Studio: international art (15.1899)

Primitive Art from Benin

remarkably clean and neat, and of a uniform
depth, a characteristic which is also found in the
carving of the tusks above described.

A very large amount of wood-work was lost in
the conflagration at Benin, and that which has
come under our notice cannot be said to rank very
high. The execution of the horseman (Fig. 22) is
crude to a degree, and reminds one very much of
the illustrations in Lander's journal of fetishes met
with at Kiama (north-west of Rabba and south-
west of Boussa). The casket (Fig. 18) is a not
uncommon general form which varies much in
detail; the pedestal represents cowries; the ears
are covered with embossed brass work, and there
are strips of brass of scroll pattern (Fig. 17)
running down the bullock's face and round his
nose, fastened on by small brass staples. In
the looking-glass door-frame (Fig. 33) one might
almost imagine there was some humorous idea
lurking in the figures of the three women and
girls, but although the natives are laughter-loving,
we have no evidence of their putting this character-
istic of theirs into material shape. The figure at the
end of the line of six females appears to be that of
a guard similar to the one shown at the spigot end
facing the reader; so that one is inclined to think
the doorway barred the entrance to the women's
apartments. The object of the sliding panel may
have been to preserve the glass. There are three
different plait patterns round the frame, and alto-
gether it is a good piece of work.

With the exception of one possible foliage pattern
which repeats itself with variations, and the repre-
sentation of the palm and its supposed offshoot the
rosette appearing on the metal-work dealt with
elsewhere,* there is a total absence of any attempt
to delineate the flora of the country, hence the
front view development towards conventionalism can only be

fig. 34.-carved ivory staff looked for in the representation of zoological forms.

In these there appears to be some progress or
truthfulness to nature in the spur-heeled feet of degradation according as to whether the result is
the figures—spur-heeledness being a characteristic distortion in a measure due to incapacity on the
of the Bini and some other West African natives, part of the workman to draw or carve that which he
The top of the stopper is carved into the form of a has set himself to do, as, for instance, in the leopards
human face, and is attached to the nut by a well-worn at the foot of the fetish (Fig. 16), or whether
chain of European manufacture. The interest in this the result is modification of a set purpose as in
carving lies in its demonstration of the adaptability of the case of the tiaras of certain masks, which
the native to perform creditably on a material very have been executed by competent hands. The
different from ivory. Fair ingenuity is displayed representations of the double cat-fish (Fig. 8)
in the manner in which the figures are grouped belong partly to the first series for they are badly
on a confined , surface without overcrowding; in carved, and partly to the second, because the way
fact, the feature of the work is the careful distri- in which the head and tail are juxtaposed show
bution and the general freedom of treatment. The * See Halifax Naturalist, July 1898, " Specimens of Benin
details of the carving are throughout in low relief, Metal Work," by H. Ling Roth.

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