Transcript Art of the Americas After 1300

Art of the Americas After
1300
Aztec, Inca, Eastern Woodlands and
The Great Plains
By Julian Sanchez
Foundations of Civilizations in the
Americas






Humans first arrived in the W. Hemisphere between 20,000 and
30,000 years ago.
By 12,000 years ago humans had spread over both N. and S.
America, and developed a settled agricultural way of life.
In the region that is now the S.E. United States, urban societies with
monumental architecture and elaborate artistic traditions developed.
The civilizations that arose in Mesoamerica, shared writing, a
calendar system, ritual ball game, deities , and religions.
Religious practices included blood and human sacrifices.
The earliest Mesoamerican civilization was the Olmec which
flourished from 1200-400 BCE.
Continued








The Mesoamerican classical period lasted from about 300-900 ce,
which was dominated by two cultures – the Maya and Teotihuacan.
During the Classical Period hundreds of cities were built,
monumental sculptures created, and hieroglyphical records of their
astronomy was developed.
The Maya civilization ranged from S. Mexico, Guatemala, Belize,
and N.W. Honduras.
The City of Teotihuacan exerted widespread influence that brought
about new forms cultures and government.
The Aztecs soon settled down in the Valley of Mexico, while the
Inca dominated the Andean region by the end of the fifteenth
century.
The people of what is now the S.E. United States adopted a settled
way of life by the end of the second millennium, and began making
monumental earthworks by 1700 BCE.
what about box entitled “craft or art” onp.840
Indigenous American Art


First European explorers and conquerors arrived in the
Western Hemisphere in 1519, however; it was already
inhabited by peoples with long and complex histories
and traditions.
Art was central to the people’s lives, however; they did
not distinguish any “works of art”. Some objects were
utilitarian and others had ritual and symbolic
associations, but there was no distinctions between art
and other material culture or fine and decorative arts.
Mexico and South America
The
Aztec in Mexico and the Incas in South
America rose to prominence in the fifteenth
century around the same time that Europeans
began to explore the oceans in search of new
trade routes to Asia.
The Aztec Empire


In November 1519 the army of the Spanish conquistador, Hernán
Cortés beheld the great Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan.
A rare manuscript that survived the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
depicts the preconquest worldview of the native peoples.

23-1. A view of the world, page
from Codex Fejervary-Mayer. Aztec
or Mixtec, c. 1400-1519/21. Paint
on animal hide. Each page 17.5 *
17.5 cm, total length 4.04 meters.
The national Museums and
Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool,
England.

Aztec Art
• At the center of the image is the
ancient fire god Xiuhtecutli.
• Radiating from him are four
directions , each associated with a
specific color, a deity, and a tree
with a bird in its branches.
• In each corner , to the right of the
U-bracket, is an attribute of
Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror,
an omnipotent, primal deity who
could see humankind’s thoughts
and deeds.
A Hand
A Foot
A Foot
Bones
The Aztec Empire Cont.




By the time Cortés found the remarkable city in the early 16th
century were already rulers of much of the land that took their name
- Mexico.
Their rise to power had been recent and swift. Just 400 years
earlier, according to their own legends, they had been nomadic
living N.W. of the Valley of Mexico on the shores of the mythological
Lake Aztlan , which is the source of the word Aztec.
At the urging of their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec began a
long migration into the Valley of Mexico in the 13th century. The
migration led them to the marshes on the edge Lake Texcoco,
where they settled on an island where they had seen an eagle
perched on a prickly cactus, a sign of there patron god had
described.
The Aztecs came into power through a series of alliances and
arranged marriages that allowed them to expand into the city that
Cortés would eventually discover.
Aztec
Society
Elite
of rulers and nobles
Middle Class of professional merchants and luxury artisans
Lower of farmers and laborers
Aztec
The
Religion
universe was created by a pantheon of gods at the ancient city of
Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico.
The existence of the universe depended on human actions, including
bloodletting and human sacrifice.
The sun god Huitsilopochtli required sacrificial substance in order to
protect his mother Coatlicue from his sister Coyolxauhqui the moon
and his brothers the stars everyday at dawn.
Aztec
Literature
Most Aztec books were destroyed in the wake of the
Spanish Conquest, but the work of Aztec Scribes appears
in several documents created by for Spanish administrators
afterwards.
The first page of the Codex Mendoza can be interpreted
as an idealized representation of both the city of
Tenochtitlan and its sacred ceremonial precinct.

