Nigerian Art and Hegelian Unconscious

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Thi rd Text, V ol. 19, I ssue 4, July, 2005, 329338

Third T extISSN 0952-8822 print/ISSN 1475-5297 online 2005 Ka la Pr ess/Bla ck Umbrellahtt p://w w w .ta ndf .co. uk/journa ls

DO I: 10.1080/095288205001 24503

Nig eria n Art Hist o ry a nd The

Heg elia n Unconscio us

The Limits of Linea l Evide nce in

Hist o rica l Pra ctice

Frank A O Ugiomoh

Taylorand FrancisLtdCTTE112433.sgm10.1080/09528820500124503ThirdText0000-0000(print)/0000-0000(online)OriginalArticle2005Taylor&FrancisGroupLtd194000000July2005FrankUgiomohDepartmentofFine ArtAnd DesignUniversityofPort [email protected]

To plead the alibi tha t an archaeological search yet to be undertaken w illeventua lly provide evidence for the certainty of African Art H istory is one

that confronts African art studies as a cultural genre. It emanates from anapplication of H egelian art historical methodology to N igerian a rt historyw ithin the general frame of African a rt history. As a theory, its presuppo-sitions are tied to a n empirical foregrounding that valida tes history on the

ba sis of a serial progression of phenomena o r w hat has come to be know nas the lineal evidence theory in the practice of ar t history. Its ba sic assump-

tions are that one is naturally follow ed by tw o then three and so forth. If,therefore, there is a broken link between one and three, which may beoccasioned by the elision of tw o or w hat indeed ma y ha ve featured as a naberrant artistic form in the supposed identity of two in a progression, aproblem of a n incomplete forma l seriality is a lluded to. O n the premise ofprogression or evolution, an assumed coherence regarding stylistic succes-

sion in serial progress is judged important in the validation of an arthistory. The valida tion of a series, despite all other evidence, is also hingedon a presupposed subtext. This is why the recourse to lineal evidence asa theory is judged teleological, since its subtext assumes a status thatdefines the causal fa ctor fo r coherency in a serial.

Babatunde Lawal and C O Adepegba have expressed the opinion at

various times that too many elisions hamper the construction of adefinitely serial Nigerian art history. This, in their view, constitutes aproblem tow ards the realisation of N igerian a rt history.

2

They ar rived a tthis conclusion in response to Bernard Fagg, William Fagg, and FrankWillett, who at various times had proposed that it is possible to recon-struct the history of African art relying on the lineal evidence theory.

Lineal evidence as a theoretical too l poses difficulties tha t req uire ano theroption if w e are not to postpone the actualisat ion of N igerian a rt history.

It is importa nt, how ever, t o reconsider the dependence on stylistic seri-ation that authorises lineal evidence for the validation of an art history.

Notes

I am grateful to the

University of Port

Ha rcourt for the grant that

funded this research a nd to

Professor C hris S Nwodo

for reading through the

script in its preparatory

stages.

1. Keith Moxeys Art

Historys Hegelian

Unconscious, in The

Subjects of A rt H istory

, eds

Ma rk A Cheetam, M ichael

Ann Holly and Keith

Moxey, Cambridge

University P ress,

Cambridge, 1998, pp 25

51, inspired this paper.

Moxey underscores the

Hegelian origin of art

historys methodology,

which has become its

unnoticed undercurrent.

2. Babatunde Lawal, The

Present State of Art

Historical Research in

Nigeria, Journal of

Afr ican History

, 18,:2,

1977, pp 003016; C O

Adepegba , The Question

of Lineal Descent: Nok

Terrakottas to Ife and the

Present, Afr ican Not es

,

9:2, 1983, pp 2332.

CTTE112433.fm Page 329 Friday, July 8, 2005 3:38 AM


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In this regard, E H G ombrichs advice is pertinent, for a s he observed, the

history of style lends itself better to attempts at hypothetical reconstruc-tions.

