Art of Portraiture

art of portraiture

The three works that I chose that are art of portraiture are Head of a King,

Mask of an Lyoba, and Mother Goddess. The first two portraits are West African

Art from two different tribes, Ife, who created the Head of a King and Benin,

whom created the Mask of an Lyoba. The Mother Goddess is an Aztec piece. These

groups of people are from different cultures, time periods, and share different

religious beliefs. The similarity of the groups is the symbolic meaning the

portraitures brought to its people.

The first work is the Head of a King. This Ife creation altered the perception

that scholars had of the tribe. It was known that the Ife tribes did not do

portraits because of the spirits that could harm the subjects. The sculptures

that were discovered all seemed to resemble rulers, so the conclusion was that

the institution of kingship and the need to revere royal ancestors were strong

enough to overcome concerns. Also the figures were naturalistic. The

proportions of the few knownful figures are characteristically African.. The

heads may have been taken from life models, but seem more like idealized images.

An example is of the proportions of the head of the sculpture. These

proportions probably reflect a belief in the head’s importance as the abode of

the spirit, and the focus of the individual identity.

Ife is the sacred city of the Yoruba people, were naturalistic sculpture began.

The Benin tribe arose after the If...