Art, Innovation, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Benin

This study explores the role of art as a political strategy in 18th-century Benin, where art and imagery performed a strategic function as instruments of legitimization. Using archival and oral resources, it questions to what extent art operates as political strategy, whether objects can acquire political meaning, and how does the use of art enhance and embody power and authority? The book seeks to demonstrate that it is possible to discover the meaning of material objects, and thereby illuminate the connections between art and politics. This is an appreciation of Benin’s extraordinary artistic creation, and a probing examination of the social environment and historical circumstances that brought it into existence.