African Aesthetics

Author(s): Rowland Abiodun

Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter, 2001), pp. 15-23
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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African Aesthetics

ROWLAND ABIODUN

No single traditional discipline can adequately supply answers to the many

unresolved questions in African art history. Because of the aesthetic, cul-
tural, historical, and, not infrequently, political biases, already built into the
conception and development of Western art history, the discipline of art
history as defined and practiced in the West has continued to resist non-
Western approaches to art. Aesthetic values of Western art historians are
shaped by European philosophical aesthetics and uniquely Western visual
preferences. With the generally low esteem for and marginalization of African
art within the broader field of art history, Africanist art historians have be-
gun not only to reexamine their Western-derived methodologies but also to
search for theoretical alternatives, lest they lose the "African" in African art.
To make any substantial progress in dealing with the problems of cross-cul-
tural translation as it pertains to the study and presentation of African art,
however, we must consider both indigenous as well as Western aesthetic
perspectives.
While it may have been useful to utilize only Western theoretical para-
digms in the study of African art history and aesthetics early in the twenti-
eth century, it has now become imperative to search carefully within the Af-
rican cultures in which the art forms originate, and to use internally derived
conceptual frameworks in any critical discourse on African art. There are,
however, difficulties in translating this theoretical position into practice.
The study of African art, having begun within the discipline of anthropol-
ogy, inherited some pertinent and vexing questions, among which is the
false assumption that Western scholars can fully understand and interpret
the cultures of other peoples by using only Western cultural notions, values,
and standards - a claim that cannot be divorced from Western imperialistic

Rowland Abiodun is John C. Newton Professorof Fine Arts and Black Studies at
Amherst College. Recently, he has co-authored Yoruba:Nine Centuries of African Art
and Thought, YorubaArt and Aesthetics, and edited The YorubaArtist: New Theoretical
Perspectiveson African Art. His inaugural William Fagg Memorial Lecture at the Brit-
ish Museum,London,on "WhatFollows Six is More than Seven:UnderstandingAf-
ricanArt,"was publishedin 1995.

Journalof Aesthetic Education,Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter 2001

?2001 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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16 Rowland Abiodun

involvement in Africa. In the traditional discipline of art history, the impor-

tance of African art has hardly advanced beyond that of catalyst and sanc-
tion for the revolutionary goals of European artists such as Picasso at the
beginning of the twentieth century.
In the years to come, however, African art will take on new dimensions
that no one has yet imagined - dimensions that will not only connect it
more fully and effectively with cognate academic disciplines but will also
fulfill many of the yearnings and aspirations of distinguished scholars in
the field. Present interest in the exploration of African art through "sight"
and "sound" will include the element of "soul." By this I mean that the cur-
rent conventional anthropological and art historical approaches which em-
phasize direct representational reaction and formal analysis to the detri-
ment of culturally based studies in aesthetics and art criticism, will make
full use of the philosophies of the African peoples.
There will be renewed interest in field research, but this time around, the
role and involvement of African scholars will be much greater. The goal
will be to interpret African art from inside the culture that gave it birth rather
than from outside. In a bid to allow the culture to speak for itself, scholars
will give more credibility and importance to primary sources, which consist
mainly of oral traditions, than to secondary sources, which may have be-
come authoritative simply because they were in print. Oral traditions will
become a highly efficient means of studying culture, retrieving history and
reconstructing artistic values. Used properly, oral traditions will reveal for-
gotten meanings that would be difficult or even impossible to obtain even
from the cooperative informant.
The recognition of how important African languages and literatures are
to the understanding of African art will lead to a reconsideration of many
"closed" issues, theoretical frameworks, and artistic concepts; a redefinition
of much terminology; and a reappraisal of the present style and techniques
of displaying African art objects in museums and exhibition halls. These
changes will mark the beginning of a truly interdisciplinary study and lay
the foundations of a joint search for those values and concepts which lie be-
hind the creation of African art. Such a study of the aesthetics of African art
can be illustrated by my current work on the art and aesthetics of the
Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria.1
The Yoruba people number well over twenty-five million and constitute
one of the strongest and largest cultural groups in Africa south of the Sahara.
Yoruba kingdoms and settlements occupy the southwestern area of Nigeria
and extend beyond it into the nations of Benin and Togo. Through the slave
trade, Yoruba culture was transported across the Atlantic and has survived
to be a powerful influence on Africans in the New World. In short, Yoruba
Africans in the diaspora constitute sizable proportions of the populations of
Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America.

