Shoot That Bird!!

Since last Sunday, when I heard on the radio Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances, I've had them stuck in my head almost continuously and have probably played them on YouTube twenty bazillion times. You should listen to them too. You just might like them. As with most classical music on YouTube, it tends to be parents who are filming their children's orchestra, and so neither the music nor the video are of spectacular quality. A good video does exist, in my opinion, and that is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTBC734Lljk. I have also now figured out how to get hyperlinks to work, and will include them in the future. Hurray!!

After looking at the Architecture Foundation of Chicagoan Architecture Worth Foundationizing Based on Architectural Value in Chicago - it was called something like that - I walked across Michigan Avenue to the Art Institute. After paying a ridiculous $7 charge to get in, I walked up the stairs to the Impressionist Wing, only to find that it had been closed for renovation and only a limited few of their great, iconic works were on display. It seems that they're adding a whole new wing that will house the Modern and Impressionist Collections, and various signs told me to come back in 2009. I stamped my foot and swore a bit under my breath and took a few of the Seurats with me as compensation. Regardless, it had taken me longer to get in to the museum and see what little I had seen than I had expected, and it was almost time for me to go to the tour. I thought about what other galleries I could look at, and decided on the museum's main exhibition, the art of the African Kingdom of Benin.

Benin is historically located not within the modern state of Benin but actually central Nigeria. It is still an extant nation, in politico-anthropological terms, and still has a royal family, ritual celebrations and the works. Though the Kingdom of Benin has existed since the 12th century, he cultural apex of the kingdom of Benin occurred around the 15th and 16th century with, surprisingly to me, the arrival of the Portuguese. Much of their art reflects the Portuguese traders (who were not invaders, that would be the work of the British) they encountered, and so for me it was unusual to see statues in a distinctly African style of late-Renaissance era Portuguese gunmen and knights. Fact is stranger than fiction though. The people of Benin use a lot of red sea shells and red agate in their ceremonial dress, along with ivory and bronze for their statues. The oba, the king, was both head of state and the military, and naturally got all the best stuff. There was - and still is - extensive documentation of the hierarchy and lifestyle within the court of Benin, and much of it is reflected in the artwork of the nation. Very little portrait-work, but lots of statues. Their most revered animals were the crocodile, a symbol of strength, and the mudfish, a symbol of magic.

One animal, though, also played an important part in the history of Benin. I was walking by a case and saw a headpiece to a staff in the shape of an ibis or crane, and it was called the Bird of Prophecy. There story behind it goes as such: In the 16th century, oba Esigie and the people of Benin City - his capital - were faced with invasion by the neighboring state of Idah. As the armies of Idah closed on the city, a bird flew down from the sky as an omen of the defeat of oba Esigie and the fall of the Kingdom of Benin. In an act of defiance, oba Esigie ordered the bird to be shot, and subsequently led his armies to victory over the Idah, cementing his rule and beginning an age of considerable prosperity and success for the Benin.

I was a bit rushed through all of this, and photography was not allowed, but at the end of the exhibit was artwork from later artists of Benin. Much of the work focused on the invasion of the British in the 19th Century and the forced exile of the oba, who, granted, was a bloodthirsty tyrant trying to consolidate power by stagnating change from the outside. One piece that I really liked was a set of statues in a scene depicting Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip meeting oba Akenzua II in the 1960s. I would have looked at more, but I was out of time.

So the moral of this story is when your kingdom is under threat of invasion, defy the conventional wisdom and have killed whatever prophetic animals which don't predict your victory.