Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art by Rowland Abiodun (review)

Rowland Abiodun’s Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art revisits the vexing question of the role of indigenous African philosophical concepts and languages in the interpretation of African art, in this instance by emphasizing the role of Yoruba language in the interpretation of Yoruba arts. Yoruba peoples are among the most historically relevant cultures in Africa and its Diaspora. Their population, estimated at 40 million, makes them arguably the largest single ethnic group, or nationality, in Black Africa. More importantly, their history and artistic practices are among the most researched of any African people. Abiodun argues that despite broad international recognition of the high quality and range of its artistic and material production, Yoruba art has been “judged primarily according to the standards and principles of Western aesthetics,” which has “led in the past to an unfortunate weakness in the study of African art because it has ignored the discovery, recognition, and analysis of African-derived paradigms”(p. 1). He suggests that methodological tools inherited from the West are inadequate to cope with the challenges of studying art from African societies; Africanist scholars of Yoruba art, as a cogent example, need a thorough understanding of the Yoruba language to understand how it shapes visual culture and aesthetics, and vice versa. The key to this understanding is oríkì, generally translated as praise songs or citation poetry, but which encompasses a structure of verbal and visual invocations that virtually engages all the senses. The complexity of oríkì and its discursive applicability, Abiodun suggests, would be “immensely useful in solving many complex theoretical issues confronting African art and especially, Yoruba art scholarship today”(p. 15).

Yoruba Art and Language consists of an introduction and nine chapters. Yoruba is a tonal language; the meaning of any word is dependent on its tone (e.g. òkò: stone; oko: farm, etc.). The book therefore begins with a section on “Orthography and Phonological notes” to instruct the non-Yoruba speaker in basic comprehension of the language (pp. xix–xxvii). It also provides an attendant online orthography and audio samples of oríkì narrated by the author in Standard Yoruba, and in the Ekiti and Owo dialects (see www.cambridge.org/9781107047440).

The introduction (“On the Centrality of Africa in African Art Studies”) evaluates Yoruba art as an expression of oríkì, which is fundamental to its study, understanding and aesthetic appreciation. The first chapter provides a theoretical exegesis of oríkì hermeneutics and briefly highlights the methodological problems African art studies still faces today: it has been theorized extensively through a Western anthropological lens whose conclusions are often adopted without seriously questioning their implicit assumptions, and often apply Western theoretical frameworks, periodization paradigms, and historical approaches. Abiodun identifies efforts to counter the above thrust in the scholarship of Henry Drewal, Rene Bravman, John Picton, Roy Sieber, Douglas Fraser, Robert Farris Thompson, Arnold Rubin, and Herbert Cole. He also cites Allen F. Roberts and Mary Nooter Roberts among scholars whose methodologies rely on African philosophical and aesthetic concepts, which contributes to returning the “African” to histories of African art. Abiodun honors the important work of these scholars. However, he notes that a problem of cross-cultural translation complicates scholarly efforts to negotiate cultural meanings and artistic concepts. Africanist art historians, Abiodun contends, need to move beyond bland empirical observations and center relevant ontological and epistemological concepts of indigenous societies in the study of African art.

Abiodun regards the visual and verbal arts of Africa as interdependent, supporting each other through mutual reference and allusion. He therefore uses specific Yoruba oríkì terms to theorize aspects of Yoruba art. The first seven chapters press key Yoruba concepts such as àse, Òsun, Òrúnmìlà, aso, and àkó into service as theoretical frameworks, and interpret the famous bronze sculptures of Ilé-Ifè (ca. 1100–1400) through Yoruba epistemology. The concept of orí (head, origin, fate) is foundational...