Ashé at the Intersection of Art & Spirituality
Author(s): Arturo Lindsay
Source: Fire!!! , Summer 2020, Vol. 6, No. 2, “Ase” (Summer 2020), pp. 128-140
Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History
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Ashé at the Intersection of Art & Spirituality:
an artist in the first person statement
Arturo Lindsay
Spelman College, Professor Emeritus
Image 5.01. Kalami from the DRC(2018), acrylic on canvas, The “Returning Angels Series.” Lindsay imagines the
spirit of a child soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo emerging from a chrysalis and returning to the
natural world on a mission to improve the human condition. Courtesy of Arturo Lindsay.
El Minimalismo no tiene aché
Angel Suarez-Rosado, 1984
YORUBA ART, AESTHETICS, AND THE DIVINE
Yoruba art and aesthetics are inextricably linked to the divine. According to African art
historian Babatunde Lawal,
In order to appreciate the functions and significance of art in òrìsà worship, we must be
aware of its metaphysics in Yoruba thought. The Yoruba equivalent of the word “art” is
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òna, that is, the creative skill or design manifest in an object, making its form unique and
attractive. However, because of the special skills involved in its creation, art is often
associated with the supernatural and thought to embody a kind of àse.1
The transatlantic slave trade dispersed the Yoruba, their religion and culture, and in
particular their rich aesthetic traditions to America, where they took root in Brazil, Cuba,
Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, Venezuela, Haiti, and St. Lucia. Today the Yoruba
diaspora is growing and flourishing due, in part, to the migration of Nigerians, Cubans, and
Brazilians to the United States, Europe, and other parts of Latin America.
In spite of the ravages of the pre-colonial wars in Yorubaland and the horrors of the slave
trade and its aftermath, Yoruba belief systems survived, albeit creolized in diaspora. To be more
precise, Yoruba belief systems flourished by greatly impacting other enslaved Africans and non-
Africans as well as their descendants in the African diaspora. The concept of ashé, however, has
proven to be far more resilient to the process of creolization, remaining virtually unchanged.
Yoruba art historian and theoretician Rowland Abiodun, identifying the presence of ashé
in US African American secular and sacred spaces, writes:
In African American culture àse is more implicit than explicit. Palpably felt in churches,
the “spirit,” “holy ghost,” or simply “power” embodies an essentially àse-type
phenomenon. … In more secular contexts, in literary and oral traditions such as
“signifying,” “playing the dozen,” “reading,” “toasts,” “loud talking,” “dissin,’”
snapping,” and “rap,” there are reverberations of the structure and affective aspects of
àse in varying degrees. Indeed, we must acknowledge àse as the most important religio-
aesthetic phenomenon to survive transatlantic slavery almost intact.2
ASHÉ AT THE CROSSROAD
The Yoruba orisha most associated with ashé is Òrìsà Èsù. He is the force that engenders
the wielding of power that makes things happen. However, because of his mischievous character,
Òrìsà Èsù challenges us to think/rethink, imagine/reimagine, envision/re-envision, create/recreate
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works of art in order to achieve the life force—ashé—that delivers aesthetic excellence. That is
the fertile soil in which artists, scientists, and creative minds operate.
I live at a physical and emotional crossroad where I am constantly traveling from Atlanta,
Georgia, to Portobelo, Panama, to Brooklyn and Harlem, New York, and back. As a creative
thinker, my mind travels from the past to the present, to the future and beyond. In my current
work I am trying to expand my imagination to imagine a time before the ancestors and after the
angels. I am trying to envision the voyages of the spirits of murdered children and young people
whose souls were violently separated from their physical bodies, the result of police violence or
Black-on-Black crime. In my studio, with paint on canvas, I am trying to answer the questions:
Where has George Floyd gone? Where are Trayvon and Michael Brown and Eric Garner? Why
did Eleanor Bumpurs and Alberta Spruill and Breonna Taylor have to die? . . . When will they
return?
I think of the crossroad as a place of enchantment and opportunity. I think that the
crossroad exists:
• to make us think more critically and profoundly;
• to force us to think in unusual ways;
• to defy us to think of new and innovative ways to resolve old problems and to solve new
challenges;
• to think of constructing the very best human beings we were created to be.
