For this, topic we will be considering both the Ife Art and Benin Art.
…Ife art is a court art. As the spiritual head, the Ooni of Ife controlled the art and the artists. The artists were working only on the instructions of the Ooni (king). The bronze works of Ife show a perfection of modelling and brilliant technical control over the "cire-perdue" process…
… Benin art is one of the Nigerian ancient artistic culture which is famous for its cire-perdue bronze casting…
IFE ART
Ife is in Osun state and it is said to be the cradle or traditional origin of the Yoruba, one of the major tribe in Nigeria. The relics of its glorious and monumental past are in its sculpture tradition in metal and terracotta. The most famous manifestation of naturalism in African art is the ancient art of Ife. The works date back to the 19 century A.D and the first Ife art work to be known to the outside world comprised of the glass beads, seen by John and Richard Lander in 1832.
Although the Ife sculpture had been taken out of Nigeria in the first decade of the 20th century (exactly when and how are still unknown), it was the German anthropologist /ethnographer Leo Frobenius who visited Ife and dug up some terracotta in 1910 that first drew outside attention to the art. The idealized naturalism of Ife art is unique in traditional Africa hence Leo Frobenius likened the arts to the classical arts of the Mediterranean world and referred to the town Ife as
'Atlantis', the mythological lost colony of ancient Greece.
Ife art is a court art. As the spiritual head, the Ooni of Ife controlled the art and the artists. The artists were working only on the instructions of the Ooni (king). The bronze works of Ife show a perfection of modelling and brilliant technical control over the "cire-perdue" process.
The hair and beard etc. are not included in the modelled figure but are represented with serial holes (which probably serve as channels for weaving hairs to make it real). Ife figures have profuse scarifications, heavily beaded. Not only are large numbers of anklets and bracelets worn, but the arrangement of beads on the chest pronounced.
The animals represented in Ife art are only in terracotta. They include the elephant, hippopotamus, antelope, and a ram represented only as heads. The figures are symbolic, many of them representing human beings of nearly life size, although the head is life size. Other good examples of Ife art works are:
a. Head of an Ooni of Ife.
b. A ritual figure of a queen.
c. Terracotta heads.
d. Terracotta head of a ram.
e. Figure of Ooni-brass.
BENIN ART
Benin art is one of the Nigerian ancient artistic culture which is famous for its cire-perdue bronze casting. Benin art consists of figurines and relief plagues, most of which were removed during the British punitive expedition of 1897.
Benin artworks bear eloquent testimony of the excellent craftsmanship of Benin craftsmen.
The art of ancient Benin is sometimes referred to as court art because of its monopoly in the Oba's court.
On bronze plagues, people were pictured in costume with weapons and attendants. Harmful and non-harmful animals are represented and decorated in stylized forms, such as cock, crocodile, ram, leopard, python, cow, goat, elephant and other animals. The art comes in different forms of media such as bronze, ivory, stone, terracotta and wood.
The Benin artists have a conventional way of representing human forms, making it easily distinguishable from those of other Nigerian sculpture traditions.
The eyes are delineated by uniform lids. There is little sense of the eyeball fitting into a socket. The planes of the head are smoothed into each other.
The nose runs straight down almost diagrammatically (like an ordinary diagram) and is cut back at right angles to meet the upper lid. Where the nose, cheek and nostrils meet, the planes blend according to convention and not direct observation. The mouth appears to be pulled out of the face rather than made to grow out of it. The ear is the least satisfactory. It is very diagrammatic and stuck on to the sides of the head. The pupils were formed from iron nails head; there were tribal markings on the face.
The art is highly technical. The subject-matter ranged from memorial heads of their Obas to figures of noblemen and warriors. With the exception of wood carvings Benin arts were exclusively made for the Oba. The brass casters and ivory carvers used to work for him. Brass, the metal used for casting is not only precious and beautiful, its bright shining colour, especially when polished, is reputed to repel evil and its non-rusting quality, symbolizes the enduring quality of the divine kingship. Only royal heads can be cast in brass. Heads put in ancestral altars of the brass casters are only in terracotta, while similar heads used by the chiefs are in wood. As for ivory, one tusk of every elephant killed in the kingdom used to belong to the Oba.
Also memorial plagues were made in rectangular form to record life and events in the court. Other decorative objects made were used to embellish ritual altars.
There were also ivory, for example the Festac '77 mask', terracotta and wood.
THE CIRE PERDUE METHOD OF CASTING
It is the system of using 'lost wax' method of casting with metals. It is a method commonly associated with Benin, Ife and other West African bronze casting culture.
Processes involved:
i. Modelling of desired effect with clay.
ii. Covering or overlaying the modelled object with wax.
iii. Overlaying the waxed areas with another layer of clay.
iv. Joining the inner clay with the outer area, with metal nail or wire at different positions, passing through the waxed areas to help hold the two clay modelled areas when the wax is lost.
v. Burn out the wax and retain the groove.
vi. Pour into the created groove or hole the melted metal ore like bronze, brass, aluminium etc, and allow cooling.
vii. Remove the inner and outer clay.
vili. File and give the casted object a good finishing.
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