A Baule Horserider, Ivory Coast, colected in the region of Boukanda, standing on a blackened base; provenance Bakari Bouaflé, Abidjan. The figure of the horseman occupies a prominent position in the visual traditions of West African art. Far from being a descriptive or anecdotal motif, the rider functions as a condensed symbol through which political authority, social hierarchy, military power, and spiritual legitimacy are articulated. Across media and regions, equestrian imagery expresses not movement or narrative action, but a conception of order grounded in control, prestige, and cosmological balance. The political dimension of the horseman is fundamental. Horses were not indigenous to much of West Africa and were difficult to maintain because of climate, disease, and ecological constraints. Their acquisition depended on long-distance trade networks linking the Sahel, North Africa, and the Islamic world. As a result, horses became markers of elite status, restricted to rulers, titled officials, and high-ranking warriors. To be represented on horseback was therefore to be visually inscribed into the uppermost strata of society. In the court art of the Kingdom of Benin, for example, equestrian figures in bronze and ivory are closely associated with royal authority and the person of the Oba, even when the ruler himself is not explicitly named.¹ Closely related to political authority is the motif’s military significance. In many Sahelian and savanna societies, cavalry played a decisive role in warfare, territorial expansion, and the maintenance of security. The horseman thus embodies martial competence and the capacity to protect the community. Yet violence is rarely dramatized. Weapons such as spears or swords may be present, but the rider’s posture is typically upright and composed. This restraint suggests that force is understood as legitimate only when embedded within a framework of moral and political order. Power, in this visual language, is defined less by aggression than by disciplined control.² Beyond politics and warfare, equestrian imagery carries a distinct spiritual resonance. In numerous West African cosmologies, leadership is inseparable from metaphysical authority. Rulers are not merely administrators but intermediaries between the human realm and the world of ancestors and spirits. The elevated position of the rider above the ground reinforces this mediating role. In some contexts, the horseman represents a deified ancestor or a mythic culture hero whose power transcends historical time. The image thus operates simultaneously in historical and ritual registers, linking present authority to ancestral origins.³ The symbolic relationship between rider and animal is central to this reading. The horse signifies raw energy, speed, and potentially uncontrollable force. The rider, by contrast, embodies discipline, intelligence, and moral restraint. Their combination visualizes a core political principle: legitimate authority lies in the ability to master powerful forces without succumbing to them. This idea is often reinforced through formal conventions. The rider is frequently rendered larger than the horse, calm rather than animated, hieratically composed rather than dynamically posed. Such distortions of natural proportion are deliberate, signaling symbolic hierarchy rather than observational realism.⁴ Equestrian figures also serve commemorative functions. They appear in funerary contexts, ancestral shrines, and courtly memory practices, where they preserve idealized images of leadership for future generations. In this sense, they participate in a form of visual historiography. Rather than documenting specific events, they encode normative models of authority, bravery, and legitimacy. Art becomes a means of stabilizing collective memory and reaffirming social values.⁵ A comparison with European equestrian monuments further clarifies the specificity of the West African tradition. Whereas European statues often emphasize motion, conquest, and individual heroism, West African representations privilege stillness, balance, and continuity. This aesthetic choice reflects a different conception of power: not as spectacle or triumph, but as endurance and cosmic alignment. The horseman is not depicted in the act of domination, but as the embodiment of an already established order. In sum, the horseman in West African art is a complex and polyvalent symbol. He signifies elite status, military capability, spiritual mediation, and the ethical management of power. His visual authority derives not from dramatic action but from composure and control. Through this figure, West African artists articulate a vision of leadership that is at once political, moral, and metaphysical. The enduring presence of the horseman across regions and centuries testifies to the central role of art in expressing and sustaining societal ideals. Footnotes Ben-Amos, Paula Girshick. Art, Innovation, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Benin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Law, Robin. The Horse in West African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Drewal, Henry J., and John Pemberton III. Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: The Center for African Art, 1989. Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. Vogel, Susan Mullin. Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art. New York: The Center for African Art, 1991. MAZ08812