Art and science in Benin bronzes

African Arts, Spring, 2004 by Joseph Nevadomsky

A famous social scientist once said, "In science as in love, an overemphasis on technique very likely leads to impotence." Good science combines method and intuition, accommodating the objectivity of mathematics and physics that since the Enlightenment has made life synonymous with progress, to the subjectivity of literature and philosophy that since the Ancients has made it worthwhile.

Take dating techniques in Benin art. I single out TL (thermoluminescence) because it is a method art historians are most familiar with, if only in that reflexive way of babies startled by a sudden loud noise. Developed in the 1960s and 1970s, TL dating is used to confirm the stratigraphic dating of in situ pottery and terracotta works. It is also routinely used by museums and galleries to verify a plus-or-minus dating of authentic ceramics.

Bronze sculptures with clay-core remnants have also been dated in this way, including the so-called bronze art of the kingdom of Benin in Nigeria. These sculptures are among the most technically proficient works made by the lost-wax casting process. Although in 1897 a British punitive expedition removed objects after sacking the capital (establishing a no-later-than date for "authentic" Benin works), artifacts not part of that booty, and automatically suspected to be more recent in origin, may be authenticated by stylistic methods, by TL testing, or by another method such as metals analysis utilizing laser ablation. While these methods provide an extra comfort level to collectors and museums, they leave something to be desired for reasons I deal with in An Elementary Guide to the Dating of Benin Bronzes (forthcoming; co-authored with Natalie Lawson, California State University, Fullerton). This Dick and Jane-style primer is meant for art historians who failed ninth-grade algebra and/or suffer from social anxiety syndrome. TL is problematic as an accurate chronometric dating procedure and as a certification of authenticity for dealers and their clients. It also poses a challenge to a corps of middlemen adept at faking Benin art.

The British punitive expedition against Benin returned with booty consisting of thousands of brass and ivory artifacts that now command premium auction prices. But not all manufactures were confiscated in 1897. In chieftaincy homes in the city, in the palaces of dukes on the outskirts, and in rural communities, one occasionally finds castings that, judging from past experience, might someday enter the market. There are stunning examples. "Traditional Art from the Benin Kingdom," an exhibition at Southern University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has intriguing pieces. Other examples from the Lower Niger Bronze Industry and the southern fringes of the Edo area pique one's interest. An erstwhile shrine, a serendipitous discovery, brass castings at the northern boundaries of empire--these excite a scholar's professional gonads and stimulate a collector's salivary glands.

Benin's brass-casting tradition continues, aimed at the venturesome tourist, at diplomats and visitors to Lagos and Abuja, at Nigerians as house decor, at local residents as landscape monuments for keeping up with the Edokpolos, at religious organizations that require bronze apostles with Nigerian embellishments, at the government as civic sculptures that honor its corrupt patriots, and at Hausa runners who artificially antique castings for sale in Europe, the United States, and probably now Japan.

Reproductions from South Africa, Cameroon, and Ghana flood the market, too. Bronzes from Cameroon are conspicuous by their bulbous faces and excessive filing, which artificially creates a thinness approaching that of early Benin bronzes. Examples from Johannesburg are inexpensive, aimed at the lower end of the market as curios, and can be found on the Web at <http://www.fineafricanarts.com> or in an African arts shop at Notting Hill Gate, London. In a so-so Benin style, they are slightly off, like an Austrian torte made by Eskimos on a very hot day. Others from Jo'burg are cutely rustic, with designs that replicate Zulu / Swazi / Sotho/Ndebele beadwork and cows with curved horns that are not a part of either the Benin City contemporary casting scene or its historical art.

Splinter cells are hidden everywhere. There are Benin-style silver medallions cast in Indonesia, and, adding to the art historical hysteria of Castings of Mass Destruction, one is warned that there are casters in Europe--worse yet, European casters in Europe--producing "Benin" bronzes. As a matter of fact, a casting owned by Chief Inneh of a "bird of disaster," stolen in 1985, may have been made in Europe sometime during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and there is also the example of the Eresoyen stool. Both are honest historical recastings, maybe, but now globalization brings the postmodern uncertainty of Blade Runner. Replicants hide in artificial fog, disguised as West Africans. Connoisseurs accept simulacra. Art historians struggle for iconographic certainty.