3

G ombrichs alt ernative proposition explores the values that inherein the phenomenon of a rtistic mastery. This, according to him, providesa better definition of artistic progression. Michel Foucault provides theappropriate framework to examine the limitations of the lineal evidence

theory:

And the great problem presented by such historical analysis is not how

continuities are established, how a single patt ern is formed and preserved,

how for so many different successive minds there is a single horizon,

what mode of action and what structure is implied by the transmissions,

resumptions, disappearances, and repetitions, how the origin may extend

its sway well beyond itself to that conclusion that is never given the

problem is no longer one of tradition, of tracing a line, but one of divi-

sion of limits, it is no longer one of lasting foundations but one of trans-formations that serve as new foundations.

4

Elsw here Foucault a lso submits:

Mathematical language since the time of Galileo and Newton has not

functioned as an explana tion of na ture but as a description of its process.

I dont see why non-formalised disciplines such as history should not

undertake the primary ta sks of descriptions as w ell.

5

Foucault suggests alternative theoretical considerations on the nature ofhistorical practice. Foucaults position accommodat es the possibility thateven w here historical sequence is lineal, art istic forms produced in it w ill

eventually be characterised as diverse types. Artistic forms produced in

history become intelligible if the effort of the historian is directed to thedefinition of the language of those forms as visual metaphors.

Identification of the nature of the artistic sign in time is one of theduties of the art historian. O ur point of departure is to a sk how H egelianlineal evidence features in Nigerian art history. Can the theory be

adjusted to allow for the reality of the non-lineal?Peter Gar lake acknow ledges the rich visual culture of Africa but

holds the opinion that its history cannot yet be properly defined. In thecourse of his evaluation, he recognised the debt that African art historyowes to archaeology, an obligation that reflects the absence of docu-ments to construct an African a rt history. H e also called attention to t he

gaps in the presupposed series of a rtistic forms in African art w hich haveimpeded a proper articulation of art history.

6

William Fagg, Bernard Fagg, and Frank Willett, relying on archaeo-logical evidence ava ilable mainly in N igeria, have propo sed the possibil-ity of an African art history on formal and stylistic grounds.

7

The Nokterracottas seem to provide the point of departure for their reconstruc-

tionist bid which Fagg, Fagg, and Willett proposed. Adepegba, however,contests the reality of such a reconstruction in The Question of LinealD escent: From N ok Terracott as to the Present. Adepegbas contribut ionto the understanding of Nigerias premodern artistic traditions cameafter La w als similar focus. Adepegbas study, on the N igerian a rt t radi-tions of the royal convention, aiming to re-evaluate the proposals of

Fagg, Fagg, and Willett, hinged on the lineal evidence theory. He beganby a rticulating the formal a nd stylistic contents of N igerian a rt history a s

3. E H Gombrich, Hegel and

Art History, in On the

M ethodology of

Architectural H istory

, ed D

Porphyrios, Architectural

Design Profile, London,

1981.

4. Michel Foucault, The

Ar chaeology of

Knowledge

, Routledge,

London, 1991, p 5.

5. Clare O Farrell, Foucault:

H istorian or Philosopher

,

Ma cmillan, London, 1989,

p 58.

6. Peter Ga rlake. The African

Past, in Afr ica: The Art of

a Continent

, ed Tom

Phillips, Prestel Verlay,

Munich, New York, 1995,

pp 309.

7. Bernard Fagg, N ok

Terrakottas

, Ethnographic

for the Na tional Museum,

Lago s, 1977. Frank Willett

African Art

, Thames &

Hudson, London, 1995,

and If e in the History ofWest A fr ican Sculptur es

,

Thames & H udson,

London, 1967. William

Fagg, N igerian I mages

,

Lund Humphries

Publishers, Lagos and

London, 1963, p 25,

proposes a hypothetical

lineal evidence theory o f

Nigerian a rt history which

presupposes a gap of a

thousand years that

accounts for in the

succession o f its art istic

forms.



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established for the arts of royal genre in the Nok tradition. To a great

extent he successfully defined the language of forms that resides in theseworks. He detailed the styles and in some instances reconstituted theconceptual frames in which they had hitherto been appreciated. Despitethese ingredients of art history, he concluded that it would be difficult tolay claim to any historical reconstruction of a Nigerian a rt history. For

Adepegba, t he possibility of t hat history must lie in filling the chronolog-ical gaps, which will aid the study of a complete stylistic progression inthe region.

