In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Painting for the Gods: Art and Aesthetics of Yoruba Religious Murals
  • Elisha Renne
Bolaji Campbell . Painting for the Gods: Art and Aesthetics of Yoruba Religious Murals. Trenton, N.J.: African World Press, 2008. xiv + 222 pp. Illustrations. Glossary. References. Index. $29.95. Paper.

As the author of this exceptional volume on Yoruba religious shrine painting observes, the genre has been overlooked in the otherwise extensive literature on Yoruba art. This is in part because paintings are often hidden within shrines and in part because of the ephemeral nature of these paintings, which until recently had to be regularly renewed. Perhaps more important, in order to be fully appreciated, these paintings require a detailed iconographical and semiotic analysis, an approach to Yoruba art that Moyo Okediji refers to as "semioptics," in which the relationships between images and concepts provide the analytical frame (cited in Campbell, 13–14). This hiatus in the discussion of Yoruba shrine and religious mural paintings has been ably filled by Bolaji Campbell, who combines a deep understanding of the artistic practices and Yoruba religious beliefs with a fluency in Yoruba which enables the reader to fully appreciate the artistic character of these works.

The book covers several aspects of shrine paintings, including the art historical documentation of this work, the classification and meaning of color in Yoruba cosmology, the materials used in the production of shrine paintings, the paintings associated with specific Yoruba deities and spiritual beings—referred to by one artist as "the clothing of the Gods"—and the influence of shrine painting on contemporary Yoruba and Yoruba diaspora artists. The author, whose research on Yoruba shrine painting officially began in 1986 but who had been exposed to forms of women's wall painting much earlier through his maternal kin, examines sixteen shrines in several areas of southwestern Nigeria—in Ile Ife, Ilesa, Ijero-Ekiti, Osogbo, and Sango-Ota. These shrines are devoted to different deities, including Obatala, Ogun, Oluorogbo, and Orisa-Oko. Campbell also discusses egungun masquerade paintings associated with shrine walls as well as with sacred groves. In the final section of the book he considers shrine paintings as a source of inspiration for two artists, Moyo Okediji and Michael Harris, in terms of imagery and spiritual creativity.

Campbell's discussion of shrine painting in relation to tradition is one [End Page 227] of the most interesting features of the book. For while shrine painting has changed in some ways, certain enduring aspects are retained in this work. For example, to paint images on exterior shrine walls artists are now using commercially manufactured paints, rather than paints made from local, natural materials. However, they continue to paint the innermost areas of shrines with indigenous paint materials, paralleling the use of plain handwoven cloths (known as jepe) underneath successive layers of richly embellished machine-woven cloth panels of Oyo Yoruba masquerades. This practice emphasizes the fundamental importance in Yoruba religious thought of both time-honored practices—preparing paints from natural materials, using locally hand-woven cloth—and the idea that what is innermost and hidden is closest to sources of spiritual power.

While the author notes the impact of Christianity and Islam on artistic practices associated with Yoruba religion, it would have been interesting to know more about the extent to which more recent forms of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam may have affected younger women's and men's involvement in shrine painting. Yet Campbell rightly observes that despite the tremendous transformations in religious belief and practice in southwestern Nigeria, the importance of remembering (iranti) one's ancestors, traditions, and places of origin (isedale)—expressed in visual arts such as shrine paintings, in oriki praise poetry texts, and in the dance and gestures associated with masquerade performances—has nonetheless been maintained by many.

Elisha Renne
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
...

pdf

Share