I think of the crossroad as a place where divine grace resides.
The crossroad is the place where I go to make ART.
In March of 1994, I came to the realization that the Yoruba term ashé could be used as an
aesthetic criterion for all works of art when Puerto Rican–born, US-based artist Angel Suarez-
Rosado declared to me in a telephone interview that “el Minimalismo no tiene aché!”—
Minimalism doesn’t have aché!3 What struck me most about his statement was that I clearly
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understood his use of the Yoruba term ashé as an aesthetic criterion even though we were
discussing an art movement rooted in a Euro-American modernist tradition.4 Prior to that
moment, my understanding of ashé was limited to African and African diaspora sacred art
objects and events. In my mind, contemporary art was secular. In spite of the fact that I
considered my own work sacro-secular art full of power and life, I never thought of using the
term ashé as an aesthetic criterion to discuss the life force that was emanating from the art I was
creating—as I was creating it. Further, I had written reviews, articles, and essays on spiritually
grounded contemporary art objects, installations, and performances inspired by
Yoruba/Lucumí/Santeria traditions and discussed the power radiating from the work without
naming that life force ashé. Finally, an important component of my art practice, for many years,
has been the offering of prayers to my orisha Oshún, as a plea to vest my work with love and
beauty prior to beginning a work session. I end each work session with a prayer of thanksgiving.
In his essay “Artifact and Art,” in ART/Artifact, Arthur Danto introduced the concept of
“latent properties” living in a work of art—meaning that power, beauty, et al. can remain
dormant or concealed in a work until an individual, culture, or society is able to perceive them.5 I
was unable to perceive ashé in aesthetical terms until my interview with Rosado. His comment
led to an epiphany! Key to this revelation is that I now have the language I can employ to
describe my experiences. The Yoruba belief that ashé is the life force that exists in all things,
animate and inanimate, became crystal clear. Applying that concept to works of art became the
next step. It was now easier to understand why some art objects can provoke human beings to act
in such “irrational” ways, at times attacking artworks and at other times venerating them.
As an artist I am interested in writing and discussing my work and that of my
contemporaries from the perspective of the “artist in the first person.”6 That said, the prevailing
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language I was trained to use in the academy to contemplate the essential qualities in works of
art was limited to a Western European aesthetic worldview. As a cultural investigator
specializing in contemporary art theory and practice, my area of research is centered on African
spiritual and aesthetic retentions, rediscoveries, and reinventions in the African diaspora. And as
an educator, my pedagogical interest is in constructing new and innovative teaching methods to
critically analyze works of art from an Afro-centric worldview.
THE AESTHETICS OF ASHÉ IN ART CRITICISM
Great works of art are those objects or events that evoke a sense of awe in the viewer.
This sense of awe is achieved when there is something important to say (content) presented in an
aesthetically engaging composition (form). This sense of awe is provoked by ashé.
Understanding the aesthetics of ashé will provide language for artists, curators, critics, educators,
arts professionals, art connoisseurs, and the general public to more accurately describe their
experiences with works of art.
When I came to the realization that ashé could be used as an aesthetic criterion to
critically analyze works of art, I was eager to present the concept to my students, share it with
my colleagues, and introduce it to the discourse on contemporary art theory. However, I needed
to test my hypothesis. To that end I created Investigating the Aesthetics of Ashé as an Aesthetic
Criterion, a research project designed to test the viability of my premise. In order to assist those
individuals unfamiliar with the Yoruba/Lucumí/Santeria belief systems or the terms pertinent to
the investigation, I created a concise glossary of terms. I also created a list of criteria commonly
used in assessing ashé. I hasten to add that this aesthetic investigation is still an ongoing project
that welcomes input from all.
