How can art live and what differentiates living art from other type of arts?​

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In order to treat this question I would first like to quote one known German painter called Baselitz who is known for his liking of African art especially those art which is used during rituals. He also owns a quite extensive collection of African art. He says in an interview with Lily von Ginneken in 1982:

“To none of the European sculptures I am having a satisfactory relation; none of them constitute for me a basic type that I can use as a starting-point.” (my translation, Baselitz, S. 46)

He is fascinated by the consistency of these art works that in contrary to the European art works do not strive to develop something new, but strive to maintain some common features during a long time. This observation from an artist who only knows little about the context of the art works that he is admiring is a first signal for a living force that is inherent in African art works that are used for certain rituals or other religious purposes.

Coming to the Yoruba art in Yoruba Traditional Religion we can now ask ourselves what is making this specific type of art which is also only one feature of the Yoruba art as such to be vivid ?

To answer this question we first have to get an idea of what Yoruba art in Yoruba Traditional Religion is. Yoruba art in the Yoruba Traditional Religion is art that is used within the practice of Yoruba Traditional Religion. How does this art looks like ? To understand this type of art we first have to set aside the common westerner differentiation of craft, (Textile) design, and art work. Also singing, drumming and music belongs to the Yoruba art in the Yoruba religion. But those fields they can fill a lecture of one evening – each of them and will not be the topic of this lecture.

The “things” that a person is wearing at his body from the moment of initiation to YTR on can serve as a starting-point for us in order to look what art is like in this religion. Somebody who is initiated into the YTR is getting “things” that serve for him as his/ her connection between him/her and his/her Irúnmolè. Irúnmolè are servants of God that are linking a person that is initiated to his/her spiritual source. As the Irúnmolè are numerous, those “things” that serve as connection between the initiatee and his/ her Irúnmolè can also vary, depending on to which Irúnmolè the person becomes initiated to. An initiatee of the Irúnmolè Obatala, e.g. will get white beads as necklace, which is called ileke. He/she can wear Oje, one bangle of lead that will make Obatala to recognise him anytime as his/ her child and to show the presence of the Irúnmolè in the devotee which renders that person a total and omnipresent protection and guidance. A devotee of another Irúnmolè called Osun will get blue and/or green, yellow, white and orange beads and will wear bangles out of brass or the beaded ìdè around the wrist. During festivals they can also wear clothes that goes with the colour of the Irúnmolè. An initiatee of Ogun another Irúnmolè will get beads that are having the colours of any colour that iron can become: black, green, red, and so on. The way all of these “things” looks like also depends on the status in the religion the initiatee has attained which also goes together with the level of his devotion and his wealth. If a devotee of an Irúnmolè is wealthy he will also like to show it through the materialised spiritual things that he is wearing as expression for the good work of Irúnmolè that are giving him a good and comfortable life. Depending on that the form and the formal artistic excellence shown in the beads and in the bangles and in the clothes can vary.

After attaining this art of initiation, the art is not yet finished because these “art works” need to be served because they are not ordinary objects. They need to be wore. In the case of the necklace they need to be wore daily and they also need to be cared for, e.g. they will be washed with a certain herbal bath, prayers and also creamed with shea butter afterwards. This is one area of Yoruba art in Yoruba Traditional Religion.

Beside what an Irúnmolè devotee is wearing on his body he is also having a place of service for the Irúnmolè in his house, that is the seat of that Irúnmolè in his house. Again depending on the status of the initiatee, that place can be only a corner in one room, a whole room or a house which will serve as temple then. The most important part of that place is the pot , the orù that an initiatee also gets which is at the same time the Irúnmolè of that devotee and which the devotee will care for throughout his lifetime. The way the pot looks like , whether it contains spiritual water (agbo) or not and or other spiritual materials, depends again on the Irúnmolè of the person. The Irúnmolè of the person will also determine the colour the pot is having, for instance a devotee will apply efun, one white material which is chalk like regularly to a pot for Obatala , while a devotee of Osun will regularly apply osun, camwood to his pot, his orù which will give a red colour regularly to his/ her pot. These Irúnmolè in the form of pots will be worshipped weekly by the devotees. To give this shrine, the corner of the room, the room or the temple more respect and honour, it can also be designed and an altar can be also placed inside of the shrine. Beside the personal shrine of an devotee there can also be general shrines or temples for a bigger number of people. For example a High priest might have a temple for his followers, moreover temples are also attached to the palace of traditional kings, obas, so also in the case of the general Osun temple that is attached to the palace of the king, the Ataoja of Osogbo in Nigeria.