J
23-2. The Founding of Tenochtitlan,
page from Codex Mendoza. Aztec, 16th
century. Ink and color on paper, 21.5 *
31.5 cm. The Bodleian Library,
University of Oxford, England
• An eagle perched in on a prickly pear cactusthe symbol of the city- fills the center of the
page .
• Waterways divide the city into four quarters,
which are further subdivided into wards, as
represented by the seated figures.
• The victorious warriors at the bottom of the
page represent Aztec conquest.
• The temple or house at the top of the page
probably represented the Great Pyramid- a
130 foot high stepped double pyramid with
duel temples on top, one was dedicated to
Huitsilopochtli and the other to Tlaloc, god
of rain and fertility.
• Thousands of sacrificial heads were said to
have been kept on a rack in the central
plaza which are represented with a single
skull to the right of the eagle.


Sculpture of serpents and serpent heads on the Great Pyramid in
Tenochtitlan associated it with the Hill of the Serpent, where
Huitzilopochtli slew the moon goddess Coyolxuahqui.
A huge circular relief of the dismembered goddess once lay at the
foot of the temple stairs, as if the enraged and triumphant
Huitzilopochtli had cast her there like a sacrificial victim.
23-3. The Moon Goddess Coyolxauhqui (“She
of the Golden Bells”), from the Sacred
Precinct, now the Museo Templo Mayor,
Tenochtitlan. Aztec, 1469(?). Stone, diameter
3.33m. Museo Templo Mayor, Mexico City.
Her toroso is in the center, surrounded by her head
and limbs.
She has bells on her cheeks and she wears a
magnificent headdress and has distinctive ear
ornaments composed of disks, rectangles, and
triangles.
The sculpture is two-dimensional in concept with a
deeply cut background.

The Aztecs intended their temples to resemble mountains so they
carved shrines and temples directly into the mountains surrounding
the Valley of Mexico.
23-4. Rock Cut sanctuary,
Malinalco, Mexico. Aztec, 15th
century; modern thatched roof.
• The entrance, meant to resemble the open mouth
of the earth monster, leads into a circular room.
• The inside of the temple is symbolic of the “womb
of the earth”.
• A pit for blood sacrifices opens in the heart of the
mountain.
• A semicircle bench around the room is carved
with stylized eagle and jaguar skins that
represent two Aztec military orders, suggesting
that members of those orders preformed rites
here.


The Spanish found an imposing statue of Coatlicue, the mother of
Huitzilopochtli, while excavating near a Spanish made cathedral in
the late 18th century.
One of the 16th century conquistadors described seeing such a
statue covered with blood in the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, were it
would have stood high above the disk of the vanquished
Coyolxauhqui.

h
23-5., The Mother Goddess, Coatlicue. Aztec,
1487-1520. Basalt, height 2.65m. Museo Nacional de
Antropología, Mexico City.
• Coatlicue means “she of the serpent skirt” and this
broad shouldered figure with clawed hands and feet
has a skirt of twisted snakes that also form her body.
• A pair of serpents, symbols of gushing blood, rise from
her neck and form her head. The snake eyes become
her eyes and their fangs became her tusks.
• She wears a necklace of sacrificial offerings- hands,
hearts, and a dangling skull.
The Inca Empire






Like the Aztec, the Inca Empire’s rise had been recent and swift
with a 2,600 mile long kingdom at the beginning of the 16th century,
rivaling China in size.
The capitol of the Inca Empire was Cuzco, the navel of the world
and it was located high in the Andes Mountain.
In the 15th century the Inca began to suddenly and rapidly expand,
and subdued most of their domain through conquest, alliance, and
intimidation.
In order to maintain their diverse empire the Inca relied on
overarching state religion, hierarchical bureaucracy, and various
forms of labor taxation, in which the payment was labor for the
state.
Labor taxation required for the people to work for the state and in
return the state would provide food and entertainment for the
people.
Although the Inca never developed writing, they did however keep
detailed records on knotted and colored beads.