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While conducting research in aesthetics, it is not uncommon to encounter foreign words
in the literature to describe complex ideas that might get lost in translation. French, Greek, Latin,
Italian, and German words such as Fauvism, Jugendstil, camera obscura, fresco, Art Nouveau,
zeitgeist, mimesis, fin de siècle, and connoisseur, among others appear in the literature, giving
context to the idea—and credit to the cultures that introduced the terms. Ashé is one of those
foreign terms that could get lost in translation. Ashé is more than a life force and a great deal
more than Amen. Further, the idea of a life force existing in an inanimate object will require
cross-cultural translation for the Western mind. It is much more efficient to use the term in its
original language and in the context of its original culture.
In Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art, Abiodun argues, “It is
important that Yoruba art be made more meaningful through the Yoruba language and culture in
the same way that Italian terms like contraposto or chiaroscuro have, for example, been crucial
to a proper understanding and appreciation of Italian art.”7
In Flash of the Spirit, African art historian Robert Farris Thompson writes:
The Yoruba assess everything aesthetically—from the taste and color of a yam to the
qualities of a dye, to the dress and deportment of a woman or man. An entry in one of the
earliest dictionaries of their language, published in 1858, was amewa, literally “knower
of beauty,” “connoisseur,” one who looks for the manifestation of pure beauty.8
Yoruba culture, with its long history of aesthetic appreciation and contemplation,
deserves to be credited along with Western European cultures for contributions to art theory and
criticism. My mission therefore became finding a way of introducing the term and the concept of
ashé as an aesthetic criterion into the literature and practice of art criticism.
Investigating the Aesthetics of Ashé as an Aesthetic Criterion consists of a series of
workshops that challenge participants to conduct critical analyses of works of art using ashé as a
criterion, along with the accepted formal elements of art and principles of design. To date, I have
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conducted these workshops with a diverse population of students and colleagues from Spelman
College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Emory University, and Colgate
University. Spelman College’s African Diaspora and the World (ADW) program9 has embraced
the project, and a number of faculty members are using it in their classrooms with promising
results. Aṣẹ
ASSESSING ASHE AS AN AESTHETIC CRITERION
It should be noted that like all aesthetic experiences, ashé exists on a continuum and differs
based on the restrictions of an individual’s imagination and the historical and/or cultural soil in
which they are rooted. Ashé has what Arthur Danto would call “latent qualities,” meaning that its
power and beauty can remain dormant or concealed in the work until an individual, culture, or
society is able to perceive them.
The criteria for assessing the ashé in works of art are based on a variety of essential
factors, including but not limited to:
• Affectiveness—The ability of a work of art to arouse feelings or an emotional response.
• Beauty—ewa.
• Cool, coolness, chill, tranquilo—Unruffled, calm, self-assured; the ability of a work of
art or a human being to maintain a suave and sophisticated state of being.
• Craftsmanship—The degree to which the artist displays mastery over the medium.
Exhibiting dexterity, ingenuity or adroitness.
• External beauty—ewa ode—The quality of form and design that attracts the eye.
• Growth—The ability of a work of art to grow or diminish in appreciation for the viewer
over time.
• Interactivity—The ability of the work of art to engage the viewer.
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• Internal beauty—ewa inu—The essential quality in a work of art or person that
ultimately determines true value.
• Life force—The degree to which the work of art exhibits aliveness.
• Movement—The ability of the work of art to make the viewer alter their position.
• Power to make things happen—The ability to impact or influence the behavior of
someone or something.
• Strength—The degree of power or lack thereof emanating from the work of art.
• Transformative—The ability of a work of art to intellectually, emotionally, and/or
spiritually transform itself or the viewer.
• Transcendental balance—According to African art historian Robert Farris Thompson
transcendental balance refers to possessing a quality of composure, especially in the
presence of chaos—being cool, exhibiting coolness. Oscar Brown Jr. best exemplifies
this African fondness for maintaining one's cool in his 1960 song “But I Was Cool.”
• Tumbao—Style; a certain type of swag. In Afro-Cuban music, tumbao refers to a rhythm
played on the conga drum and the bass. Celia Cruz popularized the term in her song “La
negra tiene tumbao”—“The Black Woman Has Style.”