Sixteen years before Adepegba, Lawal had evaluated the problemsand possibilities that inhere in art historical research practice in Nige-ria. Lawal focused on issues that bordered on provenance, chronol-

ogy and iconographic associations, as well as some indeterminacies,within the same traditions of restricted conventions or arts of royal

genre as opposed to arts of popular conventions. The arts of popu-lar conventions in Lawals study were referred to only as comple-mentary and support frames in his overall analysis.

8

Despite evidenceof stylistic progression, as he confirmed it, and the establishment of

certain chronology, he concluded before Adepegba that a great dealremains to be done before a definitive art history of Nigeria can bewritten.

9

Adepegba and Lawal question the construction of Nigerian arthistory as proposed by Fagg, Fagg, and Willet, not on methodologicalgrounds but on the value of their empirical evidence. The following

observations that underlie their argument reveal this in Adepegbascounter-proposition:

Of the various Nigerian art traditions Ife art has been observed to havethe closest similarities with Nok art. Indeed Bernard Fagg is concerned

with the relationship of Nok art to West African sculptures in general,

and so gleans his evidences from various arts of Africa. But most of his

evidences are dra w n from Ife art. William Fagg is how ever more definite.

H e specially asserts that If e art is the closest to No k art. But Frank Willett

simply endorses and reinforces William Faggs view.

10

Adepegba situates the reality of history to be explored in Nigerian art.The hub of this history is Nok culture; but the chronology of African art

shows that many of its traditions predate the Nok culture. Nok inAfrican art history appears to occupy a medial position to w hich ot herhistorical occurrences, including the Nigerian, must relate. Where an ar thistorian determines the beginning of narrative interpretation becomes

the choice of licence. Adepegbas has a further argument to ground aholistic conception o f historically co nstructed meaning:

Similarities have been pointed out in the motifs, formal treatment of

some features, sizes of t he objects, as w ell as t he body orna ments on some

of t he images. I ha ve how ever found some of these allusions rather vague,

and in cases where they are particular their evidences are single, isolated

cases, as with Benin. Nonetheless, their evidences have guided me in my

observation of the tw o a rts, and I have found some indications that some

simi lar cultural ideas and practices possibly underline the production of

the two arts

.

11

(emphasis a dded)

In ano ther instance he sta tes:

8. Adepegba, op cit.

9. Lawal, op cit. Arts of

royal genre is the same as

arts of restricted

convention used in

opposition to the arts of

popular convention a

distinction that definesart istic progression is

called to mind. Progress in

artistic styles was fostered

mainly by royal a nd church

patronage. In Adepegba,

Ara as a factor of

creativity, in Yoruba Art :

The N igeria Field

, 1983,

p 48, pp 5366, where the

phenomenon of co-opting

artistic creativity by royalty

is documented.

10. Ibid, p 27.

11. Ibid.



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Moreover as long as the Nigerian art traditions are studied in groups

without any attention to any possible stylistic variations within thegroups, no matter how subtle, possible inter cultural influence between

the various Nigerian art traditions will be difficult to ascertain or

dismiss.

12

Lawal and Adepegba, however, fall into fallacy when categoricallypresupposing that Nigerian art history may have to wait upon evidencedraw n from stylistic relationships. From Law al:

By and large the story of a stylistic relationship between Nok and Ife

assumes that there was transference of artistic form or ideas from one

another. At present there is no concrete evidence for this theory.

13

Adepegba arrived at the same conclusion when he stated that until

archaeology proves otherwise the Nok terracota s dated between 500BC and 200 AD are the oldest sculptures in N igeria.

14

What and how much more are to be discovered from Nok, Ife or any

other part of Nigeria cannot be surmised. At this point in time, however,

it is neither possible to establish or rule out the attractive idea of lineal

descent from Nok. The evidence simply does not exists.

