Anyanwu (sculpture)
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Anyanwu (English: The Awakening) is a bronze sculpture created by the Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu between 1954 and 1955. It is a representation of the Igbo mythological figure and earth goddess Ani. It was created to mark the opening of the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos in 1956 and is still on display outside the museum. A life size version of the piece was presented to the United Nations by Nigeria in 1966 and is displayed in the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. Several subsequent smaller editions of the piece have since been created.
The sculpture is a representation of the female Igbo mythological figure and earth goddess Ani. The piece was perceived by critic Ayodeji Rotinwa writing in the Art Newspaper as emblematic of the sculptural traditions of the Igbo people and of the art of Benin.[1] The piece references the saluting of the rising sun, in veneration of the supreme Igbo deity Chukwu. Ani rises out of the ground to salute the Sun and arches toward the sky. She wears a headdress and jewellery made of coral, the traditional regalia of the Edo people.[2] Her head is modelled after an Edo portrait sculpture of a Queen Mother. She is adorned with matching hoops bracelets on her wrists.[3]
Enwonwu claimed that his vision for the piece came to him in a dream, describing it as a "supple graceful female form arising out of the sun in a brilliant shower of light...she loomed towards him in a wide curvilinear arch...the classic Ethiopianized features of the face and the decorative horizontal slats of the lower torso that receded into the horizon, tapering off to a point...".[3][4] His biographer Sylvester Ogbechie has perceived parallels between Anyanwu and the central figure in a 1946 painting by Enwonwu from his series Song of the City. Ogbechie believes that Enwonwu appropriated the visual form of Anyanwu from the 1921 work Ethiopia Awakening by the American sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller.[3] Enwonwu rejected comparisons between the slender form of Anyanwu and the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, claiming that Giacometti and other European modernists had themselves appropriated the aesthetic norms of African art.[3]
The critic Ayodeji Rotinwa has described the piece as "lithe and seemingly in movement" and manifesting the Négritude movement and the notion of motherhood in relation to the creation of Nigeria as an independent nation.[1] Oliver Enwonwu, the artist's son, has described the piece as "[defining] the aspirations of the African people" and that it was "...still very relevant when it comes to the advancement of black people" in contemporary racial discourse.[1]
The sculpture is the symbol of The Ben Enwonwu Foundation, established to promote Enwonwu's work and legacy. The foundation describes the piece as "one of Ben Enwonwu's greatest works that best illustrates his pioneering contributions to modern art in Nigeria and Africa through the invention of a new visual language that engaged nationalist and Pan-Africanist ideals" and that "...the sculpture's power derives from [Enwonwu's] successful fusion of indigenous aesthetic traditions drawn from his Edo-Onitsha heritage with Western techniques and modes of representation".[5]
The United Nations describes the sculpture as "symbolic of the rising sun of a new nation" and that it "symbolizes the sun's various aspects - the light of the day, dawn, rebirth, a new day, hope and awakening" and that the woman depicted is wearing the regalia of the Kingdom of Benin.[6]
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