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GUNSCH, Kathryn. Wysocki - Art.and or - Ethnographica The Reception - Benin.works.2013
GUNSCH, Kathryn. Wysocki - Art.and or - Ethnographica The Reception - Benin.works.2013
GUNSCH, Kathryn. Wysocki - Art.and or - Ethnographica The Reception - Benin.works.2013
T
oday’s museum visitors often assume that Afri- ing cultural beliefs. These theoretical categories may of course
can art objects were collected by ethnographic overlap; some objects carry the unique aesthetic value assigned
museums because early collectors were blinded to art and yet also function as evidence of cultural practices.
by racial prejudice and could not see these However, art objects stand apart as works that can be appreci-
works as art. However, in some cases African ated for their visual interest whether or not contextual informa-
works were accepted as “art” from the begin- tion is available. For example, within this discussion, the Curator
ning of their collection history, even when collected by ethno- of the Berlin Ethnographic Museum, Felix von Luschan, refers
graphic museums. Benin court art provides a useful test case to the beauty and high craftsmanship of Benin bronze plaques
for the reception of African art because this corpus conforms and carved ivories, showing that they are clearly considered art
to many of the nineteenth century’s standards for art: mimetic objects, while his discussion of fishing nets and knives from
naturalism, the use of “high art” materials like cast bronze1 and Micronesia collected in the same period refer to their cultural
ivory, and a courtly provenance dating back to the sixteenth cen- significance alone, and not their aesthetic address to the viewer.4
tury (Fig. 1). Bronze plaques, figural sculptures, carved ivory,
and other pieces from Benin were universally praised for their ColleCtion History
superior workmanship from the first European visits to the In contrast to the many African art objects in Europe that were
Kingdom in the fifteenth century until their sale at auction collected over a period of decades by traders, ethnographers,
in 1897.2 Acknowledged by many buyers and dealers as highly and missionaries, the Benin pieces became commercially avail-
accomplished works of incredible aesthetic merit, and referred able in a single moment as the result of military conquest. Oba
to as “art” by many observers, the Benin pieces were exclusively Ovonramwen of Benin (r. 1888–1897) signed a trading agree-
purchased by ethnographic museums until the 1930s, when ment with the British in 1892 that allowed them preferential
American art collections began buying them from French deal- access to trade. Once he discovered the threat to Benin sover-
ers (Paudrat 2007:238). This article explores why ethnographic eignty that the treaty represented, however, Ovonramwen ceased
museums dominated the early collection of Benin art, and how a compliance with the terms. During the fall of 1896, the British
German ethnographer, Felix von Luschan, paved the way for the felt increasingly thwarted by the Oba’s trade policy. When the
reception of Benin objects as “art” in the United States. Consul-General, the ranking officer in the British Protectorate,
Defining an “ethnographic object” versus an “art object” is a left for a visit home, his young assistant, Lieutenant and Acting
task that has concerned scholars for decades.3 For the purpose of Consul-General James Robert Philips, seized the opportunity to
this article, however, art is defined as an object that speaks to the win recognition from the bureaucracy in London and brought
viewer due to its expressive achievement and aesthetic appeal. an unarmed group of eight men to negotiate with the Oba on
In contrast, an ethnographic object forms a locus for speech; it January 3, 1897. Seeing the British and 200 of their retainers on
is an object that documents the conversation among produc- the road, the Oba’s messengers and an Itsekiri chief told them to
ers, users, and scholars about its intended use and surround- retreat, as Benin was celebrating the holy period of Ague. The
British refused, and a Benin unit proceeded to defend the city ture, and Institutional Power,” she traces the reception of Benin
by force. Only two British men and a small number of the Afri- objects in the British Museum from 1897 through the early
can retainers survived. By February 1897, the British assembled 1990s. Coombes’s work documents how racism effected the seg-
a retaliatory force of more than 1,500 men and seized the city.5 regation of African art from art institutions. Parsing derogatory
Upon entering the King’s court, the British officers were statements about Benin culture and the art objects themselves
shocked to find more than 900 bronze plaques in a storage room in newspapers and scientific journals of the day, Coombes pro-
and a number of finely cast heads on the altars throughout the vides evidence of the previously assumed European prejudice
palace, in addition to a large number of carved ivory tusks. The towards African art. She notes that all writers, from 1897 through
British collected all they could, assigned some objects to the 1910, referred to their shock at the quality of Benin workman-
men who led the retaliatory force, and shipped the rest to Lon- ship and their surprise at finding such pieces in Africa (1994:61).
