African Art and Architecture

D

Igbo Ukwu

The art history of the southern part of Nigeria is distinguished by the presence of a number of traditions of lost wax (or cire perdue) casting of copper alloys, of which the arts of Igbo Ukwu (c. 9th to 10th centuries ad), Ife (12th to 15th centuries ad), and Benin (from c. 15th century ad) is the most prominent. The precise nature of the links between these traditions, and those of other casting centres in the region, is a complex problem that has yet to be satisfactorily resolved, although some oral traditions among brass casters in Benin claim a direct link to Ife. Metallurgical analysis indicates that the metalworkers of Ife and Benin were primarily reliant for their raw materials on copper and brass imported across the Sahara and, in the case of later Benin brasswork, on the coastal trade with Europeans. The much earlier Igbo Ukwu sculptures are in leaded bronze, some of which is of local origin.

At Igbo Ukwu, now a small village of no obvious significance east of the River Niger, two major sites were excavated by the archaeologist Thurstan Shaw in 1959-1960 following an accidental discovery by villagers, initially in 1939. At the first site an array of cast-bronze objects in a highly distinctive style appeared to have been placed on a clay platform, possibly a shrine. Among them were pendants in the shape of human and elephant heads, vessels in the shape of calabashes and shells, ornate staff heads and knife scabbards, and a casting representing a pot on a pedestal surrounded by a network of ropes. All had finely worked surface decoration that included details of such insects as flies, beetles, and grasshoppers. The second site was the grave of an important man. Buried with him were pottery, ivory tusks, woven mats, and thousands of glass beads, together with a number of copper and bronze objects—a breast–plate, a crown, a leopard skull on a staff, two rings of coiled copper nails that appeared to have been attached to a round stool on which the body was seated, and two brackets to support his arms. Certain details, such as the patterns of facial scarification on the representations of human heads, have led to suggestions that the grave may be that of a distant forerunner of a senior titled man known as the Eze Nri still found among the Eastern Igbo.

More recent Igbo art is characterized by a wide variety of masquerades, ikenga shrines to male achievement, and figurative wooden sculpture made for shrines devoted to local deities. In many masquerades a dual system of imagery distinguished white-faced masks, depicting “beautiful maiden” spirits, from darker, more powerful masks related to ideas of male power. In the Owerri region whole villages combined to build mbari, large houses adorned with elaborate arrays of mud-sculpted painted figures, as sacrifices to Ala, the Earth goddess. Among the arts of Igbo women were pottery, weaving on the upright loom, wall painting, and uli body decoration.

E

Ife and the Yoruba

Ife is regarded as the ancestral home of the Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria. The legend of Oduduwa, who sent out his 16 sons from Ife to found the major city-states, provides a charter for the institution of kingship throughout the Yoruba kingdoms. Archaeological discoveries at Ife, together with chance finds and objects recovered from the palace and various shrines, have revealed a rich tradition of sculpture in bronze, stone, and terracotta. Dated from between the 12th and 15th centuries ad, they include a score of life-size bronze heads in a portrait-like naturalistic style, as well as terracotta heads, ornamented ritual pots, and free-standing bronze figures. Some of the terracotta figures of about three-quarters of life size were excavated from shrines in courtyards paved with carefully arranged patterns of potsherds set on edge. The bronze heads are thought to represent past kings, and have holes at the neck, suggesting that they were intended to be fastened to a wooden figure. Small holes roughly following the hair-line seem to have been intended to attach the crown. By analogy with recent customs in some Yoruba towns, it has been argued that the heads may have been used as effigies of the dead king at second burial ceremonies. A seated figure cast in copper in the Ife style was found far to the north at the village of Tada, together with bronze figures, three of humans, two of ostriches, and one of an elephant. Local belief associates these with Tsoede, the legendary founder of the Nupe kingdom, but they more probably indicate Ife’s links to long-distance trade routes.

Although Ife remains an important ritual centre, by the 16th to 17th centuries, the key states in the region were the expanding military empires of Oyo and Benin, the rulers of both of which claimed descent from Oranmiyan, a son of the founder of Ife. Oyo was the largest of a number of rival Yoruba polities until its defeat by the Fulani Islamic jihad in the 1830s. There is considerable local and regional variation in aspects of the art of Yoruba-speaking peoples, notably in woodcarving styles, textile design, the distribution of masquerades, and the prominence of various deities in cult practice. Gelede, which aims to control the potentially dangerous spiritual powers of women, predominates among the south-western Yoruba in the Ketu and Egbado areas; the egungun ancestral masquerade is popular with the Oyo; while the epa cult is practised in Ekiti, in the north-east. In each of these a range of carved wooden headdresses with cloth costumes is used in performances that combine visual arts with songs, music, and dancing. The other well-known wood sculptures of the Yoruba, such as doors with high-relief carving, figurative veranda posts, dance staffs, divination equipment, and free-standing figures, are also used as part of an array of artefacts in other media, such as architecture, textiles, pottery, leatherwork, beadwork, and metalwork, to construct an appropriate representation of royal prestige or religious cult practice. Some of these artefacts were sacred objects of deep religious significance, while others (such as the veranda posts) were primarily simply beautiful objects adorning the houses of kings and wealthy chiefs. Scholars have been able to identify and document the work of numerous important sculptors, such as Areogun of Osi-Ilorin (c. 1880-1954) and Olowe of Ise (c. 1875-1938).