15

Law als validation of iconographic consonance and diatopical appropri-

ation of symbolic concepts across geographical boundaries goes thus:

In any given case, given the frequent representations of the ram motif in

the arts of the Yoruba and Benin and its depiction on the Gara pendant,

it seems that at some time in the past this animal was a sacred symbol of

a great cult or perhaps a mo narch. To the extent tha t the anima l could beworn by priests as a badge of office, the cult might have had a political

function in ad dition to its religious ones.

16

Lawal and Adepegba agree to some conventions that indicate a sharedhistory, but they find the unconnected nature of the progression of formin the history of N igerian a rt diff icult to explain using the lineal evidencetheory as a tool. Thus, while Lawal concurs with Willetts affirmation

regarding the reality of such history, Adepegba hinges his conclusion onthe essentialising nature of anthronopologically biased studies thatconstitute the bulk of literature on African art in older studies, tocanvass for the postponement of Nigerian art history. Their conclusionsderived from works whose absolute chronology can be determined

w ithin identifiab le time-fra mes.The tropes Lawal and Adepagbas discourse convey are metonymic,

and laden with irony, because they failed to see the otherness imputedin the arguments of Fagg, Fagg, and Willett, which did not conceal theirideological foregrounding. It is indeed a native assumption whereby:

The legacy of the modern or anthropological episteme in the invention

of the aca demic discipline of reconstructionist history is accompanied by

the native assumption of transparency in language and the belief that

narrative can objectively correspond with what actually happened in the

past. Taken together, these beliefs produced the predominant nine-

teenth- and twentieth-century conception of history as an empiricist

epistemology.

18

12. Ibid, p 21.

13. Ibid, p 17.

14. Adepegba, op cit, p 23.

15. Ibid, p 31.

16. Lawal, op cit, p 17.

17. See Lawal on the following

affirmative conclusions:

Nok and latter-day

cultures around the Nok

area, p 12; Nok and Ife,

p 13; Ife, Benin and O wo

relationship (p 14), Nupe

Benin Ife have

relationships, op cit, p 15.

18. Alun Munslow,

D econstructing H istory

,

Routledge London, 1997,

p 133.



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Munslows observation shows that Lawal and Adepegba assume the

objectivity of the very foregrounding itself from which the propositionsof Bernard Fagg, William Fagg, and Frank Willet emerge. Thus, if thehistorical facts are available, their evidence demonstrates, and at thesame time accedes to the irreality of that history, their submission mustbe a way of denying history in which the artwork in itself is history. That

negational submission is the basis for the irony, and indeed the highpoint of a satirical endeavour.

The mode of argument whereby Lawal and Adepegba affirm theirreality of history is equally reductive and mechanistic. Why, after iden-tifying the formal language that belongs to the artistic traditions theyevaluate, should extra-deterministic laws be sought to validate history?

Their position at once serves both liberal and conserva tive ideologies. Itis judged liberal because of looking ahead to some fine-tuning, and

hence why both agree with the archaeology-dependent hypothesis. Butsuspending Nigerian art history on the authority of that premise servesblatantly a conservative ideology. A coherent serial progression in abso-lute chronology has been established for the majority of the works on

which they draw. This denial of history, as Lawal and Adepegba makeknow n, has nothing to do w ith the evidence ava ilable to them. Their posi-tion rather speaks of something else. Historical evidence can be deniedeven to the artw orks historical va lue by relying on episteme of a Westernfigurat ive cano n. That episteme is Hegelian a nd go es beyond the teleolog-ical pursuit of historical meaning to t he meta historical. H H Whites eval-

uation of Hegels historiograph confirms this observation:

H egel emplott ed on tw o levels Tragic on the microcosmic, comic on the

macrocosmic both of which are justified by appeal to a mode of argu-ment that is organicist, with the result that one can derive either radical

or conservative ideological implicat ions from reading his w ork.

19

Lawal and Adepegbas Hegelian construct of historical reality is vali-dated on two grounds. The first is the appeal to evidence whose validityis in contest on the very grounds of evidence, and the second is drawnfrom their texts own historiographic colouration of the argument thatnegates Nigerian art history.