don (Fig. 2). By August 1898, most of the seized ivory and bronze Coombes’s efforts untangle the web of popular culture, pseudo-
works were sold in large public auctions. While the Foreign science, evangelism, and diplomatic policies that contributed
Office allowed the British Museum to keep only 200 pieces, Dr. to racist views. She convincingly argues that such racism was a
Felix von Luschan, acting for the Berlin Museum of Ethnogra- politically expedient method of cajoling British popular support
phy, eventually collected more than 580 Benin works. He quickly for colonialism and military action in Africa.
mobilized German diplomatic missions abroad and Hamburg Excepting this useful examination of British colonial and cul-
trading companies based in Lagos to buy up any and all Benin tural institutions, however, the primarily ethnographic classifi-
works remaining in Nigeria, acquiring 263 works in this manner cation of the Benin corpus is rarely questioned in the broader
(Plankensteiner 2007:34). By 1901, nearly all available Benin art bibliography on Benin.6 This elision is likely a result of the larger
was swept into public and private collections in the United King- context of African art collecting practices. Most other African
dom, Germany, and Austria (Völger 2007:217). art pieces were collected during ethnological or zoological expe-
Scholarship on the collection history for Benin art objects ditions, like the Jacobsen collection in German museums, cel-
has already explored why they were considered ethnographic ebrated for its aesthetic appeal, or the Luba sculptural bowls
specimens in Britain. In Annie Coombes’s 1994 book Reinvent- gathered during a Museum of Natural History mission to North-
ing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Public Imagination ern Congo (Fig. 3). In this broader collecting context, it is simply
and her subsequent 1996 article, “Ethnography, Popular Cul- assumed that nineteenth and early twentieth century schol-
ensuring that any cultural product “belonged” in the museum’s tus; rather, he is positing that the Benin pieces belong in the au
purview. Most collections were originally intended to include courant, scientifically valid space of the ethnographic museum
German objects as well as those from more exotic locales in and not in the confusing amalgamation of the less prestigious
order to further enable “scientific” exploration of cultural link- kunstgewerbe type. Indeed, von Luschan’s biggest patron and
ages (Penny 2002:41). supporter readily noted the Benin objects’ status as art. In a
When the Benin corpus hit the market in 1898, the German series of letters agreeing to support von Luschan’s acquisition of
museum world included art museums aiming to shrink and the Benin pieces at any cost, Hans Meyer wrote, “It is actually a
narrow their collections and ethnographic museums with huge riddle to me, that the English let such things go. Either they have
budgets ready to buy any and every object offered to them. In too many of them already or they have no idea what these things
this context, it was structurally impossible for Benin bronzes and mean for ethnology, cultural history and art history” (Penny
ivories to enter art institutions. The organizational strategy of 2002:75; emphasis added). Kunstgewerbe museum curators were
German art collections would not admit any small bronze object willing to accept the Benin bronzes into their collections, but
to the art gallery, whether Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise panels ethnographic museum curators like von Luschan viewed such
or the finest bronze hydrae of the ancient Greeks. Art galleries plans as a slight to the objects.