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 African Aesthetics 17

Yoruba culture, well-known for its fine artistic achievements, primarily

through the naturalistic life-size bronze and terra-cotta heads of Ife, has
produced a large number of the wood, ivory, bead, leather, textile, and
other artifacts that we see displayed in major collections and museums of
African art all over the world. Yoruba art is among the earliest known by
the West and consists of some of the best-studied African works in the field.
Let us now turn to selected philosophical concepts in Yoruba culture,
granting them equal and reciprocal elucidatory value as theoretical alter-
natives to traditional Western art historical paradigms. Fortunately, the
Yoruba are one of the most studied groups in Africa. Few African ethnic
groups have as many indigenous scholars studying their own culture as the
Yoruba. Thus it makes the Yoruba a particularly good candidate for the
kind of exercise that I propose.
We will begin with the Yoruba concept of ias. The word ias in Yoruba
can mean either "style" or "tradition." Asa is broadly conceived as any set
of ways, approaches, or practices that characterize a person's behavior or
mode of work of a group of people or a period. Because tradition emerges
from the kinds of choices persons make with respect to social, political, reli-
gious, and artistic modes of expression, it makes sense to say that ash mean-
ing "tradition" derives from asa meaning "style." Moreover, the two uses of
the terms are closely related in meaning and not necessarily opposed to
each other in Yoruba art and thought. When used in the context of Yoruba
artistic discourse, ash refers to a style or the result of a creative and intelli-
gent combination of styles from a wide range of available options within
the culture. This is the reason that aisa, whether as "style" or "tradition," is
never static and unoriginal, as some Western art historians have supposed,
since the concept of asa already embodies the need for change, initiative,
and creativity. Given the nature of asa, it is to be expected that art historians
will continue to encounter a wider and wider range of new styles, forms,
and motifs, as well as old ones that have been freshly treated and presented.
Hence we see that not only do the Yoruba possess an appreciable aware-
ness of the existence of personal and community styles that accommodate
change and innovation, but they also have a sense of history built into the
concept and meaning of asa. In the light of this, we have to be more critical
in our field studies and listen more attentively to the interpretations of such
intellectually astute persons as indigenous diviners and elders, who are
knowledgeable about and sensitive to issues of style among the Yoruba. To
date, art historians have tended to privilege their Western-derived method-
ologies, much to the detriment of culturally based sources that consist
mainly of oral traditions. However, this situation is changing gradually as
more scholars see the need to allow the culture to speak for itself.
Equally helpful in attempting to know the various influences on an art-
ist, and particularly on his style, is the personal or biographical data that

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18 Rowland Abiodun
enable the scholar to place his work in the appropriate context. These in-
clude data on the artist's family background, lifestyle, and clients, how
much traveling he did, and the regard for him and his work by those in and
outside his community. Famous Yoruba carvers did much traveling, and
were continually exposed to the work of greater and lesser artists and thereby
influenced by styles beyond their immediate environment. This would be
totally consistent with the Yoruba tradition of asa which enables the artist to
innovate through adaptation of styles while still respecting and preserving
time-honored visions whose vocabulary of representation has been found
supportive of the treasured values of the society.
Closely related to the problem of style and creativity in African art is the
presumed anonymity of African art. The problem of identifying individual
artists among the Yoruba, for example, is still very much with us. This prob-
lem is exacerbated by the fact that many Yoruba artists do not sign their
works in the way artists in other societies have. This, too, has led some
Western art historians to the dubious conclusion that African artists merely
repeat traditional motifs with no personal creativity or innovation.
There is no doubt that establishing the authorship of a work of art, or
associating specific forms with names, is important for the Yoruba. But this
is usually done very discreetly, as in discussions of Yoruba art criticism and
aesthetics which Western scholars once thought never took place. The myth
of anonymity was constructed and reinforced by early Western researchers
who probably believed that the artifacts and the supporting traditional
thought systems belonged to the Africans but that the interpretation and
theorization of African art must always be theirs (that is, the early Western
researchers).
Scholars today, however, are more cautious and are trying to avoid the
same old error: of believing that if artistic procedures in other cultures do
not take the familiar Western form, they must be absent. One reason that
the Yoruba may not publicly or openly associate specific art forms with the
names of their authors is because names given at birth are closely linked to
and identified with the essence of one's personality and destiny (called ori-
inu, inner spiritual head), which in Yoruba religious belief determines a
person's success or failure in this world and directs his or her actions.
Though the act of calling out a person's given names generally functions to
differentiate individuals, in the Yoruba religious thought system it is also
believed to have the ability to arouse or summon to the surface a person's
spiritual essence and cause him or her to act according to the meaning of
those given names or in some other way desired by the caller.
It does not take long for anyone who has lived among the Yoruba to dis-
cover that their naming ceremonies and practices (oriki)are among the most
elaborate and sophisticated known anywhere. It is clear that not only do the
Yoruba possess and practice an effective system of naming everyone in