To move their armies and to speed up transportation the Inca built
many roads that varied from 50 foot- wide to 3 foot-wide paths that
added up to about 23,000 miles of roads.
Travelers went on foot using llamas as pack animals , stairways to
navigate the mountains, and rope suspension bridges helped them
cross river gorges.
All the roads that were built had administrative centers,
storehouses, and road-side lodgings that were spaced a days travel
apart.
A relay system of waiting runners could carry messages between
Cuzco and the farthest reaches of the empire in about a week.
Cuzco , a capitol of great splendor, was a show case for of the
finest Inca masonry, some of which can still be seen in the modern
city.


The Temple of the Sun the most magnificent structure of Cuzco,
served as the foundation for the Spanish colonial Church of Santo
Domingo.
Within the Temple of the Sun was a gold-adorned room dedicated to
the sun and another, adorned with silver, dedicated to the moon.
23-6. Walls of the Temple of the
Sun, below the Church of Santo
Domingo, Cuzco, Peru. Inca, 15th
century.
Inca Masonry






Using simple tools like heavy stones as hammers and using no mortar, Inca builders
created stone work of great refinement and durability: roads and bridges that linked
the entire empire, built-up terraces for growing crops, and structures both simple and
elaborate.
At Machu Picchu , all buildings were made of hard granite found at the site.
Commoner’s houses and some walls were built using irregular stones carefully fitted
together.
Some structures were erected using squared-off, smooth-surfaced stones laid in
even rows, some stones that were used were up to 27 feet tall.
The blocks of stone might be slightly beveled or cut at an angle so that the stones
could appear to be fitted seamlessly whole.
Inca made a tremendous effort to expand building, for example the erecting of the
temple fortress of Saqsawaman in Cuzco was reputed to have occupied 30,000
workers for many decades.
Irregular-stone wall on the left and
smooth-surfaced wall on the right.
The Inca Empire Continued
Machu
Picchu
Located
9,000 feet above sea level.
It straddles a ridge between two high peaks in the eastern slopes of
the Andes and looks down on the Urubamba River.
The site, near the eastern limits of the empire, was the estate of the
Inca Pachacuti. Its temples and carved sacred stones suggest that it
also had an important religious function.
23-7. Machu Picchu, Peru. Inca,
1450-1530




Production of fine textiles is of ancient origin in the Andes, and
were the primary forms of wealth for the Inca.
Cloth was deemed a fitting offering to the gods, so fine garments
were draped around golden statues, and three-dimensional images
were constructed of cloth.
Patterns and designs on cloth were not only decorative but also
carried important symbolic meanings, including a person’s ethnic
identity and social rank.
Each square in the tunic shown in figure 23-8 represents a
miniature tunic, but the meaning of the individual patterns is not yet
completely understood.

hy
23-8. Tunic, from Peru. Inca, c. 1500. Wool and
cotton, 91*76.5 cm. Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and collections, Pre-Columbian
Collection, Washington, D.C.
• The four-part motifs may refer to the Land of the
Four Quarters.
• The checkerboard pattern designated military
officers and royal escorts.
• The meaning of the diagonal key motif is not
known, but it is often found on tunics with
horizontal border stripes.



The Spanish, under the conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire
in 1532, melted whatever precious metals they could find to make themselves
wealthy.
The Inca valued god and silver not for its value but for their symbolism of the sun
and the moon.
Some small figures were buried as offerings to the gods and were able to escape the
Spanish treasure hunt.
23-9. Llama, from Bolivia or Peru , found near Lake Titicaca,
Bolivia. Inca, 15th century. Cast silver with gold and cinnabar, 22.9
* 21.6 * 4.4 cm. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
• The llama was thought to have a special connection with
the sun, rain, and fertility, and one was sacrificed every
morning and evening in Cuzco.
• A white llama was kept in the capital as a symbol of the
Inca.
• The llama would wear an red tunic and gold jewelry, and
would pass through the streets during April celebrations.
According to Spanish commentators, the celebrations
included life-sized gold and silver images of llamas,
people, and gods.
North America


