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Babatunde Lawal (1985)
Orí: The Significance of the Head in Yoruba SculptureJournal of Anthropological Research, 41
R. Abraham (1958)
Dictionary of modern Yoruba
M. Makinde (1988)
African Philosophy, Culture, and Traditional Medicine
Margaret Drewal (1977)
Projections from the Top in Yoruba ArtAfrican Arts, 11
ASE: VERBALIZING AND VISUALIZING CREATIVE POWER THROUGH ART* BY ROWLAND ABIODUN (Amherst College, Mass.) An important aspect of verbal and visual arts in ritual contexts in Africa is the way they affect their audience, initiate and non- initiate alike. Often achieved through a careful choice and arrange- ment of a range of sculptures, objects, colors, sounds, phrases, and incantations, these artistic devices, whether they exist as assemblages ,or simply by themselves in sacred settings, confront the researcher in the field with an enormously complex religio- aesthetic experience. This scenario does not lend itself easily to straightforward ethnographic description, translation and analysis, especially if we rely solely on terminologies and/or theoretical con- structs derived from the traditionally relevant academic disciplines of art history, psychology, philosophy and anthropology as defined and practised in the West. The methodological challenges arising from this situation create, however, an opportunity to explore afresh African conceptual systems and oratory for new and contex- tually relevant theoretical alternatives. This exercise is most likely to advance the study of art in general, as it promises to add the badly-needed dimension of `soul' to a still essentially formalist, self-referential and Western-modernist approach to African art and aesthetics. Drawing
Journal of Religion in Africa – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1994
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