Title: Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife
History, Power and Identity, c. 1300
Author: Suzanne Preston Blier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, UK
Year: 2015
ISBN: 9781107021662 (Hardback)
Price: £70 (US$115)
By Tajudeen
Sowole
(Published in The Guardian Nigeria, Sunday, August 30, 2015)
Between
archaeologists and historians, ancient Ife cultural objects appear to have
become so complex such that scientific and literary sources hardly find a
common ground, so suggests a new book, Art
and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power and Identity, c. 1300,
written by Suzanne Preston Blier.  |
| Cover of the book |
A Cambridge University Press publication, the
574-page book is enriched with photographs of iconic Ife objects, graphic
illustrations in plates of textures of some of the sculptures as well as maps
that animate changes in political and trade routes from the 1300 (circa)
starting point of the subject till modern period.
The
author, a professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard
University, U.S. anchors her Ife findings on the city’s identity as a centre of
knowledge in Yoruba ancient civilization. Blier distils the city's history and
cultural values as vital factors from which she raises quite a number of issues
in the works of some noteable archaeologists and historians.
Blier, author of several award-winning books
on architecture, art and African royal art however throws her hat of pedigree
into the ring of Ife culture scholarship by excavating some new leads that
could add to the texture of Ife art vocabulary. Also, revealing are the
challenges said to have been faced by Ife artists, across generations,
sometimes leading to tragedy, in the hands of tyrant monarchs.
It is a well-known fact that art of ancient
Ile-Ife origin has been established as one of the major proofs of black African
civilisation of medieval age, perhaps much earlier. It is therefore not
surprising that Blier's new book, published in 2015 gives so much research
space to the behavioural or anthropological aspects of Ife people, and Yoruba
in general to arrive at quite a depth of scholarly work that challenges as well
as stretches academic debate on the subject.
The
62-page Introduction of the book starts with the highlights of the author's
physical journey to the modern city of Ife, in the current Osun State,
Southwest of a nation state Nigeria. She notes the depth of spirituality that
surrounds Ife, particularly the myths that come with "fear", and also
prejudice expressed in the western academia as 'closed' Ife world.
For Blier, closure as expressed by the
western academia must have been too suspicious to be real; so, she set out to
extend and explore the vast Ife art. While acknowledging Ife as the centre for
over 40 million Yoruba at home and the Diaspora, the impact of the city's
influence, according to Blier, traverses cultural space of the natives; the
people's artistic values resonate beyond the Yoruba nation.
"When one speaks of the sixteen
historical Yoruba Kingdoms embraced within the Ife political sphere, it is not
only to this mythic primacy and the larger regional economic and diplomatic
system that one is speaking, but also to the enduring imprint of Ife's artistic
legacy in the world more generally."
She
notes how the name 'Ife' is pronounced and spelt differently across areas of
influence. For examples, from Itsekiri to Benin (south-south Nigeria), even as
far back as having link to an ancient country "Youfi (Ife)" in southeast
of Mali Kingdom, traces of generational spread of the human seeds sowed at
Ile-Ife appears to have grown beyond a geographical sphere origin.
From the accounts of early European
explorers, brothers John and Richard Landers’ mid nineteenth century adventure,
to missionary, David Hinderer's experience, the spiritual efficacy of Ife, as a
centre of Yoruba ancient civilisation was not in doubt, Blier writes.
Unearthing one of the periods that led to the
emergence of the reach figural sculptures from Ife - some of which were said to
have been excavated by the controversial German archaeologist, Leo Frobenius -
Blier traces their production to the city's internal conflicts that often led
to wars. From the author's interaction with resource persons of the city's
nativity, the sculptures were an extension of such strife, specifically as windows
in healing the wounds of conflicts.
Having given diverse definitions,
interpretation and perception of risk from western perspective, Blier writes
that for the people of Ife and Yoruba in general, risk is a crucial consideration
in cultural values.
Between
academic and archaeological research, quite a number of works on Ife art objects
that the author either faults or commends are referenced. For example, she
finds Frank Willert’s work inaccurate. On Willert’s work, put in CD, and titled
‘The Art of Ife: A Descriptive Catalogue and Database’ as the researcher’s "most
important contribution," Blier laments the shortcoming of the efforts as
lacking crucial scientific details. "Unfortunately, the work does not
include scientific reports of Ife's various archaeological sites (some of
which, if they have existed, seems to have been lost)."
Apart from the work of former Director-General
of National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the late Omotoso
Eluyemi, whose "conclusion" she says "have faced scrutiny,"
Blier appears to have further found other indigenous archaeologists and
historians more resourceful, particularly in her writing Art and Risk in Ancient
Yoruba. She cites the efforts of Babatunde Agbaje-Williams (1991, 2005) and
Akinwunmi Ogundiran (2001; 2002a 2005). In fact, the author discloses that her
research "has benefited" from the works of quite a number of
scholarly contents done by the natives, particularly that of "Ife
geologist, Akin Ige."
