The National Art Gallery’s artwork of the week is ‘Father’s Bull’ by Victor Nyakauru. Canvas and leather belts are hung from a piece of wood to give a comprehensible artistic impression of an African bull usually passed on as an inheritance ritual from one generation to the other.

The annual exhibition currently running at The National Arts Gallery is themed Nhaka/Life/Inheritance and the bull is a critic of the ongoing societal contestations of inheritance, especially after the death of a family member.

Get paid to write app reviews

From a societal viewpoint, the use of a bull as symbolical art to depict inheritance issues in a way also shows how these matters are strongly intertwined with patriarchy, with males being the main participants in these issues.

“Cattle have always been an important part of African tradition and even as part of ancestral religion,” reads a description of the artwork.

Just like present day inheritance wrangles that focus more on houses, cars and other property, in ancestral times these focused on cattle mainly, as this was the ideal symbol of wealth within the local African society.

Even for dowry, cattle are an important means of payment. Even where cash is exchanged, it is often as a value of a given number of cows.

We can see the clear picture that the artist is giving on wealth and inheritance matters and are reminded about how these have consistently remained an unresolved matter within our society.

The Zimbabwean High court in 2015 passed a landmark ruling based on section 56 (3) of the consitution in which children born out of wedlock have rights to their parents estate and property without discrimination.

Father’s Bull won first prize at the annual exhibition, currently running at the National Gallery in Harare. It is set to run until 6 February 2017.