F

Benin

The Kingdom of Benin (which should be distinguished from the modern-day country formerly known as Dahomey) is located in the tropical rainforest belt of southern Nigeria, to the west of the River Niger. When Europeans first reached the area in the late 15th century, they found a complex and expanding warrior kingdom with which they were able to establish trade and diplomatic links on an equal basis. Some idea of its splendour is given in accounts provided by Dutch traders who visited the capital early in the 17th century. Olfert Dapper, in Description de l’Afrique published in 1686, reported that the palace area was as large as the Dutch town of Haarlem. “It is divided into many magnificent palaces, houses, and apartments of the courtiers, and comprises beautiful and long square galleries, about as large as the Exchange in Amsterdam, but one larger than another, resting on wooden pillars, from top to bottom covered with cast copper, on which are engraved the pictures of their war exploits and battles.”

Brass-casters in Benin worked exclusively under royal patronage, providing the palace with the plaques that depicted many aspects of warfare, and court and ritual customs, as well as images of European merchants and soldiers. Other important brass sculptures included commemorative heads for royal ancestral altars, free-standing figures of human beings and of animals, bells, and a shrine to the hand (called ikegobo). The brass-casters were but one among many hereditary guilds of artists, ritual specialists, and other suppliers of services to the court. Other groups included the royal ivory-carvers, who produced the carved tusks that were displayed upon the brass heads on ancestral altars, as well as ivory regalia restricted to the king himself. A pair of ivory leopards inset with copper spots were placed either side of the king on state occasions. Leopards were an important symbol of the royal power, indicating the control of the king of the town over the king of the forest.

A sense of history is very important in relation to Benin art. Each important innovation in form or materials is attributed to a named member of the dynasty of kings that stretches back to about the early 14th century ad, while some of the royal traditions are thought to date from the previous dynasty, the Ogiso. From a different perspective scholars of the development of brass-casting in Benin have combined local oral history with metallurgical analysis, stylistic change, and European records to propose a division of the commemorative heads into early, middle, and late periods.

The court at Benin, although now subject to the national government, still maintains a system of royal patronage, with groups of artists supplying the palace with the regalia necessary for the performance of an annual cycle of festivals believed to be essential for the continued prosperity of the Benin people. Away from the court are numerous shrines at which painted mud sculpture and chalk-ground drawings are used in the worship of local deities.

VII

East Africa

East Africa, the area from Sudan and Eritrea southward to Zambia, Malawi, and the island of Madagascar, is a vast region encompassing a diverse range of peoples, environments, and historical experiences. It includes semi-nomadic pastoralists, ancient kingdoms, coastal trading ports, and even a few isolated communities of hunter-gatherers. Aspects of this diversity are apparent in the extremely wide range of art and architecture that has developed in the region.

A

Nubia

The art history of the succession of Nubian cultures that evolved along the Nile valley in the northern area of the modern state of Sudan is closely intertwined with developments in Egypt, but despite these mutual influences it retained distinctive characteristics. Archaeologists have uncovered artefacts including fine pottery and gold jewellery from royal graves designated as A-Group and dated to between 3100 and 2800 bc. Alongside smaller-scale cultures, known as C-Group (2000-1500 bc) and Pan-Grave (2200-1700 bc), the powerful kingdom of Cush developed around 2000 bc. Its capital was at Kerma, and it is characterized by rich and elaborate royal tombs in huge circular burial mounds. The conquest of this kingdom by the Egyptians between 1550 and 1500 bc began a long period of Egyptian rule during which Egyptian gods, art, and funerary practices became established in Nubia. The balance shifted in the 8th century bc, when a Cushite king conquered Egypt, establishing the 25th Dynasty, which ruled until the invasion of Egypt by the Assyrians around 660 bc. From around 270 bc a new Cushite kingdom arose. Its capital was at Meroe, and pyramids and temples dedicated to a mixture of Egyptian and local gods were built. Following the gradual decline of Meroe in the 3rd and 4th centuries ad, Christianity became the established religion of Nubia for a long period until it was displaced by Islam in the 14th century ad. Despite close links with the Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, the art of Christian Nubia retained a distinctive stylistic sequence best displayed in the murals depicting bishops, saints, kings, and queens, at the cathedral of Faras (8th to 11th centuries).