The grounds on w hich the archaeology-dependent theory ha s thrivedso far a re a product of a logocentric rationalisation t hat features aroundH egels art history. These grounds are tw ofo ld, the first being his absolu-tisation of Western epistemology and the naturalization of the authorialvoice, and the second his overriding influence on art historical method-

ology. It now features subliminally and yet as the overriding method thathas shaped art history.

The nature of the Hegelian unconscious in Nigerian art historyrelates principally to the search for stylistic units of progression, asevidence on which its art history may be constructed. This focus callsinto question various efforts so far made at defining the language ofform in Nigerian art history. What is needed within modernisms logic

and its constructed archaeology-dependent alibi are some urgent clarifi-cations of historical emplotments, historical foci and conceptual frames,the limits of a lineal-seriation of style and teleologically driven history,and the relationship between the artwork, historicity and interpretation.Hegel did show how art could be used as a cultural sign to construct

19. Hayden H White,

Metahistory: T he

H istorical I magination in

the N ineteenth Century

,

Johns Hopkins University

Press, Baltimore, 1973,

p 30.



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history. He achieved this in a sketch where the works of art of many

epochs were taken through a teleological journey in an imaginarymuseum.

20

THE LIM ITS OF LIN EAL EVIDENCE IN HI STORICAL

CONSTRUCTION

If it has been possible to define stylistic and iconographic relationshipson the scales that Adepegba and Lawal have demonstrated, what thenputs African art history in abeyance? Is it because linkages have notbeen established in an epistemic frame that valorises the serial progres-sion of artistic style and a teleological unravelling of meaning? Is it notpossible for history to transcend lacunae and construct a contingent

reality? Agreement to a deferment of history is surrendered to anextra-historical alternative, which simply implies a halt to historicalenterprise. We ought instead to be asking from history itself what theHegelian conception imposes by its dialectical construction of meaningfor art history. If we suspend these evaluations and return to the thing-in-itself, the question for history is the following: what is responsible

for the similarities in the context of use, the shared conventions, evenas the evidence makes available? What do these similarities point to interms of moving beyond a primary level of phenomenological systemsof thought?

The need to re-evaluate the limitation imposed by lineal evidencedemands that we look again at the institutional origins of the limits

Lawal and Adepegba impose on the reality of Nigerian art history.G ombrichs advice on the appro priation of determinate stylistic cano nsfor hy pothetical reconstruction hinges on w ha t he identified as H egelianart historys metaphysical optimism. Its assumptions march to the ideaof a progress towa rds the future perfection of a rtw orks. But tied to thisprogression is wha t G ombrich identifies as an o ver-easy applicability of

the Hegelian dialectic.

22

The Hegelian dialectical consciousness is aconseq uence of feedba cks from the conseq uence of past act ions.

23

The ground for a teleological reconstructionism proposed by Fagg,Fagg, and Willett, as well as Lawal and Adepegbas indeterminacy, hasso far been the evidence derived from stylistic studies. Stylistic studiesdiffer from historical values that reside in an artwork. Stylistic studies

are related to formalist art history, which is reputed for its negation ofan artworks habitual association, since what form exhibits is its interest.It is by way of the aesthetic value of a work of art that the worth ofartistic mastery comes to be appreciated. This is what aids the locationof a n artw ork in its proper place in time. Ben Genochio validates the

basis of G ombrichs w orry w hile evaluating the implications of thediscourse of difference; he quotes Mari Carmen Ramirez thus:

Such practices rely on a teleological view of art based on a sequence of

formal change that privileges the concept of aesthetic innovation devel-

oped by the early 20th century avant-gardes. They also subscribe to an

absolute notion of aesthetic quality that transcends cultural boundaries.

In this way they select, exclude and evaluate works to their own preor-

dained and preconceived standards.

24

20. Beat Wyss, H egels Ar t

H istory and the Criti que of

M odernity

, trans Carol D

Saltzwadel, Cambridge

University Press, 1999.

21. Keith Moxey The History

of Art after the Death of

the Subject, In-Visible

Culture

An Electronic

Journal of Vi sual Studies

1,

1999. Available a t: h ttp://

www.Rochester.Edu/

invisible culture (accessed

30 May 2000).

22. E A Gombrich, op cit,

H egel and Art H istory

,

pp 6 and 7.