• Vitality—The ability of the work of art to radiate energy/vigor.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS10
The list below is an abridged version of a more extensive Glossary of Terms found in my edited
volume, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art (Smithsonian Institution Press,
1996). The selected terms presented here were chosen to provide the reader of this essay with a
basic understanding of the Yoruba/Lucumí/Santeria/Afro-Latino words used in religious and
spiritually grounded art practices. Another important and more comprehensive Glossary of
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Terms can be found in Rowland Abiodun’s groundbreaking 2014 work, Yoruba Art and
Language: Seeking the African in African Art. Finally, Benjamin Nuñez’s 1980 Dictionary of
Afro-Latin American Civilization (Greenwood Press) has the best collection of terms.
Ashé, ashe, ase, àṣẹ, àse, axe, aché, or ache—Ashé is a concept that is seminal to the Yoruba belief
system grounded in the conviction that all things—animate and inanimate—are vested with a life force
with the power to make things happen. The Yoruba also believe that creativity is intimately associated
with creation and therefore God. As a result, art and aesthetics manifest a distinctive divine ashé.
Amewa—Knower of beauty, connoisseur.
Babalao, babaláwo—High priest. The Yoruba word for diviner; literally “father of esoteric
knowledge/wisdom,” “father of the secrets”; diviner/priest of Orunmila, the oracle deity in the
Yoruba/Lucumí/Santeria religion.
Babalocha, babalosha—Priest, father of the orisha; one who has initiated someone into the religion;
provider of spiritual as well as secular guidance.
Babaluaye, Babalú-Ayé—The orisha that controls smallpox and all skin diseases.
Barrio—Latino neighborhoods.
Batá—Sacred drum.
Bembé—Afro-Cuban celebration of drumming, ritual chanting, and dancing; usually intended to
please the orishas and induce possession.
Botanica—A store in Latino communities that sells religious articles and goods used in most “new
world” African religions.
Candomblé—Brazilian term (probably of Bantu origin) for Afro-Brazilian religious practices.
Changó, Shangó, Sango, Xangô, Sàngó—Warrior orisha; god of fire, lightning and thunder, dance,
music, and virility; a major orisha highly revered by santeros.
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Ebo—Sacrifice.
Ebo eje—Blood sacrifice; offering of an animal to a deity in exchange for the orisha’s protection or
involvement in the affairs of the living.
Eleggua, Elegba, Elewa, Eshu, Òrìsà Èsù, Elegbara, Legba, Papa Legba—Eleggua is the
messenger of God and the orisha in charge of the crossroad. Due to his power to make things happen,
Eleggua is the Yoruba deity most associated with the life force that is ashé.
Elekes—Color-coded beaded necklaces of the orishas worn by santeros.
Finfin—The final stage of the Yoruba carving process, when the carver uses a sharp knife to delineate
and refine forms.
Ibeji—Patron orisha of twins.
Ifá—Divination system used by babalawos.
Ile—Home, lineage, spiritual kinship.
Iroko, Irokó—Orisha of abundance and fecundity who is worshipped at the foot of the ceiba tree.
Lucumí—Term used in Cuba to refer to Yoruba religious practices. Synonymous with Santeria.
Misa espiritual—Spiritual mass; a spiritist rite employed by Kardecian spiritists in Cuba; may precede
a Lucumí initiation.
Monte, bush—Elevated area in a dense forest or jungle. Meaning much more than a wooded area,
monte implies mystery, the dwelling place of deities and spirits, as well as a place of refuge from the
ordinary world. Many fugitive slaves escaped to the monte, where they built fortified villages and
sanctuaries known as palenques.
Naciones—Nations; a term used to refer to the different African cultures in Cuba.
Nganga—A Bantu word, also called prenda; receptacle made of clay or iron containing the magical
powers of paleros.
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Obatalá—Orisha of creation and purity.
Ogun, Oggún—Orisha of iron and war; also, the patron orisha of blacksmiths and surgeons.
Ona—The Yoruba equivalent word for art.
Ori—Spiritual head.
Ori inu—Inner head that determines a person’s personality and destiny on earth; also mediates
between the individual and the orisha.
Oni—Yoruba word for a king or ruler.
