not the least of which their society is, traditionally, egalitarian albeit with a hereditary chief of limited authority, and they survive in ecological harmony (greatly disrupted by modern human practices, including cattle grazing and diamond mining) in an environment that would be fatal to me and most people, I’m sure.

They are classic examples of the “hunter-gatherer” cultures that, anthropologists tell us, once characterized all our ancestors and did so for the most of our existence as a species. Genetically, the San deviated from the rest of humanity about one hundred thousand years ago, and they were, it appears, the first people to inhabit many southern regions of Africa, now Botswana, where I got the idea for this painting, and South Africa. They have been called the first known artists, with images on rock dating back some seventy thousand years.

My entire artistic output will only last a tiny fraction of that time. Physically, they are, on average, distinctive in appearance, short in stature and with high cheek bones and narrow eyes which, I suspect, give them protection against the glare of the sun in arid desert regions.

This little study is about 12 by 9 inches and is in oils on panel.

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Copyright © Barry Kent MacKay
Barry describes himself as a Canadian artist/writer/naturalist.
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