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The New Encyclopedia of Benin Barbara Plankensteiner. Benin: Kings and Rituals. Gent: Snoeck, 2007. 535 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-90-5349-626-8. Reviewed by Kate Ezra Published on H-AfrArts (December, 2008) Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy) The exhibition "Benin Kings and Rituals: This section of the catalog features 301 ob‐ Court Arts from Nigeria," organized by Barbara jects discussed in 205 entries by 19 authors. The Plankensteiner, is an extraordinary opportunity objects, all illustrated in full color, are drawn to see hundreds of masterworks of Benin art to‐ from twenty-five museums in Europe, the United gether in one place. It will be on view at the Art States, and Nigeria, and also include several Institute of Chicago, its only American venue, works privately owned by Oba Erediauwa and from July 10 to September 21, 2008. The colossal High Priest Osemwegie Ebohen of Benin City. exhibition catalog provides a permanent record Most of the international team of authors who of this remarkable exhibition and will soon be‐ wrote the catalog entries are renowned Benin come the essential reference work on Benin art, scholars; the others are Africanists who serve as culture, and history. The frst half of the book curators of collections that lent objects to the exhi‐ Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria, bition. A full half of the entries were written by edited by Barbara Plankensteiner, consists of Barbara Blackmun (forty-nine) , Kathy Curnow twenty-two essays by a world-class roster of schol‐ (twenty-six), Paula Ben-Amos Girshick (fourteen), ars on a broad range of topics and themes related and Joseph Nevadomsky (thirteen). These entries, to the history and art history of Benin up to the on a wide variety of object types, stand out for the present. These essays, which constitute a veritable breadth and depth of knowledge gained from encyclopedia of information about Benin art, decades of work in the feld of Benin studies. Also have already been discussed in a review by Jean of special note are the entries by Flora Edouwaye Borgatti for the journal African Arts.[1] There‐ S. Kaplan, Osarhieme Benson Osadolor, Adepeju fore, I will restrict my remarks to the copious cat‐ Layiwola, and Ekhaguosa Aisien. The catalog is alog entries that constitute the second half of the not limited to works in brass and ivory, which are book. the mainstays of exhibitions and publications on H-Net Reviews Benin art, but includes numerous examples of too large and unwieldy, and smaller, more fo‐ more rarely seen utilitarian objects, garments, cused thematic sections might have allowed a and bead ornaments. Commendably, the catalog smoother narrative and a tighter ft between in‐ includes many objects created after 1897, the year troductory matter and individual entries. of the conquest of Benin by British colonial forces The king or Oba is the subject of the next sec‐ and often wrongly considered the terminus ante tion (cat. nos. 140-168), followed by one on the quem of Benin art. The contemporary objects at‐ queen mother or Iyoba (cat. nos. 169-180). Both test to the same skill, iconographic and stylistic in‐ contain the commemorative heads and other novation, and engagement with the kingdom's well-known types of objects that highlight the im‐ history and rituals as seen in the catalog's portance of these two roles. Among the surprises pre-1897 objects. here are a rare wooden door from the women's quarters of the palace, carved with intimate The catalog entries are arranged thematically into scenes of royal wives and their attendants (cat. no twelve sections, based both on the political and 180), and an equally charming brass relief plaque ritual contexts of the objects and the historical pe‐ depicting a leopard, one of the king's key symbols, riods of their creation or subject matter, each with three cubs, all feasting on an antelope (cat. with a short introduction. The frst section, "Pro‐ no. 162). Section 7, "Shrines and Deities" (cat. nos. logue" (cat. nos. 1-4), provides a brief look at ob‐ 181-217), underscores the religious basis of the jects from Ife, Owo, and Ijebu, kingdoms that in‐ Benin kingdom and is replete with a wide variety teracted with Benin and whose art traditions are of objects placed on different types of altars, ves‐ interrelated. One of the new ideas put forth here sels for ritual materials, and objects depicting sac‐ centers on the current belief by the Benin royal rificial animals and fruits. Kathy Curnow was re‐ family that brass casting was not introduced to sponsible for about half of the entries in this sec‐ Benin from Ife, but rather the opposite (cat. no. 1). tion, which are models in their balance