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 African Aesthetics 19

their society, but they go even further to identify them more fully through
their oriki. It is worth noting that while in the Euro-American tradition, a
child may call his parents by their first names, it would be unthinkable for a
Yoruba child to do the same, even after attaining adulthood, despite all the
influences of Western education and culture on the Yoruba society today.
Yoruba children know their parents' given names, but it is considered
disrespectful to address them casually or unceremoniously. This is apart
from the fear that unscrupulous people or one's enemies who hear and
know the name could use it to harm the bearers. There are, of course, ap-
propriate traditional contexts and occasions during which one's full given
names may be heard, but then adequate countermeasures are taken in ad-
vance to foil any machinations of evildoers. These instances include child-
naming, installation, and burial ceremonies, blessing and healing rituals,
and important family gatherings.
By reason of their profession and position in the traditional community,
artists were especially vulnerable and became easy targets for unknown
malevolent forces. Thus, artists rarely revealed their full given names to
strangers until relatively recent times. It is, therefore, not surprising that
many great Yoruba artists whose works have been collected and studied by
researchers have been identified in scholarly literature only by nicknames
or by-names, as, for example, Ol6we Ise (meaning Olo6w from the town of
Ise), O16gan Uselu (Ologan from Uselu quarters in Owo), and Baba R6ti
(father of R6timi).
Early researchers were clearly ill equipped in their training to grapple
with the problems of naming traditions outside their own social customs.
This initial lack of understanding may have led them to assume that the au-
thorship of an artwork was unimportant among the Yoruba. Moreover, the
biases of these early researchers must have prevented them from carrying
out any diligent probing of artists' full given names despite the fact, ironi-
cally, that such information was highly valued in Western art history. We
will surely need to collaborate with colleagues in the fields of African lan-
guages and literatures and modify our research techniques to make room
for the valuable data that oriki can provide in our efforts to discover Yoruba
artists' identities. Indeed, any serious attempt at art-historical studies in a
nonliterate society like the Yoruba can no longer ignore the place of their
rich oral traditions.
The field owes William Fagg a debt of gratitude for his pioneering work
in this regard.2 He was one of the first researchers to seek out conscien-
tiously and interview the so-called "anonymous" artists among the Yoruba.
His documentation of the lives and works of well-known Yoruba artists is a
rich legacy which the present generation of Yoruba art scholars highly
value. What role can familiarity with Yoruba orature play in this exercise?
Yoruba orature consists mainly of Ifa divination verses, chants, incantations,

