Art, Religion, and Leadership
Introduction 1469
Art and politics have been intertwined throughout all of history. In many cultures that have existed over the past 3000 years, religion and divine worship play an essential role in the daily life of people. To efficiently reign over the populace and denote their own piety, the ruling class aimed to build connections between themselves and the sacred gods — some stated that they were the chosen ones, while some recognized their talents of communicating with the divinity. A significant amount of investment was put into creating art and artefacts to broadly promote such ideas. Interestingly, art objects, in fact, “constitute a very significant part of the symbolic forms and actions involved in power relationships.” Prestige goods are usually associated with religious practice, thus, leaders in complex societies patronise them to demonstrate their predestined kingship and extraordinary supremacy over ordinary people. In this essay, I will discuss the Shang Dynasty in ancient China and the Ife culture in Nigeria to exemplify the reason that decorative art is part of the political context.
Shang China
Religion in the Shang period is inseparable from the formation of the state. Shang people believed in a three-pronged religion consisting of the high god (generally referred to as Di), natural spirits, and royal ancestral spirits. The above-all-others Di granted fertility of farmlands and divine assistance in battle as recorded in Shang bone divinations. The masses believed that the king’s ancestors were able to communicate with Di, and all kings were endowed with supernatural power derived from Di. Oracle bones have long recognized the idea that the royal lineage shared power with Di as “the foundation of Shang cosmology and administrative control.” Thus, the legitimation of the leader was embodied through the fact that he was the descendant of Di’s theocrats. Meantime, worship of the Shang ancestors provided powerful psychological and ideological support for the political dominance of the Shang kings. Their ability to determine through divination and influence through prayer and sacrifice legitimised the concentration of political power in their hands. He was empowered because he was the channel that could ask for ancestral blessings or dissipate ancestral curses, which affected the entire clan. As a result, the Shang king significantly advocated royal as well as common sacrifices, and such rites were regulated by strict rules. Burials were consistent in animal and human sacrifice and grave goods. Differences between the quality and quantity of bronze vessels and weapons and various prestige items in various tombs would suggest an evident social stratification in Shang society.
The Shang was the first major dynasty to rule China during the Bronze Age, marked by the widespread use of bronze. Bronze ritual vessels, weapons, and masks together formed the material focus of ancestral or earth spirit rites. Shang bronzes are famous for their delicate and unique designs, and scholars have proved that the exquisite carving patterns hold iconographic and symbolic meanings. It has been repeatedly observed that symbols play a vital role in “the processes of establishment, maintenance, and exercise of power in various types of societies.” The rule also applies to Shang: Shang elites incorporated visual languages into the decoration of ritual objects to solidify social hierarchy and political dominance. One of the most commonly seen motifs is the taotie, an ancient Chinese mythological creature that has the body parts of four benevolent animals. The making of most taotie-themed bronze artefacts was ordered by royal and noble clans since the use of such imagery was restricted mainly to the elite class (Fig. 1). The taotie motif, therefore, became the mark and identification of a specific group in society. Burial and ritual objects in Shang Dynasty sought to legitimise social differentiation, not by hiding it, but “by representing it as natural and immutable through the use of material culture in the form of prestige items and ritual symbols which constantly reiterated the message.” Moreover, some Chinese authors have proposed that “the ruling class used the monster masks and other zoomorphic forms to frighten and manipulate the lower strata.” The taotie bronze artefacts shaped the visual environment encountered by the Shang population, constructing the mental model of reality for each individual. Under this circumstance, the icons, with their impressive appearance, had imposed an “inescapable tyranny of symbols.”
Ife Culture
Likewise, Ife people were intensely devoted to their religious duties and exercises. It was thought that the deities regularly entered the world through their mediums — worshipers who had been trained and prepared to receive the spirit of their divinities during religious ceremonies. To Ife people, the creation of religious art objects itself was an act of devotion that equaled the ritual significance of prayer or sacrifice. The art of Ife began in the 10th century: by 1100 CE, local artists had been making individualistic and highly naturalistic portrait busts made with stone and terracotta. These statues and masks notionally represented rulers, nobility, and high court officials. Under the region of Obalufon II around 1300 CE, the technique was further refined with the perfection of bronze casting and economic prosperity (Fig. 2). The majority of this decorative art was used to commemorate Obalufon II’s famous truce that brought an end to the civil war in Ife history. One unique feature of many Ife sculptures is that they display a larger-than-life-size scale of the head with the rest of the body, a roughly 1:4 ratio (Fig. 3). Scholars have pointed out that the purpose is to reinforce the importance of the head as a symbol of ego and destiny, personality, essential nature, and authority. Thus, this style could only be found in sculptures of royals and gods, and those of the ordinary populace still reflect a relatively realistic proportion. For many Yoruba, the body was seen to “comprise three principal parts: head, trunk, and legs.” The wealth and welfare of a nation, which was fundamental to its development, equated with the head of the ruler, and the ruler himself was the head of his nation and people. On the contrary, longer legs appeared to be associated in early Ife art with servants, warriors, and sufferers of the disease since they are symbols of mobility and the active state of being. They convey important messages with “the ability of those at the lower levels of the social ladder to make their way successfully through life.” Therefore, the identity and social status of Ife citizens were clearly differentiated and classified by body proportion. The heads of these bronze sculptures might not be the portraits of individuals or particular rulers. Instead, they are “explorations of the nature of kings and kingship, of divine authority and its proper exercise.” Hence, these ancient heads ought to be seen less as portraits of specific persons and more as icons referencing titles and identities. Another interpretation of the heads raised by Garlake explains that they may have been placed on the altars of deceased rulers for private royal ceremonies honouring the kings within their families and enhancing the leader’s spiritual power.
Given the importance of the head, a king’s hair lock and crown add protection to the body part and bestows him with additional authority and spirituality. In Ife tradition, when a king died, his headdress would be disassembled, and certain parts were passed on to the successor to be integrated into the new royal crown. Therefore, the crown was the witness of kingship heritage as if the destiny of each royal generation was all written on it. The finely decorated crown, according to Euba, was among the symbols of authority given by Orunmila, the god of wisdom, inherited by the divine king. It also served as a crucial visual element through which the monarchy of royalty was presented to the public. The crown, together with the head, was where two types of leadership united: the spiritual leadership of people and the political leadership of the land occupied by the group.
Conclusion
In both Shang and Ife societies, lineage and divine revelation was the source of authority. To promote such belief, leaders of multiple generations advocate the worship of both deities and royal ancestors, and that is where prestige goods played a role. These decorative works of art were adopted to strengthen class division and legitimise the reign of the king. They manifest a close linkage of symbolic and ideological forms that were once deeply rooted among the ruled class.
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