of the gen‐ The objects in the second section, "City and eral and the specific, and their in-depth explo‐ Palace" (cat. nos. 5-25), are meant to evoke Benin's ration of form, iconography, and context. There architecture and city planning, although not all are some rarely seen objects here, such as the (e.g., cat. nos. 6-13) directly address this theme. brass rattle staff from the Ethnologisches Museum The following section, entitled "Trade with Euro‐ in Berlin, topped with intriguing images of a peans" (cat. nos. 28-51), focuses on the Portuguese snake devouring a human, who grasps a pair of and other Europeans who played important eco‐ leopards, who in turn hold an elephant in their nomic and symbolic roles in Benin history and paws (cat. no. 184). One fnds new information as culture. Section 4, "Palace Hierarchy and Court well, such as Joseph Nevadomsky's comment that Ceremonial," is by far the largest, with eighty- iron Osun staffs were used as recently as 1948 in eight objects (cat. nos. 52-139). It includes a vast political power struggles in Benin City (cat. nos. array of objects that depict Benin's most impor‐ 201, 202). tant chiefs and priests, and the objects they wear Section 8 looks at a seminal period of Benin and hold in court ceremonies and rituals. Since history and art production, "The Warrior Kings in the Oba is the pinnacle of the hierarchy, it is odd the Sixteenth Century" (cat. nos. 218-251). Oba that he does not appear until the following sec‐ Esigie (r. c. 1504-c. 1550) is the focus of many of tion, somewhat like placing middle management the entries concerning a magnificent array of rather than the CEO at the top of an organization‐ brass plaques and fgure sculptures, but to me al chart. The objects and entries that comprise two of the most striking entries concern his fa‐ this section are excellent, but the category itself is 2 H-Net Reviews ther, Oba Ozolua. In one, Barbara Blackmun dis‐ point is made by Plankensteiner in her discussion cusses a relief plaque representing Ozolua with of a man's shirt made of cloth commemorating the retainers (cat. no. 220). One of the retainers is Great Benin Centenary of 1997, likewise incorpo‐ Laisolabi, a warrior who was such a trusted rating a photograph of the deposed Oba Ovon‐ friend of the Oba that the two men share a single ramwen. By framing it with more glorious images spear, a detail one might easily overlook without of his three successors, this textile changes the Blackmun's help. Despite their close relationship, meaning of the image from one of defeat to one of Laisolabi eventually betrays the Oba, leading to survival and persistence. his assassination, in order to put an end to his constant wars of expansion that were a hardship Section 11, "The Discovery of Benin Art" (cat. nos. to the Benin people. In the other entry, O. B. Os‐ 275-279), looks at the influence of Benin art on adolor discusses two brass trophy heads and the German Expressionist artists at the beginning of oral tradition that attributes their origin to Ozolua the twentieth century. Extending this examination (cat. nos. 245, 246). It is this type of specific histor‐ of Benin's impact on modern art to works by ical information that makes studying Benin art so African American artists, such as Romare Bear‐ rewarding, and that is one of the strengths of this den and Kerry James Marshall, and Benin artists, catalog. This is equally evident in the following such as Solomon Wangboje and Erhabor Emok‐ section, "Internal Conflicts and Reorientation of pae, could have told a broader and more interest‐ Kingship in the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth ing story. The fnal section, "Benin after 1914" Centuries" (cat. nos. 252-269). This section focuses (cat. nos. 280-301) includes brass plaques and fg‐ on the remarkable, and often unique, objects that ure groups made since the Benin monarchy was were created in the eighteenth century by the restored in 1914. These testify to the continued three Obas who restored the power of the king relevance of art in providing tangible, visible and kingdom after its decline in the seventeenth form to ideas of kingship, power, and history, the century. Half of these entries were written by main concern of Benin artists and patrons for Paula Ben-Amos Girshick, providing a convenient over fve hundred years. Again, this commend‐ summary of the ideas put forth in her 1999 book able feature of the catalog could have been fur‐ Art, Innovation, and Politics in Eighteenth-Centu‐ ther enhanced with the inclusion of works by ry Benin. some of the wood carvers and academically The last three sections of the catalog focus on trained artists who have also been an important Benin art since 1897.
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