were reserved for monumental sculpture and paintings alone. German and British approaches to the Benin pieces differed not
In this strictly divided system, all bronze art works belonged in only in their financial ability to acquire pieces, but also in their
kunstgewerbe museums. The question in the period, then, was display context. In the largest British collection of Benin works, at
not whether Benin objects belonged in kunstgeschichte, or art, the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Lieutenant-General Augustus Pitt-Riv-
museums, but whether they belonged in kunstgewerbe museums. ers arranged all of his African pieces in a “chronological” order
As described above, ethnographers and art historians viewed based on their perceived sophistication. Pitt-Rivers believed that
the kunstgewerbe museum as a third-rate institution filled with ethnographic objects proved the Darwinian concept of cultural
the odds and ends of imperial collections, in comparison to the evolution, and his collection was arranged to highlight the tech-
cosmopolitan reputation of celebrated, scientific ethnography nological “advancement” of the cultures exhibited. In Berlin, how-
museums. Felix von Luschan, then the Assistant Director of the ever, von Luschan displayed objects geographically. Following the
Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, took charge Humboltian schema of a unified human history, the first German
of the acquisition of Benin works for the Museum (Fig. 5). Von ethnologist, Adolf Bastian, and his peers actively avoided discus-
Luschan and his peers argued vigorously that the Benin bronzes sions of evolutionary progress (Gerbrands 1987:16–23). This dif-
belonged in his institution and not a kunstgewerbe museum. He ference in theory may seem trivial from the vantage point of the
wrote that the objects “unquestionably belong in an ethnographic twenty-first century, but the underlying motives are vitally impor-
museum” (Penny 2002:75; emphasis in original). His letter was tant to understanding the collection history of Benin art. The Brit-
addressed to Justus Brinkmann, the Director of the Kunst- und ish collections aimed to prove an assumed theory about cultural
Gewerbemuseum of Hamburg. In the context of this letter—and advancement, while the German collections sought to exhibit
in this period in history—von Luschan does not seek to privilege similar objects and patterns across all cultures. The Pitt-Rivers
the Benin works’ ethnographic status above their aesthetic sta- Museum and the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC,
Despite this enlightened statement, it is impossible to recon- This complaint about the worthlessness of Thiel’s large col-
struct von Luschan’s personal beliefs. Yet it is abundantly evident lection reflects concerns about ethnographic practice and pric-
that sheer racism (cultural or individual) was not the sole rea- ing (Buschmann 2000:70). Through his objection to Thiel’s
son that the Benin bronzes were collected exclusively by ethno- high prices and his lack of interest in more objects of a given
graphic museums in Germany. Hailed as the most naturalistic, “type,” von Luschan reveals that he saw the Micronesian arti-
technologically advanced, and commercially valuable pieces to facts as mere commodities—interchangeable objects that could
come out of Africa in the nineteenth century—with a full and be obtained from a number of providers (Fig. 6). In this inter-
respected courtly provenance—modern art historians see the change, one Micronesian basket or weapon was not viewed as
failure to recognize these objects as artworks as a damnable any better or more interesting than another; von Luschan saw
symptom of cultural elitism, or worse. Yet the financial and spa- a limit to the number that should have been collected before
tial constraints of German art museums in the period, as well as reaching redundancy.
the German’s period definition of “art,” provided as great, if not
a greater, barrier to Benin objects’ inclusion in art galleries. No 5 Felix von Luschan in his youth. Ethnologisches
bronzes appeared in the most prestigious—or next prestigious— Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung
Preußischer Kulturbesitz. unknown Photographer.
art museums in Germany in the nineteenth century, whether
of Greco-Roman, modern German, or African origin. Bronzes
simply did not qualify as fine art. Combined with the availability
of ready financial support, available space, and a wide-open col-
lection policy, in the German museum system, the ethnographic
or kunstgewerbe museums were the only logical places for Benin
artwork in the period. Given this history, the decision to collect
Benin bronzes in the fashionable, cutting-edge ethnographic
museums should be appreciated as a testament to early twentieth
century esteem for these works. Von Luschan’s writings and col-
lecting history provide a useful case study. Despite his position
as the curator of an ethnographic museum, von Luschan and his
patrons never failed to consider the Benin works as art.
Once completed, Cellini reports that the Duke and the popula- hinder von Luschan and his supporters from recognizing and
tion of Florence, including foreign visitors, recognized the glory celebrating Benin art works. It is von Luschan’s voice—insistent,
of the statue, acknowledging that it had fulfilled the Duke’s origi- unambiguous, and credible—that effectively promotes the Benin
nal prediction upon seeing the model—that once completed, bronzes and ivories as artworks to the Euro-American world.
Cellini’s statue would outshine all those on the Florentine piazza, The influence of his 1919 publication is most clearly espoused in
even Michelangelo’s David and Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes the first commercial catalogue of Benin art in the United States,
(Cellini 1969:397–441). published for a sale held in the fall of 1935.
