BEGIN DATING

The fact that most Benin works are found above the ground poses a tantalizing problem for their dating. In 1923, B. Struck made the first attempt by arranging the Benin works then in German museums in the order of age which he thought them to be. He isolated five main phases:

1. the archaic period, beginning in A.D. 1140;
2. (b) the early period, about A.D. 1360;
3. the great age, about 1500;
4. the late age, about A.D. 1690; and
5. a modem age, beginning about A.D. 1820.

This arrangement was not based on any scientific evidence, but was purely subjective.
The next attempt, still subjective, was made by William Fagg when he divided Benin works into early, middle and late phases. According to him the early phase consists of the thin bronze heads which are rather less than life size. At this time the Benin people probably did not make figures. This phase is believed to have started circa A.D. 1400. The middle period is characterized by the introduction of plaques, figures and rather heavier bronze heads. It was also at the beginning of the period that the renowned queen mother’s head (plate 101) was made. The phase is dated to circa A.D. 1550. The late phase was decadent and began circa A.D. 1650. It was a period of massive flamboyant heads.
It is within the realm of the art critic to make subjective evaluations of works of art, and the Benin works lend themselves to this type of evaluation. What is not generally realized however, is that these evaluations are subjective and should be used as such, not as established facts. There are, however, many historical incidents in Benin to which rough dates can be assigned, which were used by Philip Dark in arriving at dates far some of the works. These include the arrival of the Portuguese, the civil war at the end of the sixteenth century which brought to an end the making of plaques, the revival of the art tradition during the reign of Oba Eresoyen in the eighteenth century, and the records of artistic styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is also the introduction of the office of the queen mother by Oba Esigie in the sixteenth century, and, finally, the appearance of winged headgear, an innovation believed to have been introduced by Oba Osemwede (1816-1848). These events do help in the dating of some of the items in the Benin art corpus.
It should now be mentioned that archaeological excavations so far carried out in Benin have not provided the much-needed guide to the dating of the origin of Benin court art, except to indicate that the artistic use of bronzes did not start before the fifteenth century. It is not known, therefore, precisely when the art started. The beginning of the end might have come by the eighteenth century, because in 1702 Nyandael saw some of the plaques piled up in the courtyard of the palace. In 1897, the Empire had already declined, but the break with the past was finally made in that year by the guns of the British Royal Marines. The Benin court art which remained after the 1897 catastrophe can be seen today on the ancestral altars of the Oba of Benin. But nearby, the descendants of the ancient craftsmen continue to make a living by casting in the old tradition, not for the Oba’s palace, but for the tourist market. Although the incentive is ro make quick profit which results in poor workmanship, they sometimes produce works of high quality comparable to the great masterpieces of the past. They, then, together with the Oba’s ancestral shrines, form the link between the past and the present.

Benin Culture