Benin Art in Museums and Galleries Essay -- Africa

The display of Benin fine art in museum and galleries reflect the attitudes and perceptions of Europeans to state of wards non-western artefacts, especially African. Thus as European attitudes mixed bag towards non-western art since the discovery of Benin art in 1897, Benin art has been revaluated and re-categorised.Initially in that location was a great deal of debate about Benin art and its display, as it did not equate with the perceptions then held about Africa. Until the British conquest of Benin in 1897, little was known about Benin and its culture apart from brief fundamental interaction with other Europeans in the sixteenth century. The perception of Africa was of a primitive, savage and unfounded land, full of abuses and fetishes and idolatries, (Hodgkin, 1975, p33). Therefore, when the British invaded Benin they treated any artefacts they found as war booty (Woods, 2008, p30) and sold anything of any value to pay for the expedition. They removed artefacts and artistic creation without recording any contextual evidence of form or function. These ideas argon evident in the photographs in figures 1.10 on scalawag 31, 2.2 on page 50 in Cultural Encounters (AA100, Book 3) and Plate 3.1.14 in the simile Book Plates for Book 3 and 4 where artefacts are bundled into piles with centralise white figures suggesting only British triumph (Loftus, 2008). The clever workmanship (Gallewey, 1893b, p37) and frangibility of detail (Bacon, 1897, p39) attest to the quality of the artwork and the subsequent bidding by rival museums and galleries for the pieces did not prevent the perception that Africa, and thus Benin, as universe barbaric and primitive. The debate was how such a barbaric society could farm such sophisticated artwork. The quality of the Benin bronzes, based on... ... Milton Keynes, The consecrate University, pp. 45-58Mackie, R. (2008), The Art of the Benin ever-changing traffic among Europe and Africa I The conquest of the Benin in the 1890s , in Brown, R (ed.), Cultural Encounters (AA100 Book3), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 16-32Pike, J. (2008), Cultural Encounters and Cultural Exemptions, in Brown, R (ed.), Cultural Encounters (AA100 Book3), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 90-122Wood, P (2008), The Art of the Benin Changing Relations between Europe and Africa II The Benin bronzes and Modern Art, in Brown, R (ed.), Cultural Encounters (AA100 Book3), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp.58-78Woods, K (2008), The Art of the Benin Changing Relations between Europe and Africa I The Art of the Benin, in Brown, R (ed.), Cultural Encounters (AA100 Book3), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp.4-16