Apart from the pot, the orù, the shrine can contain further Irúnmolè, which an outsider will classify as figures, carved of wood or cast out of metal. How are these “figures” different from art works that can be sold, that one can see in museums and that one can trade with ?

First of all the intention they are produced with is different. Let me use the process of the carving of Ibeji as example to explain on how an art object will become an Irúnmolè that is served for in the shrine. Ibeji is the Irúnmolè of twins. Those who are twins or those who wish to get twins can put Ibeji in their shrine. Also when one of the twins will die, an Ibeji has to be carved in order to represent that twin-partner that died and the living one then has to carry that Ibeji with him/herself always and always feed the Ibeji as well. The carver who will carve the Ibeji in that circumstances is one who knows all the features, characteristics, attributes and so on that must be there in order to be accepted as an Ibeji. Moreover he will have the emotional disposition, the vivid picture of that Irúnmolè, in his mind which will guide his artistic implementation. Likewise the spiritual meaning of Ibeji will be the framework in which the carver can show his artistic excellence. The art historian John Pemberton III wrote in 2001 about the creating process of an artist who produces an art work for a shrine:

“To create images that memorialize the nature and authority of […] orisa [in this context he meant Irúnmolè], an artist must have "insight" (oju-inu), literally "inner eye". He must not only understand his subject matter, but the subject, the distinctive nature and authority, of that which he seeks to image. His artistry must inform the viewer of an inner reality, confront the viewer with the essential nature of royal authority, ancestral presence, or possession by a god. His art must not only be sensitive and appropriate to his subject (imoju-mora), it must also possess a beauty (ewa) which has the power to grasp one's attention. This may be achieved through the artist's "eye for design" (oju-ona), the strength of composition, the formal qualities of a work of art, whether it be a sculptural work in bronze, iron, wood, stone, terracotta, or cloth. A work of art, however, must also be true to the "essential nature" (iwa) of its subject and capable of evoking "wonder" (ara) in the viewer. It must have qualities that are "enduring" (tito), give the viewer an awareness that he or she is in touch with a reality of ultimate significance.” ; (Pemberton II).

From this creation process one can also see that Yoruba art in Yoruba Traditional religion is not only to be produced by nationals of the Yorubas. Once also other nationals have been taught by priests of the Yoruba Traditional Religion about the tenets of the YTR they can also produce art that can serve spiritual purposes within the religion. Likewise an Austrian artist called Susanne Wenger or with her Yoruba name Adunni Olorisa has made the spirituality of the forests in Osogbo visible for everyone by putting magnificent sculptures in the sacred grooves of Osogbo where the Yoruba Traditional Religious Osun festival is taking place yearly as well as many other rituals and where also those are living that can be likened to monks in the Christian religion, who will only stay in shrines and worship and whom people can also ask to pray for them.

