The Art of Ife: A Descriptive Catalogue and Database.

The Art of Ife A Descriptive Catalogue and Database

by Frank Willett with a chapter by Barbara Blackmun. Database prepared by Emma Lister.

Glasgow: The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Glasgow; 2004. CD-ROM. www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/artofife GBP25.00.

In 1959, British scholar C.P. Snow gave a lecture about the failure of communication between the sciences and the humanities. The dichotomy soon became an influential book titled The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. The breakdown between these two worlds presaged a larger fragmentation of knowledge, as learning became increasingly specialized.

But the two cultures are not as estranged as is often thought. Frank Willett, the undisputed world authority on classical Ife bronzes, terracotta, and sculptures, stands as one of the exceptions to Snow's assertion. Willett's lifework shows us that scientists and humanists are in many ways similar kinds of insightful people. Although they have different interests and speak different languages, there is a great deal in common between science and art, and it can be combined in the same individual.

Willett relies on knowledge gained over forty years from his and others' archaeological excavations, stylistic analyses, ethnographic reports and, more recently, laboratory analyses to compile this compendium of data and digital images. His earlier Ife in The History of West African Sculpture (1967) and Treasures of Ancient Nigeria (1980) are reference texts.

The Art of Ife CD-ROM displays Willett's rectitude in collecting data, his critical and cautious eye, and his profound respect for and superb knowledge of the objects. Willett's meticulous concern for the data he has culled demonstrates a highly disciplined concentration on Ire art. For those who warmly recall it, or for those who resist the trend in punk African art scholarship of the contemporary, Willett is associated with that wonderful exercise trader the waning aegis of colonialism known as the Benin Historical Research Scheme. The BHRS remains the most successful collaborative exercise in Ife/Benin/Igbo-Ukwu art, archaeology, history, and anthropology.

As one of the senior generation of masters, Willett updates his research with this CD-ROM, the only complete account of the collections formerly in the National Museum of Ife Antiquities, Nigeria, and Ife pieces in museums and private collections in Western Europe and America. Written employing the third person, in an authoritative if quaintly colonial style, the text is accompanied by 2200 illustrations of 1125 objects, as well as field photos. The wealth of information is overwhelming and intoxicating.

Willett comments on the archaeological investigations conducted in Ife since 1910 and draws on archaeologists' unpublished records. There are text chapters devoted to the mythical origins of Ife, offering the standard shopworn chronology, and the history of archaeology in Ife, including Leo Frobenius's discoveries. Chapter 1 focuses on dating, casting, Ife heads, and figure sculptures. Chapter 2 focuses on Ife terracotta in Ita Yemoo and everywhere else outside Ife. Willett discusses his own excavations, the seminal and sidebar accomplishments of his fieldwork as an apprentice archaeologist. "Sculptures in Stone" is the title of the third chapter. Embedded is ethnographic material such as that on the social role of the sculptor. Willett contradicts and compliments published scholarship including that of Bill Fagg, Denis Williams, and Irwin Tunis. A chapter by Barbara Blackmun on Ife terracotta adds iconographic and stylistic detail

For the connoisseur, curator, and archivist, the database that accompanies the text allows for some really serious searching on individual pieces, their casting, location sites, anatomical anomalies, and methods of production. The CD is very easy to use in spite of the vast amount of data it contains. Highlighted figures bring up photos about the object described in the main text; several views of the object can be seen or it can be viewed in combination with similar pieces. The subtexts have highlighted figures too, a click away for further exploration. Clicking on negative-size images enlarges them to full screen for study and scrutiny. Viewed on a flat screen monitor, they are eye-popping. Just as spectacular are the field photos of shrines, ceremonies, and casting processes.

In its digital immediacy, the CD may ameliorate the problem that most have with coffee table books where the matte text precedes glossy photos and there is a lot of flipping back and forth, but the fact is that one still has to click between text and object photos. This creates visual adjustments for those who like text and photos on the same page layout, or for those who favor sneezing through dust-rouged library books.

More important for curators is dating evidence. The chapter on radiocarbon and T-L dating is a straightforward description of both procedures but more headings would break up the text into smaller understandable pieces for the scientifically impaired. Assuming that Willett is trying to reach a crowd that includes scientists as well as art historians, in discussing T-L dating an example of a glow curve might help the art historian better understand what is being looked for. Or maybe a picture diagram that shows how the baseline for radiation dosing is achieved and how it is compared to the glow curve of the sample. More diagrams and pictures are better when trying to explain difficult science to nonscientists and, let's face it, radiation chemistry is difficult science to understand.

Willett's section on metals analysis is not written for the art historian. Willett discusses trace elements (a clue to dating by looking at presence or absence of), but here too it would be nice to have a table that outlines the different metals analyses (XRF, wet techniques, etc.) for someone to refer to who is not a scientist and maybe a brief discussion of what the techniques are, how they differ, and why whey are important. The radiocarbon dating section has a lot of background information while the T-L section meanders but is a more difficult topic. Lastly a dearer distinction needs to be made between the types of samples to be dated. Items other than wood can be radiocarbon dated and a section that compares the two methods would again help the scientifically obtuse.

This CD-ROM has an obvious role as a scholarly resource for both teaching and research in archaeology and art history, but it is also hoped that it will "provide other museums, private collectors, and art dealers with a reference tool to help deter the illegal trade in artworks from this region," says the blurb on the cover. During the past two decades Nigeria's museums have lost hundreds of their most valuable items; the National Museum at the Ife palace and the museum on the campus of Awolowo University are prime examples of outrageous theft and unscrupulous greed. Some of the objects shown are, sadly, missing but they appear here, hopefully not to remain forever as digital memories encoded in this exercise of stunning merit.