Among other crucial aspects touched in the
Introduction are ‘Dating Early
Ife Art’, ‘History and Iconography: Sculptures That Tell Stories’, ‘Art
and Regional Trade: Ife on the Niger and ‘Odudua's Offspring: Regalia and
Shared Cosmology’.
In the beginning of each of the chapters that
are grouped under two parts, Blier's deep understanding of the subject,
particularly as displayed in some of the Yoruba proverbs as well as similitudes
from revered western artists and thinkers is not in doubt.
Under Part 1: ‘Art, Risk and Identity’, the
first chapter titled ‘Making Art: Artists, Subjects, Materials and Patrons’
dwells on several risks that the Ife artists have faced across
generations. It takes off with
post-modern natural tragedy, particularly of a prominent family, Ile Asude (the
house of those who smelt brass), and goes back to centuries. In fact, there was
a time, according to a reference of the author, when one Ife monarch, possibly
the revered Obalufon 'ordered the slaughter of all members of lineage of
artists...,' to prevent what the king thought as a future 'deception.’
From
challenges such as natural disaster, conflicts and hazards of materials that
the Ife artists - across generations - have been facing, Blier argues that the
artists are among the most resilient and experimental in the world. This part
also, treats, deeply, the usage of materials such as copper alloy, terracotta,
iron as well as the less documented wood, leather, basket and ivory among
others.
Appropriation of art, perception and viewing,
within the Yoruba belief in the strength of native eyeliner (tiiro) and its scientific proficiency,
form early start of the second chapter ‘Experiencing Art: Sight, Site, And
Viewership’. Other areas of focus in the
chapter include perception of spirituality, which figural sculptures are
perceived to radiate.
In a world of visual arts that is fast
blurring the line between art and craft, the book's focus on Post-Florescence
era pottery is quite interesting.
Still on perception, chapter-3, ‘If Looks
Could Kill: Aesthetics and Political Expression’ revisits the awesomeness of
the Ife artists of old in creating sculpture of great naturalism depth.
However, the sincerity of the artists in depicting figures, particularly faces,
appears to have also exposed health or status issues, as Blier notes that
"Ideas of fullness and eating in Yoruba contexts such as these also bear
clear-cut associations with political power, risk and danger."
Underscoring the consciousness of creating
art with the social challenges in mind is found in a topic 'Abnormalities of
Disease, Deformity and Social Wrong’, still under the same chapter.
The last of the chapters in Part-1, ‘Embedding
Identity: Marking the Ife Body’ attempts to unravel the interpretations and
importance of the different tradition of patterns. "Most explanations of
Ife body marks remain inadequate because they fail to address why striated
lines (and other marking forms exist on some Ife images but not others)."
But further into the topic, Blier argues that,
a monarch, Obalufon II, was likely responsible for some changes in facial
markings. "King Obalufon II, I contend, is the most likely to have
promoted facial marking changes after his return to power, for two masks: one
of terracotta and one of copper."
Four chapters are also grouped in the
concluding Part -II, ‘Politics, Representation, And Regalia’. It starts with ‘A
Gallery of Portrait Heads: Political Art in Early Ife’, a chapter that dwells
on royal portraitures, mostly those that are rarely documented, at least in the
common Ife vocabulary of art. Her source, Ife's Wunmonije Compound, has
"remarkable metal heads of the works from ancient Ife."
Between the deities of Yoruba traditional
religion and some animals, there lies a connection, except that the animals
appear to be less focused by the artists. But Blier in the sixth chapter, ‘Animal
Avatars: Art, Identity, and The Natural World,’ gives an insight. For example,
the author discloses that one of the Ife legends explains to her "the
importance of fish and various other animal species," in Obatala deity
belief.
The last two chapters are ‘Crowning Glory: the
Art and Politics of Royal Headgear,’ and ‘Battling with Symbols: Staffs of
Office, Menhirs and Thrones.’
Among many areas highlighted in the ‘Conclusion’
pages of the book is the fact that the most reliable source of scholarly
reference on Ife art lies in the undocumented works that remain within the
natives.
"The ongoing retention of Ife's ancient
arts in various sites under the watchful eyes of local priests and chiefs, is
one of the reasons that we know so much as we do about these early master
pieces, particularly since archaeological evidence is so sparse."
Blier is an historian of African art and
architecture in both the History of Art and Architecture and African and
African-American Studies Departments. She is a member of
the Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Her works include a debut book, The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in
Batammaliba Architectural Expression (Cambridge University
press; paperback, Chicago University Press, 1987), which won the Arnold Rubin
Prize. Her second book, African Vodun:
Art, Psychology, and Power (1995) received the Charles
Rufus Morey Prize. Other books include: African
Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (1998); Butabu: Adobe Architecture in West Africa (2003);
and Art of the Senses: Masterpieces
from the William and Bertha Teel Collection (Editor
2004).
From 2013-2015 Blier served as a member of
the Board of Directors of the College Art Association where she was Vice
President for Publications; in 2011 two of her articles were selected for the
Centennial Anthology of the journal.
Blier, with David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr is currently editing The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art (Harvard
University Press). A forthcoming volume addresses: Picasso’s Demoiselles: Pornography, Primitivism, and Darwin.
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