Father Kevin Carroll, “Yoruba Nativity,” 1948. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in. (This is a photograph of a photograph of the painting; the whereabouts of the original are unknown.) From the plaque: “In 1948, Kevin Carroll painted an image in oil that seems to be the prototype for the Africanized nativity sets made at Ekiti workshop by Yoruba carvers. The Rome and Costantini nativities by George Bandele Areogun are good examples from 1950 and 1951. Carroll based his painted paradigm on the carving styles he saw in the Ekiti Region. His concept is a strong indicator of the workshop’s direction in the indigenizing of Christian art a decade before Nigeria’s independence from Great Britain (1960).” Africanizing Christian Art, pp. 47-49: “Carroll’s Three Kings are clothed in the regalia of Yoruba oba, their heads covered by sacred beaded crowns, or adenla, and their robes made from embroidered West African textiles. . . . This grouping prominently features the Kings’ gifts: The chalice-like vessel is very similar to a divination container, the agere Ifa, designed to hold the sixteen palm nuts that are cast on the opon Ifa, the divination tray, by a babalawo, or diviner. The bowl with the rooster-shaped lid, an olumeye, usually holds kola nuts, symbols of hospitality and generosity, and is used in Ekiti and elsewhere to make offerings to the family for a child’s naming ceremony or to prestigious visitors. Both kinds of vessels convey a significant visual suggestion, that Yorubaland’s indigenous belief system provides fully worthy spiritual gifts for the Christ Child.” See divination sculpture at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC: http://www.artscare.org/yoruba.chapter.3.shtml. Tags: Nigeria