Oriate—Officiating priest and master of ceremonies of the initiation rituals.
Oriki, oríkì—Praise poetry.
Osun, Oshún—Orisha of love and beauty; patron orisha of rivers.
Oya, Ọya—Orisha of tempests and tornadoes. She is one of Shangó’s wives.
Patakí—Afro-Cuban religious legends and oral history.
Sacro-secular—A term used to describe spiritually engaging objects or events intended for
presentation as works of art in the secular world. This genre of art lives at the intersection of art and
spirituality.
Santeria—Loosely translated, Santeria means the way of the saints. Etymologically, the term
originates with the practice of enslaved Yoruba practitioners disguising their orishas with the
iconography and trappings of Roman Catholic saints in order to continue their religious practices
incognito. Along with Lucumí, it is one of the terms used to refer to Yoruba religious practices in Cuba
and other parts of America, including the United States and the Caribbean.
Santero, santera—A practitioner of Santeria. This term is used primarily but not exclusively by
Latinos.
Toque de tambor—A drumming ceremony in honor of the orishas.
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Yoruba, Yorùbá—The Yoruba are a loosely identified ethnic group living in West Africa that shares a
common worldview and language. They reside in semi-autonomous kingdoms in the southwestern
region of Nigeria and parts of Benin Republic and Togo, comprising one of the largest ethnic groups in
West Africa. The transatlantic trade of abducted Africans dispersed the Yoruba and their religion,
aesthetics, and culture to America, where it took root in Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada,
Barbados, Venezuela, Haiti, and St. Lucia. As a result of modern global migration primarily of Cubans,
Nigerians, and Brazilians, today the Yoruba diaspora is growing and flourishing in many other parts of
America and Europe, maintaining the notion of ashé intact.
ENDNOTES
1
Babatunde Lawal, “Art in Yoruba Religion,” in Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary
Latin American Art, ed. Arturo Lindsay (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996),
7.
2
Rowland Abiodun, “African Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 35, no. 4
(Winter 2001): 20.
3
The interview was for “Orishas: Living Gods in Contemporary Latino Art,” an article
that was later published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in 1996 in my edited volume
Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art.
4
Minimalism is a style of Modern art that came into being in the 1960s in New York
City. Reacting against the gestural painting style of Abstract Expressionism while embracing
Color Field painting and Conceptual art, Minimalism tended to rely on geometric forms or a
single color of paint covering a large canvas.
5
Arthur Danto, “Artifact and Art,” in ART/Artifact: African Art in Anthropology
Collections (New York: Center for African Art, 1989).
6
The term artist in the first person was coined by the artist/scientist Dr. Sandro Dernini,
founder of Plexus International. Plexus International was founded in 1982 on New York City’s
Lower East Side as an international artist community producing collaborative, experimental art,
science, and technology projects and events in various countries. The term recognizes the
individual artist’s responsibility as a co-author of Plexus projects, and is also used to recognize
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the input of the artist as an important voice in the critical analyses of works of art, equal to art
critics, educators, curators, and art historians.
7
Rowland Abiodun, Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 4.
8
Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit (New York: Random House, 1983), 5.
9
The ADW program is a two-semester course for first-year students at Spelman College.
One of its objectives is to “identify how Africa and African diasporan communities have shaped
the modern world.” See “African Diaspora & the World,”
https://www.spelman.edu/academics/special-academic-programs-and-offerings/african-diaspora-
the-world.
10
A note on orthography: The spelling of the terms listed in this glossary may vary
depending on the national origin or language of choice of the writer.
Bibliography
Abiodun, Rowland. “African Aesthetics.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 35, no. 4 (Winter
2001): 15–23.
———. Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2014.
Danto, Arthur. “Artifact and Art.” In ART/Artifact: African Art in Anthropology Collections.
New York: Center for African Art, 1989.
Lawal, Babatunde. “Art in Yoruba Religion.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin
American Art, edited by Arturo Lindsay. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1996.
Lindsay, Arturo, ed. Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.
Nuñez, Benjamin. Dictionary of Afro-Latin American Civilization. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1980.
Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit. New York: Random House, 1983.
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