Back to the process of producing Ibeji: While the carver of an Ibeji will do his work the mother of the deceased twin will cook food for him. After finishing the carving aspect the carved figure will be bathed in a medicine bath which contains mixture of different leaves and will afterwards be creamed with palm oil and shea butter. Afterwards the mother of the deceased twin will apply osu, red camwood on the Ibeji. From then on the figure will now serve as Ibeji and represent the deceased twin. This process can be used to analyse how an object will start to become a living entity, a subject. Still in the hand of the carver, the carved object that was carved with the intention of using it for spiritual purposes - to some extent - can also be used for purposes outside of the shrine, either for decoration, for exhibitions, etc. but immediately spiritual processes will take place like the bathing, the object will now transform and become the house of a spiritual being, of an Irúnmolè. From then on it is not object anymore, it becomes subject that one cannot sell, that should not be touched by somebody who is not initiated into the Yoruba Traditional Religion and that it is sacred. An Irúnmolè in the shrine also needs to be served with cola nuts, food and yearly it will also be washed and creamed. All those processes are making the Yoruba art in Yoruba Traditional Religion to be living and to be different from other types of art. There was an exhibition of altars of several religions from the 2nd of September2001 to the 6th january 2002 in the “museum kunst palast” in Düsseldorf. The altars which one could see there, were not living because the rituals and processes of the type that I just described had not been taken place. They merely gave a visual impression of the forms and colours altars will have, but they could not serve the function altars are made for in the religion. There was only one exception of one altar of another African Traditional religion that contained figures that were also used for rituals in the place they were coming from. The aura of these works was giving one the feeling of living beings One can ask of the legitimacy of exhibiting those figures which are seats of spiritual powers. But this is the matter of the practitioners of that particular African religion which gave it to the organisers of the exhibition. In case of the art works that are used in Yoruba Traditional religion, they cannot be shown in exhibitions as such.

It is power, blessing and protection that will support the owner of the Irúnmolè in form of art objects and will help him/her to grant the prayers of the devotee once he/she is following the tenets of the religion. The tenets of the religion can be deduced from Ifá the corpus of wisdom of the Yoruba traditional religion. This corpus will never change, but it is as wide and contains as much knowledge which can never be comprehended by only one person even not one generation, because it is endless. One German art historian, Andreas Lömmel, wrote in 1962:

“This art of the Yoruba which is still vivid till today [1962] was always traditional and religious. Without question the advancement of Christianity will put an end to it if it will not succeed under inclusion of the old tradition to develop a Christian art. ”; (my translation: Lömmel, p. 56).

Today, 42 years after this words have been written this Yoruba art which is having its base in the Yoruba traditional religion is still alive. With that the forecast of the writer has been nullified.

What is the reason for this consistency of this Yoruba art that goes hand in hand with the consistence of the Yoruba Traditional Religion?

Susan Vogel an American researcher of Yoruba culture including Yoruba Traditional Religion wrote in 1994:

“Healing and divination cults have frequently expanded almost always becoming ‘modernized’ in some way. […]Traditions do not survive unless they can respond to changes in the surrounding world.” ; (Vogel, S. 38).

If one will follow the latter hypothesis that traditions do not survive unless they can respond to the changes in the surrounding world, the question is whether and how Yoruba Traditional Religion will respond to the changes in the surrounding world.

As I talked before on the wideness of the knowledge of Yoruba Traditional Religion, it is this wideness of the religion that is the reason for it why the religion stays till today as it stayed before. Because the knowledge inherent in it contains knowledge about the past, the present and the future and about peoples around the world and other religions. E.g. Ifá that is existing since the beginning of the world is also talking about Europeans as in the Odu Owonrin-Ka where Europeans are described as those who love measurement. I don’t think one has to look too far to confirm the truth of this. This also goes together with what Rowland Abiodun says about tradition which is called asa in Yoruba language. He says that tradition

"refers to a style or the result of a creative and intelligent combination of styles from a wide range of available options within the culture. This is the reason that asa, whether as 'style' or 'tradition', is never static and cannot be, since the concept of asa already embodies the need for change, initiative, and creativity".

Because of this modernity of the Yoruba traditional religion it is still living and it will never die and it does not have to develop Christian art nor do the devotees of YTR have to combine their belief with Christian beliefs. The Yoruba Traditional Religion stays intact and this is also the reason, why the features of the art works in the religion are having the same basic features of the Irúnmolè as they had hundred of years ago. Merely the artistic formulation can change.

