Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity, ca. 1300In this book, Suzanne Preston Blier examines the intersection of art, risk, and creativity in early African arts from the Yoruba center of Ife and the striking ways that ancient Ife artworks inform society, politics, history, and religion. Yoruba art offers a unique lens into one of Africa's most important and least understood early civilizations, one whose historic arts have long been of interest to local residents and Westerners alike because of their tour-de-force visual power and technical complexity. Among the complementary subjects explored are questions of art making, art viewing, and aesthetics in the famed ancient Nigerian city-state, as well as the attendant risks and danger assumed by artists, patrons, and viewers alike in certain forms of subject matter and modes of portrayal, including unique genres of body marking, portraiture, animal symbolism, and regalia. This volume celebrates art, history, and the shared passion and skill with which the remarkable artists of early Ife sought to define their past for generations of viewers. |
Contents
Risk Art and History | 1 |
Artists Subjects Materials and Patrons | 65 |
Sight Site and Viewership | 107 |
Aesthetics and Political Expression | 155 |
Marking the Ife Body | 202 |
POLITICS REPRESENTATION AND REGALIA | 245 |
Art Identity and the Natural World | 288 |
The Art and Politics of Royal Headgear | 337 |
Staffs of Office Menhirs and Thrones | 396 |
Conclusions | 454 |
Glossary | 465 |
Notes | 473 |
525 | |
555 | |
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Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity, c. 1300 Suzanne Preston Blier No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
ancient Ife art animal artists beads Benin ceremonies Chapter Chief Color Plate contexts Copper alloy casting copper alloy heads coronation corpus deity depicted diadem divination Drewal early elephant Eluyemi Euba facial marks florescence-era forms fragment Frobenius Garlake Hausa headdress historic Hunterian Museum identified identity Idowu Ife’s autochthonous Igbo Ile-Ife important individuals iron Ita Yemoo Jebba King Obal`uf`on king’s Láf`ogido leopard life-size linked mask menhir Modakeke motifs mudfish National Museums Niger River Nigeria Nupe Ob`atálá Obal`uf`on II Obal`uf`on II’s Obalára’s Land Obalufon Obatala Od`udu`a Odewale Odudua Og´un Ogb´oni Ogun Ol´oj´o festival Ol´okun Oranm´ıy`an orisa Osángángan Obamákin palace Photograph political portrayals priest quartz reference referencing regalia Renumbered risk rites ritual role ruler S.P. Blier scepter sculptures second dynasty shrine similar staff stone suggests symbolic Tada temple terracotta terracotta head throne top left traditions University of Glasgow vessel W´unmon´ıj`e Willett Yemoja Yoruba