23. Ibid .

24. Ben Genochio, The

Discourse of Dif ference:

Writing Latin American

Art, Third T ext

, 43, 1998,

p 70.



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The conception of the new, the avant-garde, as a sign of a cutting-

edge in artistic creat ivity, as G ombrich further notes, is not tot ally acreation of Hegel. But it developed from his philosophy of history.G ombrichs w orry is abo ut the inversion of H egels meta physical opti-mism to a metaphysical opport unism as he cites from Ka rl Popper. Thenegative effect of metaphysical opportunism in the consideration of a

Nigerian art history is the result of that search for stylistic linkages withthe tradition of Nok t aken as a para digm. Its other default is the searchfor congruent forms that define an assumed subtext in which thesesforms are their visible evidence.

Foucault evaluat es the problems of history generated by the H egelianconstruct as they relate to the nature of the dialectic and its teleological

focus. C entral t o Foucaults standpoint is the fracta l nature and orderof historical events.

25

The Hegelian dialectic in its constructed nature

should, ideally, open up to continuous revaluations. But the way Hegelemployed it generates a closed circle. In Foucaults view, a situation ofsameness at the beginning and end of the circle confronts a lone otheras a n a ntithesis in its tria dic structure. The dialectic achieves meaning by

relying on this lone other as its apparent antithetical middle term toprivilege what it logically considers the same to itself at the end. Thedialectic therefore, as OFarell submits, interpreting Foucault, encirclesthe opposed other to a vanishing point of non-being. The dialectic is avirtuous circle, which validates itself by negating a constructed other.Validation of this kind is a continuous process of self-recuperation in

denial of the others existence.

26

Foucaults criticism of the teleological bias alerts us to the nature ofHegels history as one of exclusions. The excluded supports his agenda

of pitting the notional against the essence as the dialectic circleconfirms. The notional here becomes the determinant historical factor,w hile the essence as dominant fa ctor o f a period is relegated to the back-

ground. A system is in place by which negation is exploited to validate aconstructed reality. This is the problem of the unconscious in Hegelianart history. A constructed reality gains value by way of a methodologyw hich discard s continuities in favour o f new art istic styles it assumes tobe frames of reference or the avant-gardes of a given period. Newermanifestations of what Hans Robert Jane calls a metaphysics of

supratemporal beauty within an ongoing time-scale become the deter-minant notional factor since they constitute the emergent identities in aprogression.

27

Some manifestations of artistic styles can therefore bebrought to abrupt notional closure while indeed they are still extant.

Kubler, in his discussion of the progression of a serial, or serial ofserials, established three possibilities regarding the life span of artistic

forms.

28

A series may remain open, as a visual form relevant since itsmanifestation; a second series may become arrested in the case of anartistic form that is experiencing a temporary closure as a mode offormal actualisation; in the third series, some forms of artistic practicemay have become extinct and represent closed serials. In Foucaultssense, the dynamics of closed or open or arrested sequences of forms

relate to a problematic condition initially responsible for the emergenceof a form. That formerly problematic condition can extend its swa y w ellbeyond itself to that conclusion that is never given. It may well be aproblem that had ceased to command attention, whereby the need to

25. Frank A O Ugiomoh, The

Philosophy of A frican Art

H istory: A H egelianInterpretation

, PhD

Dissertation (unpublished),

University of Port

Ha rcourt, 2003, p 130.

26. OFarrel, op cit, in Robert

G Calkins, Monuments of

M edieval

Art, Cornell

University Press, Ithaca,

1979, pp 12832, provides

the medieval other in the

works from t he Nicolas of

Verdun at elier to exemplify

the a ntithesis. The Shrine

of the three Magi, 1181

1230, shares similar forma l

stylistic features w ith the

Roman classical style andby its date also anticipates

the Renaissance period.

These relief sculptures,

unidentified with the

typical formal language

either of the Romanesque

or G othic, hardly appear in

texts on the medieval

period.