Some people are using the repeating features of the Yoruba art inside the Yoruba traditional religion to disqualify that type of art as art. Without entering the discussion where art starts and where art stops, I only want to say that art is there for the people and not vice versa and depends on what people want to achieve with that art. In European countries it is important to always create something new and to give homage to individual artists. There the art work stands for a hypothesis visualised by one image, that the viewer of the artist has to find out. The art in Europe should make the viewer of it to think about the meaning of the art work and should make him to find a counterpart of what he sees in his own thinking.This tendency has in other fields of Yoruba art which is different from Yoruba Traditional Art also entered the African continent. But in the Yoruba Traditional religion art is used to make the ties between the human and the spiritual world to be tighter. The two types of arts are fulfilling different functions. Each of us can decide what is art to him. To me the two types of art are art with their own legitimacy. I myself is having affinity for the two types of art also being an artist that one can categorise as so called modern artist. But also being devotee of Yoruba traditional religion, the Yoruba art of Yoruba traditional religion is more essential to my life. Following verse from a song for Orunmila, the Irúnmolè of wisdom, can also apply to Yoruba art in Yoruba traditional religion:

“Ifa o paluware je eni to foju opuro wOrunmila”

[Transl.:Anybody who will see Orunmila as liar/ as ordinary palmnut, Ifa will kill the person.]

One could also say that anybody who looks at an Irúnmolè in the shrine as ordinary art work (I add, that can be sold, that can be exhibited) Irúnmolè will kill that person.

Literatur:

Abiodun, Rowland, Verbal and Visual Metaphors: Mythical Allusions in Yoruba Ritualistic Art of Ori. In: Word and Image 3 (1987), 252-270.

Abiodun, Rowland, Introduction: An African (?) Art History: Promising Theroretical Approaches in Yoruba Art Studies. In: The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives on African Art, edited by R. Abiodun, H. J. Drewal, and J. Pemberton III. Washington 1994.

Baselitz, Die Afrika-Sammlung, Munich, Berlin, London, (u.a.): 2004.

Lömmel, Andreas, Nigeria, 2000 Jahre Afrikanische Plastik, München: 1962.

Lamp, John, Cooling Double Trouble: Yoruba Twin Figures (Ere Ibeji), in: John, Frederick (Ed.): See the music hear the dance, Rethinking African Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Munich, Berlin, London (u.a.); 2004.

Pemberton III, John: The Conceptual Basis of Yoruba art, Website in the Internet on 18.12.01.

Vogel, Susan: Elastic Continuum, in: (ib.9: Africa Explores, 20th Century of African Art, New York, Munich. 1994, S. 32ff.

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Translation (Summary)

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Die Frage ist, was die Kunst der YTR zu lebendiger Kunst macht. Erste Hinweise darauf, dass es sich um lebendige Kunst handelt liefern Beobachtungen von Menschen, die selbst nicht dieser Religion angehören, aber dennoch bemerken, dass sie zu dieser Kunst eine besondere Beziehung aufbauen können, wie beispielsweise der deutsche Maler Georg Baselitz, der auch eine beachtliche Sammlung von Kunstwerken besitzt, die zuvor für rituelle Zwecke verwendet wurden.

Um jedoch zu wissen, was die Yorubakunst in der YTR lebendig macht, müssen wir zunächst wissen, was Kunst in der YTR ist. Yorubakunst in der YTR ist Kunst, die innerhalb der Ausübung der YTR benutzt wird.

Yorubakunst in der YTR kann (abgesehen von den anderen für sich umfangreichen künstlerischen Bereichen innerhalb der YTR, den Liedern, dem Trommeln und dem Tanzen) in drei Bereiche grob unterteilt werden: Kunst, die die Anhänger der YTR am Körper tragen, Kunst im traditionellen Shrine, dem Sitz der Irúnmolè, den Dienern Gottes in der YTR und der Shrine als solcher.