This reference to Cellini, therefore, is a knowing comparison on In the spring of that year, the Museum of Modern Art
von Luschan’s part, one that is heavily laden with ideas of quality (MoMA) was the first museum to show Benin pieces in the
and near-miraculous levels of craftsmanship. By invoking Cellini, United States, during its “African Negro Art” exhibition (Paudrat
he gives Benin sculptors credit for daring composition as well as 2007:238). Held in New York and toured across the country that
superior fabrication of the works. His comparison places Benin summer, the MoMA show represented a watershed moment in
artists over the most celebrated masters of the fifteenth and six- the American reception of African art. Although Benin works
teenth centuries, including the Renaissance art heroes Lorenzo were already held in American ethnographic collections by 1935,
Ghiberti, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Verrocchio. In another the splashy MoMA show unequivocally presented these works as
telling comparison, during von Luschan’s discussions of the Por- art through their display context (Fig. 8). The well-known for-
tuguese “busts” on the corners of the plaques, he compares their malist presentation of the installation at MoMA highlighted the
inclusion to the busts of Pylades and Clytemnestra on a celebrated aesthetic achievements of the Benin artists, overshadowing the
Orestes Vase published by Baumeister (von Luschan 1919:86). Von cultural or ethnographic value of the objects in order to high-
Luschan’s choice of comparanda reveals his implicit ranking of light their formal qualities. This strategy made a persuasive argu-
Benin art with the most celebrated periods of European heritage: ment that audiences should view the many African pieces as art,
Greco-Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. and MoMA’s respected name provided a kind of imprimatur for
Von Luschan was, of course, an ethnologist by training. His the unfamiliar collection.
catalogue of the Benin works is also divided into chapters and The MoMA show contained a large contingent of Benin works
subsections that emphasize clothing, weapons styles, and the loaned to the exhibition by Charles Ratton and Louis Carré (Pau-
flora and fauna illustrated in the art works. These categori- drat 2007:238). Ratton and Carré’s decision to display their pieces
cal divisions allow him to consider the cultural information at MoMA was undoubtedly part of a marketing strategy for a fall
that can be gleaned from the successive illustrations of a “type.” sale of Benin works at the Knoedler Gallery in New York. The
But this does not contradict his estimation of the pieces as art. show, entitled “Art of the Kingdom of Benin,” was accompanied
Through his consistent reference to Benin works as art and cast- by a slim, illustrated catalogue that provided large illustrations
ers as artists, and his use of celebrated European comparanda, of selected pieces. Throughout Art of the Kingdom of Benin, both
von Luschan’s text became a testament to the technical and aes- authors repeatedly invoke von Luschan as a promoter of Benin
thetic accomplishments of the Benin corpus. The institutional art. The first lines of Georges-Henri Riviere’s introduction praise
framework of the ethnographic museum did not, in this period, von Luschan’s work and echo his strategies:
Notes “Despite European modernism’s universally acknowl- to understand the essential nature of man by uncover-
edged debt to African art, some art historians still ask: ing the elementary ideas (Elementargedanken) underly-
1 In numerous recent catalogues, authors note
“Is African art really ‘art’?” (2008:18). Blier describes the ing all traditions and social structures within a given
that the Benin objects are made of brass, not bronze.
difference between anthropological “artifacts” and “art” society (Völkergedanken) in order to better understand
However, the art historical term for the entire category
as a function of the viewer more than of the creator. social phenomena and the self. Penny examines Ger-
of cuprous objects, regardless of the admixture of zinc
She also notes, “How the anthropological study of art man ethnographers’ shifting beliefs and practices from
or tin, is “bronze,” and so that term is used throughout
in Africa has differed from the art historical is not an the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth century.
the article.
easy question to answer” (ibid.). The presence of such a 5 Accounts of the British Punitive Expedition
2 Dmochowski (1990) conveniently includes
discussion in an introductory textbook suggests that the and its aftermath are included in most exhibition cata-
excerpts from all of the relevant European sources
boundaries between art and artifact, anthropologist and logues of Benin art. Please also see Ryder (1969) and
(from the early missionaries to the 1897 military inva-
art historian are still being drawn in this field. Egharevba (1968).
sion) in his concise history of the kingdom. For more
4 H. Glenn Penny (2002) traces the shifting Ger- 6 While Coombes’s work focuses on collection
information on the plaques and on Benin art more
man definition of “ethnologie” in this period. The father history and reception in Britain, Völger (2007) traces
generally, Plankensteiner (2007) provides the most up-
of Germany ethnography, Adolf Bastian, viewed this collection practices outside the United Kingdom and
to-date source on the topic.
new science as a way to understand humanity. As Penny explains von Luschan’s pervasive influence on the col-
3 For an interesting discussion of this issue,
describes their efforts, Bastian and his followers sought lection of Benin works in German-speaking Europe.
please see Vogel (1988). Suzanne Preston Blier writes,