The Art of African Exploration

Created by the Smithsonian Institution, this online exhibit presents primary sources documenting Westerners' earliest travels in Africa, including maps, landscape drawings, sketches of plant life, descriptions of peoples and individuals, printed publications, and other materials. The project aims to document how Europeans filled in the interior spaces of the continent, which had hitherto been empty spaces on their maps. It provides users with an understanding of how European travelers combined the desire for conquest or profit, missionary fervor, a thirst for adventure, and scientific curiosity, proving themselves adventurers, scientists, humanitarians, and opportunists, all advancing the processes of imperialism even as they expanded knowledge. The site presents users with a curated collection of images and texts organized around themes of knowledge, science, exploration, and wildlife, all of which are tagged with identifying information and are viewable in enlarged formats.