Die Kunst, die die Nachfolger Irúnmolès am Körper tragen umfasst die ilekes, die Perlenketten, die jeder Anhänger der YTR vom Moment der Initiation an trägt, Armreifen und Kleidung. Die Kunst des Shrines, des Gebetsortes, der eine Ecke vom Zimmer sein kann, ein ganzes Zimmer oder gar ein ganzes Haus, umfasst in erster Linie die Töpfe (orù), in denen die Irúnmolè präsent sind und Irúnmolè, die einem Aussenstehende als Skulpturen oder Plastiken erscheinen würden. Der Unterschied zu reinen Kunstobjekten liegt jedoch in dem Zweck für die sie produziert werden und in der Ausübung dieses Zwecks.

Der Weg wie ein Kunstobjekt zu einem spirituellen Objekt wird, kann exemplarisch an dem Prozess der Erschaffung von Ibeji gezeigt werden. Ibeji ist der Irúnmolè für Zwillinge und auch jeder überlebende Zwilling muss im Fall des Todes seines Zwillingspartners eine geschnitzte Ibejifigur mit sich tragen. Der/die Künstler/in, der/die ein Ibeji schnitzt, kennt die einzelnen Merkmale, die gestalterisch vorhanden sein müssen, damit die Figur ihren spirituellen Zweck als Ibejifigur erfüllen kann. Darüber hinaus versetzt er sich bei seiner Arbeit in die emotionale Disposition, die wichtig dafür ist, dass das Gewollte in dem zu schaffenden Werk zum Ausdruck kommt. Währenddessen wird der/die Künstler/in von der Mutter des Verstorbenen bekocht wird. Nach gestalterischer Fertigstellung des Kunstwerkes, wird die Figur in einem medizinisch-spirituellen Bad gewaschen und mit Palmöl und Sheabutter eingecremt. Später hat die Mutter die Aufgabe die Ibejifigur mit einer natürlichen rötliche Substanz einzucremen, genannt osu. Des weiteren ist es Aufgabe des überlebenden Zwillings die Figur fortan überall mit sich herumzutragen und sie auch zu füttern. Diese Prozesse machen ein bloßen Kunstobjekt zum spirituelllen Subjekt, das lebt. Ähnliche Prozesse spielen sich ab bei anderen Kunstobjekten oder besser –subjekten innerhalb der traditionellen Yorubareligion. Sie dienen dazu eine Person an ihre spirituelle Quelle, an ihr Irúnmolè heranzuführen und sie zu beschützen und zu leiten. Da es viele verschiedene Irúnmolè gibt, mit jeweils unterschiedlichen Charakteren variieren die Farbe und Form, sowie das material der spirituellen Objekte von Irúnmolè zu Irúnmolé. Ein Osunanhänger beispielsweise trägt blaue, grüne und/ oder gelbe Perlenketten, während ein Obatalaanhänger weiße ilekes trägt.

Ein Künstler kann auch einen Shrine oder Altar gestalten. Diese Gestaltung dient dann dazu, dem Platz mehr Respekt und Ehre zu verleihen. Eine solche Gestaltung findet sich in den heiligen Hainen von Osogbo, Nigeria, die von der österreichischen Künstlerin gestaltet worden sind.

Obwohl es sich bei der traditionellen Yorubareligion um eine gleichbleibende Tradition handelt, ist diese trotzdem nicht statisch, da ihr bereits das Element der Veränderung innewohnt, da Ifa, die Weisheit der YTR die Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft umfasst und folglich auch auf gegenwärtige Situationen Antwort findet. Somit ist das Wissen der YTR so weit, dass weder eine Person, noch eine Generation die gesamte Weisheit der YTR in sich vereinen kann.

In den Liedern der YTR gibt es einen Vers der folgendermaßen lautet:

„Ifá ó palúwarè je eni tó fójú òpùró wÒrúnmìla.“

(Übersetzt: Jeder, der Orúnmila als gewöhnliche Palmnuss an sieht, wird von Ifa getötet werden.)

Bezogen auf die Yorubakunst lässt sich auch sagen, dass jeder, der die Irúnmolè im Shrine als gewöhnliche Kunstwerke ansieht (ich füge hinzu: die verkauft werden können, mit denen gehandelt werden kann u.s.w.) von Irúnmolè getötet wird.