Benin
Benin is another area famous for its artistic productions in Nigeria.
Benin has some similarities with Ife art.
The Benin artists worked in wood, terracotta and stone,
The famous Benin works known to the rest of the world seems to have started about 1400AD.
These include sculptures in ivory and bronze.
Tradition has it that the art of bronze-casting was taught to the Bini by a caster from Ife. This caster, according to the story, was invited to Benin through the Ooni of Ife in the late 14th century by Oba Oguola, to teach the Bini craftsmen the art of making
memorial heads in bronze for ancestral altars.
These heads have caps and high collars respresenting coral beads worn by the Oba of Benin during ceremonies.
Having learnt the technique from the Ife caster, the Bini craftsmen later evolved the art in their own way.
The Benin works, like those of lfe, are naturalistic and idealistic
but they are more symbolic. They also used the lost wax process for the bronzes.
They show heads of Obas, free-standing figures of warriors, figures on horse back, musicians and figures standing on their own.
Apart from the heads and figures in the round, they also cast bronze plaques.
The plaques depict kings, warriors and hunters and were originally mounted on the wooden pillars of the Oba's chambers.
Vessels for holding water used in the ceremonial washing of the Oba's hands were made in the shape of a leopard which was believed to be an animal symbolic of royal power.
Benin had a well organized kingship like that of Ife with the Oba at the head.
The Obas were said to possess divine powers because
they were regarded as reincarnations of their ancestors.
The Oba'scourt was believed to have been blessed with mystical powers and people were obliged to propitiate their deified heros and kings.
The bronze heads of past Obas were, therefore, worshipped as deities because of their connections with the spirit world.
The other works, the bronze plaques and ivory works, were done to glorify the person and the deeds of an Oba.
They were also done
for the patronage of the Court.
The skilfulness and the beauty of the works made the British loot most of them into museums abroad after the Punitive expedition of 1897. One of such works is the 16th
century mask that was chosen as the symbol of FESTAC'77 held in Lagos between Januarv and February 1977.
see also→
Nok Art
Igbo-Ukwu Art
Tsoede Art
Esie Art
Ibibio Art
Owerri Art
Ife Art
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