Page 177 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

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AFRICAN KINGDOMS routes, and the ruling elite in the great empires
of Mali and Songhay were Muslims. Contact EQUESTRIAN FIGURE
The works of figural sculpture cast in brass in with Europe, however, began only in the second
Benin are the most famous west African objects half of the fifteenth century, as Portuguese ijth—ijth century
to have survived from the Age of Exploration, a ships progressed down the African coast. The Jenne style, Mali
terra-cotta
time of significant artistic production in a burgeoning trade that developed as a conse- height 70.5 (2/ /4J
3
number of different centers. Other notable quence led to the creation of the so-called references: de Grunne 1980; Vogel 1985; Ezra 1988;
works of art include the terra-cotta figures "Afro-Portuguese" ivories. These spoons and Kerchache, Paudrat, and Stephan 1988; Mclntosh
unearthed in Mali and the exquisite terra-cotta forks, saltcellars and horns, crafted in what is 1988; Cole 1989, 120-121; Robbins and Nooter
heads from Owo, first excavated slightly more today Sierra Leone, in Benin, and in the king- 1989; Bernard! and de Grunne 1990
than thirty years ago. dom of Kongo, are an extraordinary amalgam National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian
Sub-Saharan Africa had long-standing links of European shapes and African decorative Institution, Museum Purchase
to the Islamic world across overland trade vocabularies.
This superb horseman is one of a handful of rela-
tively complete equestrian figures that are out-
standing objects in the corpus of ancient Malian
terra-cottas because of their highly formal quality
and imposing size. The average height of ninety
intact statues examined by Bernard de Grunne
(1980) is 27.8 cm. (11 in.) while that of the eques-
trian figures is close to 70 cm. (27Vi in.).
The figures were modeled in clay, to which
materials were added to decrease its plasticity and
render it less delicate to firing. They were then
smoothed and often covered with a fine reddish
slip that gives them a finished appearance
(de Grunne 1980, 46-47).
More or less identical in a number of these
works are the horseman's features and his pose, as
well as his clothing. With back held straight and
arms outstretched, holding the reins, he wears
short embroidered pants slit at the thigh to form a
triangle, a rectangular cloth in back held by a dec-
orated belt, a caplike helmet and ringed greaves,
a heavy necklace, a dagger fastened to the arm,
and a large closed quiver over the shoulder. Two
other figures, in a private collection, also wear a
heavy cloak (or armor) decorated in a geometric
pattern. The other figures ride bareback, and the
horses have only reins and a collar ringed with
large crotals.
The monumental, hieratic figures are marked
by a rigorous architectonic structure, accentuated
by simplified volumes and a relief type of dec-
oration that is as subtle as it is functional and
refined. Seen in profile the various parts of the
man and his mount, formed of cylinders of almost
equal diameter, seem to come together at a right
angle and define two sections of space. Herbert
Cole (1989,120-121) suggests that "this straight-
legged, formal stance is preferred in equestrian
icons, which serve to support and project the
image of heroic leadership/' The horseman's head
is proudly erect, as is that of his mount, in a pos-
ture of archaic nobility well suited to the pre-
sumed member of a bygone warrior aristocracy.
No archaeological data is available for the figure
exhibited here, as is the case with most of the
terra-cottas from the region watered by the upper
course of the Niger and Bani rivers. Even the pre-
cise location of its discovery remains unknown;

176 CIRCA 1492