The art of Ife, flourishing from the twelfth to the fifteenth century in southwestern Nigeria, stands as a unique testament to African artistic expression.
Ife (pronounced ee-feh) is today regarded as the spiritual heartland of the Yoruba people living in Nigeria, the Republic of Benin, and their many descendants around the world.
The city-state thrived as a powerful commercial hub with access to the lucrative trade routes along the Niger River between 1100 C.E. and 1400 C.E.
Today, Ife remains a major spiritual and religious centre for the Yoruba people.
According to Yoruba myth, Ife was the centre of the creation of the world and all mankind.
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From the 12th to the 15th centuries, Ife flourished as a powerful, cosmopolitan, and wealthy city-state in West Africa, in what is now modern Nigeria.
The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass, and copper and created a style unlike anything in Africa at the time.
Works of art from Ife have become iconic symbols of regional and national unity, and of pan-African identity.
The sculptures of Ife are one of the legacies of the kingdom of Ife, whose capital city, Ile-Ife, is the center of a tradition in which its primacy and reverence is nearly unparalleled among the old world's cultures and religions.
Ile-Ife, as the tradition goes, is the genesis of all humanity, deities and the world itself; it was the site of creation of civilization and social institutions, and its from Ife that kingship, religion and the arts spread to other places.
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Despite its location deep in the heart of the “forest region” of west Africa and at the periphery of the medieval world's trading theatre, Ife was the innermost west-African kingdom known to external sources of the medieval era.
Ife's position in west Africa's political landscape was lofty and unequalled, much like its art.
History of Ife Kingdom: The Rise of Yoruba People
Discovery and Initial Misconceptions
In January 1938, workmen clearing topsoil for house foundations in the Wunmonije Compound in Ife, Nigeria, stumbled upon a group of sculptures shaped like human heads cast in metal.
Seventeen of these life-like heads were accidentally found in the Wunmonije Compound in Southwestern Nigeria by several archaeologists during the time of more housing construction in that area.
The finds from Wunmonije Compound were published in 1938-9 and created a sensation in the western world.
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It was initially assumed that these beautiful sculptures could not have been made in Africa by African artists.
The life-like modeling was compared with the classical traditions of Ancient Greece and Rome.
It was even suggested that these heads were evidence that Ife was the site of the legendary lost civilization of Atlantis as described by the Greek philosopher, Plato.
Leo Frobenius, a German archaeologist, proposed the theory that the Kingdom of Ife was the "African Atlantis" due to the unique stylized and descriptive artwork.
Overturning Prejudices
The Ife heads played a key role in overturning prejudices that Africa produced only “primitive” art.
By 1948 archaeologists had accepted that the heads were the work of Yoruba artisans and not people from Atlantis.
Responding to a 1948 exhibition of the heads at the British Museum, a London publication declared: “This African art is worthy to rank with the finest works of Italy and Greece.”
Origins of Ife and the Emergence of Social Complexity in Yorubaland
The emergence of the Ife kingdom is related in a Yoruba epic that tells a story of confrontation between two personalities of Obàtálá and Odùduwà who were a representation of several personalities and factions in classical Ife that stood for the dominant opposing camps identified with the Old order (Obàtálá) against the New order (Odùduwà).
Archeological evidence indicates that the early small polities in the Yorubaland during the mid 1st millennium were an advanced form of the "house society".
Ife was therefore not the earliest Yoruba state but rather adopted and innovated traditions developed by its older peers to greatly enhance its political and ritual primary relative to them to create the ife-centered orientation of Yoruba world views.
The Ife Heads: Representation and Technique
The Ife head probably represents an Ooni which means "king".
Such sculptures such as this was very unqiue to the culture of African art.
The subject matter of most Ife art is centered around royal figures and their attendants, reflecting the political structure of a city-state ruled over by a divine king, the Oni of Ife.
Study has shown that the regal heads are not gods but men-the ooni, rulers of Yoruba kingdoms.
Wealthy ooni obtained the metals for the artworks by trading gold and ivory along the Saharan routes to Europe.
To the Yoruba, the heads are more than just beautiful objects.
It was a part of politics and religion for the Nok culture to make a practice of constant scultping out of respect and commemoration for their rulers.
The creation of these heads were used for ritualistic purposes for the death of a ruler.
In the Yoruba culture, there were two burials for people who passed on from the civilization; and for people of important stature and even more special burial which included great offerings.
The effigy of these sculptures were merely lifeless symbols of furniture for alters to commemorate the lost ones.
Furthermore, the creation of these heads were used for ritualistic purposes for the death of a ruler.
Sculpted heads were buried in the ground at the foot of giant trees and resurrected when they were used ritually as offerings or sacrifices, sometimes on an annual basis.
The style of these natuarlistic sculptures probably originated over two thousand years ago.
The Lost-Wax Technique
The Ife heads were made from a technique called lost-wax.
What that means is that the casting consisted of making a wax model with a core from some other substance enclosing the model in a mould, melting away the way, and pouring molten metal or glass into the void, then allowing the material to harden, and finally polishing the finished product to give it that smooth finish [See, The British Museum].
The technical sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’ enduring beauty.
The face here is enlongated with striations around the mouth, earlobes, and neck of the sculpture.
In addition, a more interesting naturalistic feature is the ridges around the front of the neck to represent skin creases [The British Museum].
Crown Details
However, the most complex construction of the sculpture was the crown.
The crown consisted of three main layers.
The lower layer was the basic foundation of the crown.
The central layer was designed with tubular, rectangular figures to represent the inclusion of beads into an actual crown that the Ooni may have actually been wearing.
On the central layer of the crown, there is a conical round crest-like figure with seven concentric rings that represented the use of more beads into the crown [See, The British Museum].
The top layer, which is the most distinctive, is the long tubular, beaded structure which the big tassel sitting at the top of the tube.
The elaborate beaded headdress with feathered fringe was originally painted in red and black.
When the heads were found in the Wunmonije Compound, there were traces of black paint and furthermore, there were rosettes that outlined the sides and bottom of the crown which were painted red [See, The British Museum].
