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The seizure of Germany's colonies in postwar-Weimar Republic by the allies created new interesting narratives from and about their former colonies or colonies in general. Among the groups influential in evoking German desires for the "exotic" in books and celluloid were archaeologists and ethnologists. One interesting figure was Viktor Leo Frobenius (1873-1938). This paper focuses on Frobenius and his "discovery" of the Ife Olokun in the early twentieth century to show how African art is rewritten as European in origin to perpetuate an interpretation that culminated in the romanticism and discourse of the nineteenth century.
Introduction
At various points of the colonization and archaeological discoveries of Africa, ethnologists, archaeologists and historians have continually denied the presence of any sophistication or presence of any aesthetic quality in ancient African artworks and artifacts. Unchallenged, natural scientists disseminated, theorized and obscured facts surrounding the origins of African artworks to diminish Africans' international standing in terms of civilization and art. Artworks perceived to be too "good" to be African were theorized as European by origin to "explicate African inferiority" as Mudimbe (1988) succinctly put it.1 Progress and growth as many non-African scholars argued were not possible on the African continent because Africans possessed neither the intelligence nor artistic sensitivity to produce even a "fourteenthrate piece of cloth or pottery".2
Consequently, it was absurdum to associate Africa with any aesthetic capabilities or creativity (Kingsley, 1965). In fact, this idea is uncommon because as history shows, any empire trying to expand its vision and magnomanic empire needed a symbol to hold on to and to legitimize its rule. In The Philosophy of History, the German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel made a deliberate attempt at establishing his theory of national Geist to categorize Africa as primitive, conditioned by history to be subordinate both culturally and philosophically to Europe; thus, it stands without importance to world development. After a long tirade of self-exaltations of race-based analogies, he concluded with the following: "At this point, we leave Africa not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world, it has no moment or development to exhibit. Historical movement in it - that is in its northern part - belongs to the Asiatic or European World".3' 4 For other critics, aesthetic...