Egyptians were definitely doing realistic art before europeans for sure as well
No they wasn't....Egyptian was doing early forms of cubism...it wasn't until I believe the later dynasties that moved towards realism...where you have Europeans that nothing realism.
Allow me to clarify, I'm watching football and arguing so work with me.
African art is abstract based and there will be examples of realism but not as in abundance of abstract forms, whereas European art has been mostly realism vs abstract.