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20 Rowland Abiodun

and songs. Examining these in their ritual contexts can reveal forgotten
meanings that would be hard or even impossible to obtain from archival
sources and most informants.
Closely related to ash as style is ase, meaning ritual power or life force,
which manifests itself in an aesthetics context as a forceful, exuberant, and
expansive style. In African-American culture ase is more implicit than
explicit. Palpably felt in churches, the "spirit," "holy ghost," or simply
"power" embodies an essentially ase-type phenomenon. Quite often a church
minister or person who manifests this spirit or power is highly regarded in
the community and seen as one with leadership potential. In more secular
contexts, in literary and oral traditions such as "signifying," "playing the
dozen," "reading," "toasts," "loud-talking," "dissin,"' "snapping," and "rap,"
there are reverberations of the structure and affective aspects of ase in vary-
ing degrees. Indeed, we must acknowledge ase as the most important
religio-aesthetic phenomenon to survive transatlantic slavery almost intact.
Yoruba artistic criticism emanates from the highest level of aesthetic con-
sciousness. Not everyone can be an art critic or amewi, "expert on beauty."
This is something that requires a significant and conscious effort to acquire.
The market woman, the festival participant, the art user, or even the artist
will not necessarily be an art critic, even though each may have acquired
some rudimentary appreciation of the Yoruba concept of beauty through a
random or accidental encounter with art. To say this is not to deny, of
course, that their comments can be interesting, intelligent, and even insightful.
Although there is no formal training for critics per se, from field experi-
ence I am led to believe that most accomplished critics acquire their experi-
ence and expertise by bd iwon agba rin, "walking with the elders," while
pursuing another primary interest or duty. "Walking with elders" means
taking an interest in traditional procedures and studying them. This kind of
exposure usually starts at an early age through regular attendance at artistic
performances, assisting with artistic processes and presentations, and lis-
tening to the comments of elders on the finished artistic works in operative
contexts. I discovered that a good number of these elder-critics are Ifa divi-
nation priests who, by virtue of their profession, take part in traditional
community rituals and festivals and have at their disposal a profound
knowledge of the complete cultural background.
It is a consequence of their position and training that the critics are gen-
erally reserved and are unlikely to volunteer information spontaneously in
public, especially when the artist or his relatives are nearby. For one to
qualify to "walk with the elders," one must possess and demonstrate these
qualities: ifarabal?(calmness and control), iluti (teachableness and compre-
hensibility), imojui-mora(sensitivity), and tftd (enduring, lasting, and stead-
fast). Other qualities, like ojiu-inui(insightfulness) and ojti-ona (design con-
sciousness and originality), are developed through training. These qualities

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 African Aesthetics 21

require suuru (patience) and iwap.le (gentle character), which in Yoruba

traditional thought embody the highest and most desirable attributes of iwa
(character) and, therefore also incorporate the most important canons of
Yoruba artistic criticism and aesthetic judgment.
The concept of iwa is crucial to the definition of beauty in Yoruba
thought. Although scholars of the subject appear to have acknowledged
this fact, the dynamic relationship which exists between iwa (character) and
ewa (beauty) has yet to be explained. Indeed, a Yoruba aphorism declares
iwa lVew, that is, "iwa is beauty." "Beauty" in this usage, however, pertains
not so much to the superficial physical appearance of things as to their deep
essence in Yoruba culture and metaphysics.
The best place to begin a meaningful study of Yoruba aesthetics is with
iwa, for to overlook or understate this important prerequisite for beauty and
to favor criteria or explanations external to Yoruba conceptions will not
only further remove us from the Yoruba aesthetic universe but will also rob
us of the full enjoyment and understanding of Yoruba art. Fortunately,
scholars of Yoruba traditional thought and literatures, with their wealth of
oral data, can be of immense help to the art historian whose studies need to
be less speculative, more oriented toward Yoruba thought, and contextually
relevant.
The word iwa can mean either "character" or "existence." An Ifa
divinatory verse calls upon the creator-divinity, (risanla, to "dye me with
my iwa at the dawn of creation," that is, Orisaila creates the person with his
or her character, giving the individual both existence and character. In
Yoruba religion, each creation, be it a divinity, person, or thing, possesses
its own inner beauty as a necessary consequence of izwa.Thus, the deities
Ogun (of war and iron), Oya (of the Niger River), Osun (of the Osun River),
Sang6 (of thunder and lightning), Obatala (the arch-divinity), Sonp6nna (of
smallpox), Iku (of death), Arun (of disease), Egba (of palsy;), Of6 (of perdi-
tion), and Esiu ( who "polices" the universe) all have their individual and
imperishable ewa (inner beauty), and our understanding of them should not
be bound by judgments based on human moral biases.
Of immense relevance here is the Yoruba saying, "recognize existence in
respect of the one existing," that is, concede to each person his or her par-
ticular character, which may not be like yours or pleasing to you. From this
statement it is clear that the Yoruba respect this category or level of the aes-
thetic and acknowledge it. In other words, iwa deals with the full recogni-
tion and proper appreciation of the thing as it is in itself, the unique quali-
ties of a specific object, as totally distinct from the generalized kind of thing
of which it is a member.
The Yoruba oriki (citation poetry/naming) of brisa (gods), man, and all
other things play a vital role in this conception of iwa. The oriki constitute a
powerful verbal art form in the identification and realization of the unique

