There seems to be a move towards a more literal style among young Kenyan artists, with an increasing number of them willing to hone their abilities by studying the basics of drawing, composition and colour.

For realism dominated the Art Fair at Nairobi’s Sarit Centre last weekend.

And that is very much to be welcomed.

The keystone of excellence in a majority of the arts is a battery of sound skills gained only with the humility to learn and a willingness to practise. Heaven knows that can be pretty tiresome but, like the student stumbling over endless scales on the piano, the boring bits have to be overcome before music can be played.

Once acquired, this expertise becomes a springboard that enables artists to develop in whatever direction they choose in pursuit of an individual style and the expression of their ideas… and when the basics are in place, the end result is that much more convincing.

Of course, figurative realism is not the end in itself. The challenge for artists in this age of photography is to capture not the superficial likeness of a person — let the camera do that — but the reality of their presence and the essence of the force that both drives and destroys us.

Now East Africa is a thriving part of the international art scene, the days of the happy, slappy isolationist outsiders is, if not over, at least limited to its little warm spot in the sun.

Their self-taught works chimed precisely with foreigners’ expectations — cheerful, sunny and charming, but unfortunately also slapdash and trite.

I am not fond of paintings in which the back story is stronger than the art. Pictures should be carried by their visual content, not some romantic account of what led to their making.

It is now apparent, thankfully, that the fashion has moved on from naivety to a corpus in which subject matter, not bright colours, anxious brushwork and tortured paint, defines a painting’s origins.

This was noticeable at the art fair where groups offering help and tuition were burgeoning.

Represented were the Kuona Trust (which organised the annual fair — the fourth so far) the GoDown in Industrial Area, Pascal Chuma’s Bobea from Doonholm, Patrick Mukabi’s Dust Depo at Nairobi Railway Museum, and Brush Tu from Buruburu. (Also doing invaluable work promoting and developing young talent is the Wajukuu Art Project of Shabu Mwangi in the Mukuru slum, although it was not present on this occasion.)

This signifies a return to the Old Master studio system of pupillage, probably driven by the paucity of formal state run art education in the country. Art, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

Each of these studios has its stars, and each adds tremendous value to the region’s artistic life.

Altogether there were 26 stalls compared with around 34 last year, including the ones taken by individual artists — Chuma, Bertiers and Patrick Kinuthia among them.

And although attendance was down on previous years (the uncertain political climate was blamed by many) valuable contacts were being made and deals were being done.

Realism was most noticeable in the adjoining Wasanii exhibition with its 80 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs plus a couple of sculptures.

They filled the space yet curiously, the same number of paintings and sculptures could be found in just one of the stalls; that of the Little Art Gallery.

Verging on hyper-realism was a suite of graphite drawings by Kelvin Mathenge; one of the politician Koigi wa Wamwere, and three of Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi, one showing him on a throne of swords, another bringing him up to date in a hoodie.

Anthony Wanjohi offered two authoritatively painted studies of street vendors — Sweet Lady and Mr Fresh — while well realised portraits of Kenya’s four presidents were featured in David Mwangi Njoroge’s large acrylic The Race.

Oil paint sprayed on an assemblage of wooden chips was the chosen vehicle of Kelvin Kiruthi for two portraits, Bring Me Home and Clefs Broken, in which all intermediate tones were removed, creating the sort of illustration often produced by stencilling.

Michael Daman used graphite on paper to produce a village scene of a man cycling slowly home, called East or West, Home is Best, while Kibet Kirui’s conte and charcoal character studies of four old men caught the eye, as did Jonathan Fraser’s triptych of charcoal and graphite figure studies; straightforward life drawing and none the worse for that.

Also deep into hyper-realism was Eddy Ochieng, based at Karen Village, with his closely observed, wide-angle triptych Crystal Clear, which examined the effect of water on his own face, from splashing to immersion.

The sort of rigorous realism on show is of course only a stepping stone; a demonstration of a vital learning curve. Some artists could well remain happy reproducing what they see before them; others will take that as their starting point and go on to develop a visual lexicon to interrogate and interpret the battle of life.

And they are the ones who will truly be tomorrow’s stars.