28/02/2024
The Court Art of the Ancient Benin Kingdom.
The advent of the Warrior Kings of ancient Benin Kingdom was a period that saw the redefinition of the Arts and the prosperity that visited the Visual Artists of the kingdom, as they, the Warrior Kings commissioned lots and lots of artistic projects for documentary and commemorative purposes. Though before this time, the Artist did some works in these respect, but their engagements were mainly in the area of the socio-religious, that's, works produced solely for religious or ritual purposes, Altar furniture's like carved Ancestral staffs, cast bronze Altar bells, and the carved ivory horns with its heiroglyphic documentation which only an initiate could decipher ,etc etc.
Arts compositions now took on a new form that contrasted the earlier works with their stark vividity and as a matter of fact rendition, making it appreciable and interpretable, to a wider and a diverse audience rather than to the a select few, as in the past, as attested to by very many looted relief plaques in diaspora museums.
And how did this happen?The imperialistic intent of the Warrior Kings as against or unlike what was the common notion of most imperialist states or kingdom's of history, aimed or driven mostly towards the acquisition of space for their expanding populations, was different but rather one that projected towards vassalage, that's a situation, where the conquered states had their indigenous adminstrative structures left intact and in place, but compelled to swear allegiance to the suzerainty of the Oba of Benin.
And to ensure the compliance of their leadership to these oaths, their children, mostly their heirs were taken to the empire's capital of Benin as hostages! Majority of whom served in the great palace, as pages,( Omuadas) where they're exposed, becoming as the grow older, steeped, in the arts and etiquettes of court life.
One of the other major reasons that compelled Benin to adopt the non colonisation stance, was the fact that she lack the excess population to actualize the concept of colonization unlike what was vogue in most imperialist states in history.
Because first and foremost to set up a colony in a conquered area, you've to bring in your own ethnic people, particularly families to populate the area, that's fathers, mothers and children like the Europeans did in the New World! But in the case of Benin the interest was the survival and prosperity of the home Country.
So Garrison's were only setup in potentially volatile conquered territories Lagos and Ado Ekiti, to kieep an eye and crush sedition when it arises.
It was only in a few exceptions were in places like the modern day Lagos State, where the subjugation of the indigenous tribes, took a prolonged campaign, making it expedient to put in place a garrison of troops and also in faraway places like Ado Ekiti where the threat of Oyo's expansionism was real, there were clashes and the most notable one, was the destruction of an Oyo Army at Otun! A development that prompted the overtures of Oyo for an armistice, which Benin embraced because her victory in the actual sense of it, was pyrrhic.
An 'Ikhinwin' tree as a testament to the Armistice was planted at the very spot where the armistice was agreed upon and a garrison was also put up, that grew with time to become what is known today as Ado Ekiti Town, as a deterrence to Oyo's further expansion in that direction.
Benin expansionist policies which was focused on making vassals of neighbouring states, was to ensure an endless and continuous flow of tributes, mainly in forms of exotic products of clothing items, farm products and mined precious materials of stones and metal, that thus boosted the economic prosperity of the kingdom And in the wake of these developments, the Oba and a great number of the kingdom's elites or nobility of the period, became wealthier! And with these wealths, infrastructural developments were sparked off, starting from the Oba's palace, and would later envelope virtually every quarter of the great city.
Gifted Benin freemen, artisans and artists alike became sought after as the nobles jostled to outdo each other in the building of edifices where sculpted doors and panels were common features.
The Visual Arts profession grew significantly, as commissions after commission gave them, the opportunities to put in display their God given talents
Guild's dedicated to the Arts, the Igbesanmwan carvers, the Iguneronmwon Bronze casters and the Owiina' Nido weavers, were expanded and fully patronised by the Emperors, and the wealthy noblemen, a patronage that enabled the arts to thrive bountifully, leading to the production of the artworks of impeccable qualities, as evidenced in the qualities exhibited by most the looted artworks that now litter diaspora museums, world over . This greatly earned, for the Artists elevation in their societal ranking, placing them in the same pedestal with the accomplished persons of the empire as these guilds now had their various heads, 'Innehs' inducted into the 'Ekhaemwen' ranks as titled Chiefs.
Art now assumed a more documentation role rather then aesthetics or religious as the Emperors of the period embraced this in all its fullness, that's the memorialization of notable events of their reign, most especially their martial achievements.
Incidentally this period of Benin's imperialism coincided with the arrival of the Portuguese to her shores in search of trade relations and the prosperity instigated by the virtually endless tributes the flowed into kingdom, had precipitated a boost in the industrial growth, especially the indigenous textile artistry and technology, as the Benin cloth( Ukpon'Okhua) was highly coveted and sought after by the Portuguese traders who paid handsome for these and other items of trade transactions in Mannillas, which incidentally were made in variety of materials, Copper, Brass and Bronze.
Before this period most of these precious alloys, the Brasses and Bronzes had entered into the kingdom in trickles as part of tributes from faraway friendly or vassal states in the hinterland. The appearance of these Manilas as means of exchange of trade transactions, brought an increased availability of these precious alloys, the very same materials used for the production of Bronze castings. This in turn brought a boost in prosperity for the Artists, as the renumeration for their commissions were in Mannillas
The bulk of these artistic productions productions virtually ended up in the possession of the Oba as he was the chief patron of the Arts, who displayed these artworks, with the exception of the ones, that served as Altar furnishings, in a spacious gallery within the the huge Palace complex where they served, outside their aesthetics but as referential historical documents for resolving arguments about court etiquettes.
This gallery displayed these documentary Artworks for centuries, until the unfortunate event of the civil war of succession precipitated by the usurpation of the throne by Ogbebo in about 1816 that left a significant part of palace in the ruins! This was occasioned by the self-immolation of the usurper Ogbebo, who, when he saw himself trapped in the palace grounds, besieged from all sides, following the defeat of his army in the field by the loyalists of the legitimate heir, Erediauwa', now holed in the section that housed the magazine of munitions located within the palace complex, lit up the gunpowder kegs with fire and blew himself up! The fiery explosions devastated a significant part of the palace, especially, the royal storehouse, throne room and the gallery strewing up the contents of the aforementioned all over and outside the great palace complex.
The victorious but shocked rightful heir, later crowned as Oba Osemwende had to spend virtually the whole of his reign in the rebuilding of the ancient palace! The art pieces that survived the conflagration, mainly the bronzes were stacked in heaps and stored in section of the palace, to await the completion of the gallery, which the new King proposed to be rebuilt but never came to fruition, even up to reign of his successors.
And it was in these stacked states, these bronzes were found and looted by the British conquerors of the ancient kingdom.
(I remember my late mum recalling how she and her half siblings as growing princes and princesses in the Royal harem of her father Oba Eweka 11, in 1920s, over a 100 years after, whenever they're kneading mud for their 'Emababa' thing, occasionally found beads of the royal wardrobe types embedded in the mud, relics from the Royal beaded robes destroyed in the explosion of over a 100years before.
The enormity of the losses of these art pieces, were not actually felt until the restoration of the monarchy, some 16 years later, when Oba Eweka 11 was crowned in the 1914 and on a certain occasion during a celebratory event in the palace, a dispute arose, about the protocol that govern some certain etiquettes in the observation of the ceremony and there was confusion as referential materials were absent! This sad development prompted Oba Eweka, who incidentally was artistically inclined to immediately revive the ancient Artistic guilds that had gone moribund following the unproductive years of the interregnum...