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22 Rowland Abiodun

essence of everything known to the Yoruba. When a thing expresses the

qualities attributed to it in the oriki, it has fulfilled the most important pre-
requisite of ewa (beauty). And in Yoruba a thing can lose its ewa and be
deemed ugly (obuirewa)if its character or identity is lost.
There is a recognition of certain character traits that the Yoruba consider
indispensable in the production of a "well-done" or "well-made" work.
Like that of the patrol deity of Ifa divination, Orunmila, the artist's iwa also
calls for sacrifice and patience. "Sacrifice" here means placing the artist's
creative iwa over and above his own personal iwa, which may not necessar-
ily include the patience (siuurui)necessary to produce art. To maintain this
iwa is no less challenging than keeping the Yoruba universe in perfect equi-
librium with volatile, quick-tempered gods (brisa)such as Sango, Sonp6nna,
Ogun, and .tst, all of whom express their own distinctive iwa. This kind of
aesthetic consciousness derives from the notion of iwa as iwapele, meaning
"gentle character," as well as suurui(patience).
Referring to this same aesthetic quality in his important work, "An
Aesthetic of the Cool," Robert Farris Thompson writes:

Control, stability, and composure under the African rubric of the cool
seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic atti-
tude....Manifest within this philosophy of the cool is the belief that the
purer, the cooler a person becomes, the more ancestral he becomes. In
other words, mastery of self enables a person to transcend time and
elude preoccupation....Men and women have the responsibility to
meet the special challenge of their lives with the reserve and beauty
of mind characteristic of the finest chiefs and kings....To act in foolish
anger or petty selfishness is to depart from this original gift of
interiorized nobility and conscience.

By this kind of aesthetic consciousness both the Creator and his creation
are benefited. Because of this Yoruba belief, it is expected that the iwa of an
artist will not only show through his work but will influence his execution
of it. Thus, an artist who is impatient is not likely to convey the theme of his
subject effectively or execute a technically accomplished work. It is impor-
tant, therefore, that the artist possess the attributes of iwapble(the foremost
iwa) in addition to his own iwa. With the attributes of iwaple , the artist can
demonstrate qualities such as "poise," avoidance of "brute force," "composed
gait," "grace," "thoroughness," "calmness" "calculated patience," "insight,"
"endurance," and "fulfillment" through artistic expression in his work. A
critic's familiarity with these and other components of iwapele are basic to
his ability to recognize ewa (beauty) in Yoruba art.
In summary, I have examined the key aesthetic and art critical concepts
and the important interdependence of the verbal and visual arts in Yoruba
culture. Indeed, the basic functions and structures of these verbal and vi-
sual art forms are similar, even though their modes and manifestations may

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 African Aesthetics 23
be different. It should also be clear from the above how familiarity with
Yoruba oral traditions will enhance our present understanding of Yoruba
art immensely, as well as the visual arts, informing our perceptions of oral
traditions. With the progress made so far in Yoruba studies, and the
thought-provoking research going on today, the time has now come to start
asking questions about the nature and concept of art in Yoruba culture.
Such questions are as important as those relating to art history, style, and
iconography which have been addressed in this essay. Whichever method
we adopt in answering these questions, the theoretical contributions of
Yoruba culture itself can no longer be underestimated; it must play a very
important role. The least we can do is to abide by the universally respected
legal principle of "audi alterampartem"(hear the other side).

NOTES

1. Rowland Abiodun, "The Future of African Art Studies; An African Perspec-

tive," in African Art Studies: The State of the Discipline (Washington DC: The
Smithsonian Institution, 1990).
2. William B. Fagg, "The African Artist," in Traditionand Creativity in TribalArt, ed.
Daniel Biebuyck (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).
3. Robert Thompson, "An Aesthetic of the Cool," African Arts 7, no. 1 (1973); 41-42.

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