NOTES: Early African Art . Chapter 14

Africa was home to one of our earliest greatest civilizations - ancient Egypt and others.

p. 409
Yoruba southwestern Nigeria regard their city of IFE "navel of the world" = site of creation, the first Ife ruler is "One Oduduwa" came down from heaven create Earth and populate it.

The Ife populated the area around 800 CE and by the
11th century CE, Ife was a metropolis - today every Yoruba city claims descent.

The Oòni (or king) of Ife is a descendant of the god-king Oduduwa, and is counted first among the Yoruba kings.
He is traditionally considered the 401st spirit (Orisha), the only one that speaks.
In fact, the royal dynasty of Ife traces its origin back to the founding of the city more than ten thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

The metropolis centered around the Oni's palace in the design of concentric rings that connected to other Yoruba cities by roads.

Protective stone walls and moats were built to fortify their city.
It was and remains to be the sacred city of the Yoruba people.

Bronze casting, lost wax human heads begins in Ife around 1050 CE and flourish until 1450 CE.

Extremely well modeled, with scarification denoting one's cultural place, denoting human perfection (idealized or personal?), with moral character. Some were dressed in the oni's robes, mounted on wooden poles.

Leo Frobenius, German 1910 - discovers Ife works, and suggests they were not made by the Yoruba, but rather lost island of Atlantis. BOO!

Later speculation suggests the influence of Greece or EU - double BOO! Later scientific study prove that these were created in the southwestern part of Africa.

The city was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries.

The Ilé people are worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terra cotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400 A.D.

In the period around 1300 C.E. the artists of Ife developed a naturalistic sculptural tradition in terra cotta, stone and copper alloy. Copper, brass, and bronze many of which appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, the man who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving and worn celebratory clothing.

Riches of the African continent - Egyptian relations continued through the Hellenistic period. Phoenicians and Greeks founded many settlements along the Mediterranean cost between 1000 and 300 BCE - extending trade routes.
Islamic merchants were continual tradespeople to along these routes.

East Africa trade routes began a little later around the beginning of the Common Era - with the trade routes of Indian Ocean, east towards Indonesia and South China Sea.
Arab, Indian and Persian ships were constant.

Map of trade routes

The new language of Swahili evolved due to centuries of Arabic speaking merchants with Bantu-speaking Africans.

1500 CE Europeans go by ship into the Atlantic Ocean and down the West coast of Africa. Land of Benin was noted as being more powerful and wealthier than small European countries.

The Cradle of Art and Civilization
During 20th c. CE - collectors from all over the world turn to the work and look at it formalistically as having astonishing formal inventiveness and aesthetic power.
Take Picasso, for instance, and his ground breaking ideas of Cubism....

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.

The work portrays five nude female prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó in Barcelona

Dogon ancestory figure -- Pablo Picasso had one of the largest collections of West African art in all of Europe. It is no doubt that the formal elements of these influenced his on-going creative work.

"20th century archaeology has made it popular to speak of Africa as the trade of human civilization... earlier evidence for human ancestors comes from southern Africa... cave art evidence...earliest known figurative artworks from the African continent are animal figures dating to about 25,000 BCE in the mountains of Namibia." p. 410

Ife / Benin - Urban Centers
The Ife populated the area around 800 CE and by the
11th century CE, Ife was a metropolis - today every Yoruba city claims descent. The metropolis centered around the Oni's palace in the design of concentric rings that connected to other Yoruba cities by roads. Protective stone walls and moats were built to fortify their city.

It was and remains to be the sacred city of the Yoruba people.
Gateways and roadways were patterned in heavy mosaics, also covering most of the Ife's open spaces -- for this reason, gives the historical period (c. 1000-1400) The Pavement Period - #1
#2 - Middle Period 1550 - 1700
#3 - Late Period 1700 - 1897

One's palace was located in the center of courtyards, serving as the focal point for cultural activity. Within these areas archaeologists have excavated terra-cotta vessels with important icons of their cultural stories and beliefs.

BENIN
Ife was the earlier form that probably influenced the city-state of Benin, Western Africa. Kings belonged to the Ogiso = the Skyking dynasty.

Around 1170 CE a metalcaster named Iguegha, under the recommendation of the Oba, to create a new tradition of memorial heads for shrines.

Recall Lost-wax casting? Here, sand was used as packing around the wax model, molten brass poured in burning out the wax and producing the brass hollow head, as seen below. Full notes on page 418 - study them!

Smaller heads and the earliest of these, seem to be more naturalistic and closer in portraiture to the oba than the larger, heavier heads, which are more abstractly stylized.

The weight and size of the casts may correspond to the growing power and wealth flowing to the oba from Benin's expanding trade to Europe. Often coral beads and headdresses were placed on the statues as ultimate symbolic power of the Oba's power and authority.

p.419
The symbolic head not only represents the Oba as leader of Benin, but also is symbolic center for an individual's intelligence and spiritual forces. The head leads the rest of the body, as the Oba king leads the people.

Only Oba's could commission works in brass.
Artisans were organized into groups called guilds and lived in separate living quarters. They were highly prized individuals in the world of Benin.

#1 - The Pavement Period 1000 - 1400 CE
#2 - Middle Period 1550 - 1700
#3 - Late Period 1700 - 1897

In 1485, Benin established a relationship with Portugal that carried active trade to Europe and the Americas, starting first with ivory, timber, but eventually human slaves lasting into the 16th century.

Benin flourished as a nation until 1897, when British troops sacked and burned the royal palace, sending the Oba into exile. He did not return to the area until 1914. A new palace was built, where the present-day oba lives continuing the dynasty.

British troops discovered shrines of deceased oba with the brass and bronze heads and carved (relief and registered) elephant ivory tusks (symbol of power) as image above illustrates. Also within the 19th century raids was the findings of images of 16th century Portuguese soldiers. Items were placed on the semi-circular altars.

Other Great Urban Centers
Ife and Benin were only two of many cities that arose to power in Africa.
First European people who came to West Africa were also impressed with the city of Mbanza Kongo (south of the Congo River).

D'jenné (Jenné)
Long distance trade continued.
Centers were also existing in the interior of the continent - across the central and Western Sudan, profiting the trans-Saharan trade that linked Africa to the Mediterranean.
From the Sudan in the East to the Atlantic coast in the west, many kingdoms adopted Islam and wealthy cities like Timbuktu and Jenné became famous for Islamic learning.

26th king of Jenné converted to Islam in the 1300 CE and converted his palace into the first of 3 mosques.

Great Friday Mosque in Jenné, Mali. Rebuilt in 1907 in the style of the 13th century original. Djenné is a town and an urban commune in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. The town is the administrative centre of the Djenné Cercle.

First mosque was built of adobe brick, sun-dried mixture of clay and stray - but other rulers said it was lavishly decorated than the Kaaba, the central shrine of Islam in Mecca. And in the 19th century the ruler had a second mosque built more humble in appearance - it was made in 1906-1907.
The eastern side of the mosque had the marketplace as seen on page #423.

The three towers at the very top are finials (crowning ornaments) ostrich eggs, symbols of fertility and purity.
The facade and sides of the mosque are tall and narrow column like structures that act as buttresses for support.
They are rhythmic in visual effect, has strong verticality and thus appear grand.

Unusual feature are the torons - the wooden beams projecting from the walls. Torons provide support for the scaffolding that needs to be erected each year for repair of plaster.

Great Zimbabwe + Kongo -- study
Zimbabwe - the word is derived from dzimba dza kabwe = venerated houses or houses of stone.