The art of Ife combines terracotta, bronze and stone sculptures; these are done in life sizes or naturalistic styles.
The Ife terracuttas represents kings, Queens and commoners (even criminal and victims of human sacrifices) all these are date to between 900AD and 1400AD. As in Nok terracottas which depict animals (rams, elephants, hippos), articulation of beauty through body and facial markings, dress for the body and depiction of kingly crowns bracelets and emblems of royal and cultural authority.
Ife goes beyond its terracotta’s medium the copper, brass/bronze tradition of metal casting by the lost – wax or cire-perdue method has received extensive publicity.
Also prominent among Ife corpus is the stone sculptures. These include obelisks, representations of humans and fish, stools and enigmatic of cult objects, the Ife stone sculpture has northern dimensions especially in the little studied collections from Esure, some 100km. south of north-east of Ile-Ife sculpture have very important extensions in relation to arts of Benin and Owo.
Ancient Nigerian Ile-Ife Art
