13607

WiSe 19/20: Royal Arts in West Africa: The Kingdoms of Ifè, Danxome, and Benin

Romuald Tchibozo

Information for students

(LV in englischer Sprache)

Comments

In this seminar, we will discuss the developments of the royal arts in the three powerful kingdoms Ifè (in the present Nigeria), Danxome (in today’s Republic of Benin), and Benin (also in Nigeria). The students will acquire substantiated knowledge about the central role of the royal arts in these kingdoms with regard to their customs, belief systems, social organizations, and political systems. We will start by the presentation of each of these kingdoms that will allow retracing and interpreting their entangled histories – as they did not only have exchange relations with Europeans but they also had connections with each other. We will begin with the first kingdom in the region, Ifè, whose emergence was at the end of the middle age. We will discuss this initial peaceful phase of partnership that contributed to the constitution of trade routes towards Europe and also to the production of the famous Afro-Portuguese objects. Over time, other kingdoms like Oyo, Benin and Danxome appeared and were implicated in the transatlantic slave trade. What was the cultural impact on the arts in this new context where Europe, Africa and the new World met? A special focus of the seminar lies on the stylistic and iconographic characteristics and their developments in the neighboring kingdoms over time - from the beginning in Ifè, at the origin of royal arts around the 10th century. We will discuss the particular principles that engendered the emergence of new forms in the royal arts of each of these political entities: The Danxomean kings had successively the responsibility to advance the royal arts as especially artistic production contributed to the management of the power and to the radiance of kingdom beyond its borders. From Ifè to Benin including Oyo, royal arts’ developments followed a different, complex process. The emergence of a royal art style was due to the fact that one kingdom conquered a neighboring kingdom. We will also discuss the political, religious, and the commemorative functions of the diverse object genres – we will for example analyze terracotta and bronze heads (objects specific to Ifè and Benin), relief plaques, carved elephant tusks (objects genres specific to the kingdom of Benin, relief plaques also to Danxome), portables altars (asen), bas-relief as well as textiles (specific to Danxome). Finally, I will give an insight in how the royal arts are displayed in West African museums today, as for example in Abomey, the former capital of Danxome, but also in Nigeria where national museums are instruments for national identity construction. close

Suggested reading

Introductory reading: Adams, Monni: Fon Appliqued Cloths, in: African Arts, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1988, pp. 28-41+87-88. Adandé, Joseph, Tornay, Serge: Gu: un Dieu en armes: Musée de l'Homme, Paris 1999. Adédiran, Biódún: The Emergence of western yoruba kingdoms: a study in the process of state formation among the yoruba, Ph. D., University of Ifè, 1980. Bay, Edna G.: Wives of the leopard: gender, politics, and culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey, Charlottesville 1988. Bay, Edna G. (Ed.): Asen, Emory Univ. Museum of Art and Architecture, Atlanta, Ga 1985. Beaujean-Baltzer, Gaëlle (Ed.): Artistes d’Abomey, dialogue sur un royaume africain, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris 2009. Ben-Amos, Paula Girshick: The Art of Benin, Washington 1995. Blier, Suzanne Preston: Royal Arts of Africa. The Majesty of Form, London, 2012. Blier, Suzanne Preston: The Art of Assemblage: Aesthetic Expression and Social Experience in Danhomè, in: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 45, 2004, pp. 186-210. Blier, Suzanne Preston: King Glele of Dahomè, Part One: Divination Portraits of a Lion King and Man of Iron, in: African Arts, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1990, Special Issue: Portraiture in Africa, Part II, pp. 42-53+93-94. Blier, Suzanne Preston: King Glele of Dahomè, Part Two: Dynasty and Destiny, in: African Arts, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1991, pp. 44-55+101-103. Bickford Berzock, Kathleen (Ed.): Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, North Western University, Princeton 2019. Curnow, Kathy: The Afro-Portuguese Ivories: Classification and Stylistic Analysis of a Hybrid Art Forms, Ph. D. Thesis, Indiana University, 1983. Lombard, Jacques/ Mercier, Paul, Guide du musée d’Abomey, République du Dahomey, in : Études dahoméennes, Institut français d’Afrique noire, Dakar 1959. Oronsay, Daniel Nabuleleorogie: The history of ancient Benin Kingdom and Empire, Benin City 1995. Piqué, Francesca/ Rainer, Leslie H.: Palace Sculptures of Abomey: History Told on Walls. Los Angeles 1999. Plankensteiner Barbara (Ed.): Benin. Könige und Rituale. Höfische Kunst aus Nigeria, Gent 2007. Ross, Doran H. (Ed.): Elephant: The Animal and Its Ivory in African Culture, Los Angeles 1992. Tchibozo, Romuald: Le Gou, une expression culturelle ou un mode de vie, in : Création contemporaine et patrimoine royal au Bénin: autour de la figure du Dieu Gou, site of HiCSA, 2018, pp. 95-110. Vogel, Susan Mullin: Art and Politics: A Staff from the Court of Benin, West Africa, in: Metropolitan Museum Journal, No. 13, 1978, pp. 87-100. Willet, Frank: Ifè in the History of West African Sculpture, New York 1967. close