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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 14
Lesson 4: EthiopiaBattle of Adwa
Unidentified artist, Battle of Adwa, c.1968, oil on canvas, 192.2 x 92 cm (Smithsonian National Museum of African Art) speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(classy music) - [Peri] We're at the National
Museum for African Art and the Smithsonian, looking
at a historical painting of a battle called the Battle of Adwa. - [Steven] This is one of
numerous paintings of this scene. This is a tremendously important
moment in Ethiopian history because it represents the
victory of the Ethiopians over Italian aggressors. - [Peri] Ethiopia never had
a colonizing experience, so it became this incredible
symbol of resistance to European occupation
in the Horn of Africa. - [Steven] In the
painting, it's celebratory, but it's also meant to instruct. - [Peri] In the upper left
hand corner, seated on a horse and looking through
binoculars, is Emperor Menelik. Below him, also seated on a
horse and holding a revolver under this umbrella, is
Empress Taytu, his wife. - [Steven] And they're
surrounded by what are meant to be the 100,000 troops
that supported this campaign. - [Peri] And we see that depicted through a series of heads and arms. Rather than having all
full-bodied figures, we have these crouching lines of heads with these strong diagonals
from one side and the other. - [Steven] The story behind the painting is one of the Italians'
interest in having control over the southern coast of the Red Sea, an area that was important
to trade, and the Italians were making increasingly deep
excursions into Ethiopia. A king was able to
gather an enormous force to oppose the Italians. The Italians decided to try
to advance their interests by taking new forward positions at night, but several divisions
overshot their targets and virtually walked
into the Ethiopian camp. - [Peri] There was already
an Italian presence in what is not Eritrea, and that group was
slowly pushing southward. Meanwhile, Emperor Menelik, who had a small kingdom in Shewa, increased his kingdom and
accrued this strong army. About 100,000 soldiers
are supposedly depicted in this painting fighting a troop of about 15,000 Italian soldiers, coming together at this
very important point. But what we notice is, while the Italian soldiers all have guns, and throughout Africa, that's the way in which Europeans were able to colonize, we see that through trade, many of the African
soldiers already had rifles and were able to use them. - [Steven] But it's not
just pistols and rifles. We actually see cannon on both sides. - [Peri] Rising from these
crouching troops are a series of six figures or more who
stand up with their swords and go after in full
force the Italian soldiers waiting on the ground. These figures are depicted in tunics with white cotton trousers, the traditional dress of
that time for soldiers as well as men of some
prestige, these Rases, these men wearing leather capes
with lion mane and lion fur decorating the fringes of their
headdresses and those capes. - [Steven] But if you
look closely, you can see that there's blood on a number
of the swords that they hold. The Italians are all wearing helmets. Their faces are largely
obscured by their guns, and each of them is in perfect profile with only one eye showing. - [Peri] For the Ethiopian
soldiers, we see two eyes with heads tilted to look
towards the invading army, but then we have a series
of figures who are standing, and we see them frontally facing us. That hearkens back to
this tradition of painting in the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church where good, in the figure of saints, for example, are always depicting
facing outward and evil, whether it's a demon or
a stranger or an enemy, are always depicted in profile. So the only Italian faces
we actually see frontally are those that are deceased. - [Steven] There is a real
reverence for the dead. - [Peri] Except in the case of one figure, who is stepping on the head of one of the dead Italian soldiers. In the center, a Ras is
holding a shield in his hand, and we have another
shield in the collection at the Smithsonian. - [Steven] This is a large boss. It is really a sculptural form that comes forward in the center. In this case, the shield is covered with this metal embellishment
that has a protective, but also a decorative purpose. - [Peri] And we see in four places where the leather projects outward where a handle would be on the other side. This was made from a stiff, hard leather, so it was able to protect
the holder from spears. - [Steven] And if you look
closely at the leather, you can see that it's been decorated with a series of concentric
circles and geometric designs. - [Peri] This was used by
someone of very high status because of the amount of
metal used to decorate it. - [Steven] The representation
of the shield in the painting is remarkably similar to the
shield that we have before us. But perhaps most important in the painting is above all of the
violence, all the chaos, we see an image of Saint
George on horseback holding a spear which is
pointed towards the Italians. - [Peri] This ancient
symbol of Saint George, which is part of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church, usually depicts Saint
George killing a dragon, but here, he's killing evil. This idea of divine
intervention is also apparent if we look next to Menelik on the left, where we see part of the figure's face with this red cloth
square headpiece on top, which represents a
priest holding a replica of the Ark of the Covenant,
the tabot, on top of his head. We actually find this replica in every Ethiopian Orthodox Church as its center, so it's a way of showing that the hand of God is on
the side of Emperor Menelik. - [Steven] So we have a
successful African campaign against Europeans. This would've had profound impact on African nationalist sentiment. - [Peri] And this was
such a thorn in the side of many Italians and
Mussolini that in 1936, Mussolini invades Ethiopia, and we have a five-year occupation. - [Steven] The way that the
Europeans looked at the failure of the Italians speaks to the racism and the sense of superiority
that is so central to European thought in the
19th and early 20th centuries. But Africans celebrated
and continue to celebrate this victory as a seminal
moment in African self-rule. (classy music)