27. Quoted in Moxey, Art

H istory s H egelian

Unconscious

, 1998, p 25.

28. Gorge Kubler, The Shape

of Time

, New York, 1962.



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trace back a line comes to an abrupt end, which results in other transfor-

mations that serve as new foundations and identities.Adepegbas stylistic typology of Nok art is grouped into two domi-

nant and two subdominant categories of form. Is it not possible thatsuch identification by Adepegba in the question of lineal descent mayargue for the gradual development of regional styles that have mutated

into some other existing styles today in which the particular problematiccondition that commanded attention for such forms no longer exists?Lawal upholds the same view, although he belabours it with the linealsearch for evidence. Lawals study of Benin art confirms the difficulty ofestablishing a perfect chronology by relying on style. He even hints atthis in an attempt to establish extant relationships with some artistic

practices around the Nok region. Vansina has remarked on this prob-lem.

29

The issue at stake is that an open class of form can remain open

for as long as its relevance persists or can mutate, giving birth to forms(artistic styles) that complicate an assumed serial progression. H ence thereason why it becomes problematic, relying on stylistic grounds tovalidate a historical progression. Recourse to the arts of the royal

convention carries with it (especially for the examples Lawal andAdepegba rely on) an implicit habitual association that may aid indefining Nigerian art history.

Foucault attends to the reality of historical progression but cautionsagainst the assumption that historical events are lineal and identifiableon the basis of form alone in a progression. Artistic forms may mutate

and result in formal classes complicated by cultural limits and otherfactors. The art historians task requires a description first of what isthere to behold. Historical progression of artistic forms may then be

established through habitual associations not always of aesthetic originbut which nevertheless gave identity to the forms that evolved to servetheir need. Lawal supports this notion when he acknowledges Willetts

efforts to rely on function to explain Ife naturalism.

30

To affirm thesuspension of Nigerian art history is therefore to subscribe to a positionoutside the limits of art historys notional grounds of reference theartwork.

In Foucaults compost pit philosophy, the concept of the limit ma rksonly the beginning of another history that implicates the said and the

unsaid. The compost pit instructs us that life is rekindled a s plants growfrom it. Lawal and Adepegba succumb to limits by proclaiming amoment for Nigerian ar t history. Limits ought t o engender a conscious-ness that challenges erstw hile norma tive bounda ries w hich are set w ithin

an episteme. For Foucault, thought should not be directed towardsestablishing a kind of central certitude but towards the limits, the exte-

rior emptiness, the negation of what it confirms.

31

Law al a nd Adepegbadid not confront the limits of the possible in this sense. Their thoroughw ork a t the stylistic and iconogra phic levels is only primary to the objec-tive of a rt history.

Identity yields to a demand to understand a n artw ork or to a ppropri-ate it metaphorically. A metaphoric appropriation of meaning has not

always been in consonance with the search for stylistic seriation or adetermination of casual effects. It is the identity of the artwork properlydefined that excites the urge to historicity. This is the art historicalurgency of Foucaults call for a historical agenda that concerns itself

29. Jan Vansina, Art H istory in

Africa

, Longmans,

London, 1984, pp 957.

30. Adepegba op cit, Lawal, op

cit.

31. OFarrel, op cit.



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with the simple tasks of description. An established identity, as it is

described, reveals the nature of the artwork. Where there is a series oflikeness of forms that bear the same identity, a serial naturally emerges.Where such like-forms are in multiple groups, the historian is confrontedwith the reality of many serials. Within a historical time-frame, there-fore, multiplicities of serials can arise from the reopening of closed or

arrested sequences to the extended life of an open serial. An open serialmay accommodate further mutations.

32

The focal point from whichLaw al a nd Adepegba ha ve so fa r led is indeed the search fo r the transfo r-mations that would serve as new foundations on which to attain thecertainty of a Nigerian art history. To think otherwise is to deny theartwork and its history, and by implication to exclude its significance

from history.

