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Nigeria, Ife (Yoruba) |
This nearly life-sized head probably represents a woman of the royal court of Ife. She wears her hair in several ridges, a style that proclaims her high status. The delicate vertical lines that cover her face represent a pattern of SCARIFICATION. Like tattooing, the cutting of patterns into the skin is a way of marking a person's identity or status. Scarification has been widely practiced in West Africa until relatively recently.
Great care has been taken in the MODELING, or shaping, of the face to create convincing human flesh and its underlying muscles and bone structure. But a more STYLIZED approach has been used for other features: the raised edge of the lips, the upper eyelid overhanging the lower lid at the corners, and the grooves carved around the neck were formed using an ideal of beauty rather than according to nature.4
This trend toward more IDEALIZED facial features and increased stylization has led scholars to speculate that shrine heads, although depicting real people, were intended more as COMMEMORATIVE representations than as true portraits. At Ife, artists used ABSTRACTION alongside REALISM, believing that allusions alone could convey meaning to the knowledgeable. This juxtaposition may also indicate the use of abstraction to represent the inner, invisible spirit of a person, and realism to depict the outer, visible body.5 The Yoruba cosmos comprised two distinct, yet inseparable, realms: the tangible world of the living and the invisible spiritual world inhabited by the supreme creator, ancestors, and other spirits.
A dignified facial expression, like that seen here, is typical of the shrine heads. The delicate modeling of the features indicates the highest quality of Ife sculpture. This head represents an abiding interest in culture and humanism found throughout the history of Yoruba art.
Notes
4. Ekpo Eyo and Frank Willett, Treasures of Ancient Nigeria (New York: Alfred A. Knopf in association with The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1980), p. 103.
5. Drewal and Pemberton, Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought, p. 63.
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