CONCLUSION

The zeal to convey historical knowledge as it relates to Nigerian art

history has often been dampened by explanations that put its reality inab eyance. The archaeology-dependent a libi, the grounds for such a post-ponement, has no t hindered the lineal evidence theory o f a rt history . Thelineal evidence theory draws on the value of artistic form or a formalistconception of meaning to construct a history o f a rt.A G ombrich hasnoted, style alone cannot yield an understanding of art history. But

Bernard Fagg, William Fagg, and Frank Willett, relying instead on thevicissitudes of sty le, propo sed the possibility of a forma l reconstruction-ism on teleological gro unds. The mode in w hich they have conveyed the

notion of progress in African art was grounded on the Wests figurativeepisteme, which Lawal and Adepegba assumed innocent, doubting inspite of a realisation of the inherent reconstructionist proposition. But

there is an even great er snare which La w al a nd Adepegba glossed over inthe evidence they conf ronted a nd w hich informed their conclusions.

Attempts to respond to the reconstructionist proposition for aNigerian art history, its origin in the Hegelian logic and the conclusionsLaw al a nd Adepegba arrived a t ha ve a history. Fritzman, in his commentson modernitys attempt to escape Hegel, observes that to confront Hegel

by relying on logic is impracticable.

33

This is because such attemptsusually lead to the same conclusion tha t H egel structured. Thus for Firtz-man, to confront Hegel with some measure of success is to approach hislogic rhetorica lly through a determinat ion of the content and structure of

his logic. Lawal and Adepegba addressed the contradictions in the linealevidence theory, but because they set out to confront the inherently H ege-

lian prepositiona l logic, they failed to ha rness the value of their argumentfor the valida tion of a N igerian a rt history. Indeed their position va lidatesan assent to a lineal reconstructionist bid originally tendered by Bernardand William Fagg.

The problems that lineal evidence theory harbours in its assumedcoherent progression of artistic form have been deconstructed by

Foucault. Foucaults poststructuralist understanding of historical knowl-edge holds strongly to the idea that historical narrative as a product ofexperienced life accommodates breaks, mutations, and fractures as wellas continuities. Thus instead of looking for a constructed progression,

32. Foucault, op cit.

33. J M Fritzman, Escaping

Hegel, International

Philosophy Q uarterly

,

33:1, 1993, pp 5868.



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338

Lawal and Adepegba should be establishing the habitual associations of

form whose stylistic definitions they affirmed as defined by their prede-cessors. Failure of a ction indicates w here history that goes beyond H egelshould begin. This is because, in the spirit of Foucault, the birth of anartistic form prompted by a particular problematic condition may notgive rise to a formal sequence that coheres with its antecedents. All the

same, the needs that gave rise to antecedent forms may persist withinsociety. A search for a consonance of linked solutions peculiar to H egelianinspired art history, appropriated in the w ay Adepegba a nd Law al follow ,was bound to arrive at the conclusions they did. A hypothetical recon-struction is aff irmed a nd a t o nce denied w ithin the same logical premise.Western art history is itself beset by problems of incomplete serials. The

escape has always been a recourse to exclusion of identities that cannotbe accounted for in a serial. H egelian a rt history proceeds by t he exclusion

clause whereby the new becomes the notional, and what is unknown isset aside.

Two probabilities arise from an attempted complete definition of form

and its location in history. The first is that what may be premised as an

unbroken chain of stylistic associat ions could turn out to b e a series of se-

rials in the understand ing of a historical process. The second is that his-

torical reconstructions are contingent. The enterprise of history is a

continuous process of updating knowledge. Martin Bunzuls postmod-

ernist view of history is tha t events in the present ca n sometimes reshape

the meaning even of unconnected past events.

34

Understanding through

experience is a continuous phenomenological process. R evaluatio ns and

consta nt updating are w hat history is all abo ut. Thus, to defer to a notion

of the yet-to-be-possible Nigerian art history, as Lawal and Adepegba

have done, simply conforms to the predominant ahistorical tradition

which the West has always conferred on African art history.

34. Martin Bunzul, Real

History, Routledge,

Londo n, 1997, pp 279, is

a reflection on Arthur

Da ntos notion of truth or

understanding in the w ay

the present relates to t he

future.



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Documents

Nigerian Art and Hegelian Unconscious