In America north of Mexico, many different
peoples were established, from the upper
reaches of Canada and Alaska to the southern
tip of Florida.
North American art was small, portable, fragile,
and impermanent, and until recently its
aesthetic quality was unappreciated.
Basketry




Basketry is the weaving of reeds and grasses , and other materials
to form containers.
The earliest evidence of basketry was found in Utah, and dates to
as early as 8400 B.C.E.
There are three types of techniques: coiling, twining, and plaiting.
Coiling involves sewing in a spiraling manner, twining involves
sewing in a vertical manner, and plaiting is weaving strips over and
under each other.
Feathered bowl wedding basket, formed
using coiling technique.
Eastern Woodlands and the Great Plains




Eastern North America was first settled by early peoples who had
built great earthworks and cities but were eradicated by famine,
warfare, or disease.
New peoples moved to the Eastern Woodlands where they
sustained themselves with a combination of agriculture and hunting.
In the 17th century boatloads of Europeans seeking religious
freedom and a new life, began to trade with the woodland peoples.
Woodland people had made wampum, belts and strings of
cylindrical purple and white shell beads, to keep records and to
conclude treaties (Wampum belts and strings had the power of legal
agreement and also symbolized a moral order.



Woodland art focused on personal adornment and fragile arts like
quillworks.
Quillwork is the process of soaking porcupine and bird quills and
shaping them in rectilinear forms on deerskin and on artifacts like
baskets and boxes.
The Sioux baby carrier shown in figure 23-10 is richly decorated
with symbols of protection and well-being, including band of
antelopes and thunderbirds. The thunderbird was a beneficial
symbol because it was believed to protect against both human an
supernatural adversaries.
23-10. Baby carrier , from the Upper Missouri
River area. Eastern Sioux, 19th century. Board,
buckskin, porcupine quill, length 78.8 cm.
Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian
Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.




In spite of the use of shell beads in wampum, decorative beadwork
did not become popular until after European contact. It eventually
replaced quillwork in some places with the introduction of European
glass beads.
About 1830 Canadian nuns introduced Native American artists with
European floral designs which began to be incorporated.
Some functional aspects of clothing started to become purely
decorative motifs; for example a pocket would be replaced by an
area of beadwork in the form of a pocket.
A shoulder bag from Kansas exemplifies the evolution of beadwork
design.

s1860
23-11. Baby carrier, from Kansas, Delaware, c.
1860. Wool fabric, cotton fabric and thread, silk
ribbon, and glass beads, 58.5 *19.8 cm. The
Detroit Institute of Arts.
• In contrast to the rectilinear patterns of quillwork, this
bag is covered with plant motifs.
• Notice how the white outlines the different colors and
heightens the intensity of the colors.
Tepee





Over time, the Woodlands people were pushed westward by
European settlers where they eventually reached an area of prairie
grasslands now known as the great plains.
A distinctive Plains culture flourished from about 1700 to about
1870, in which the plains people domesticated horses and became
warriors equipped with riffles acquired through trade.
The nomadic people hunted buffalo for food as well as for its hides
from which they created clothing and a light portable dwelling
known as a tepee.
The tepee was well designed to withstand wind, dust and rain of the
prairies.
A tepee framework usually is made up of three to four long primary
poles with an additional twenty and is roughly the shape of an egg.
It is then covered with about 18 treated buffalo hides that repel rain,
wind and dust. Tepees had a smoke hole at the top to let out
smoke from the central hearth.


Tepees were the property and responsibility of the women, who
would reconstruct them at new encampments within an hour.
The women would also decorate the hides with paintings, quills,
and beads. The bottom of the tepee was usually decorated with a
groups traditional motif.
23-12. Blackfoot women raising a tepee.
Photographed c. 1900. Montana Historical Society,
Helena


Plains men recorded their exploits in symbolic and narrative form in
paintings on tepee linings, covers, and buffalo hide robes.
The earliest buffalo-hide robe illustrates a battle fought in 1797 in
which five nations took part of.
23-13. Battle-scene hide painting, from North Dakota.
Mandan, 1797-1800. Tanned buffalo hide, dyed porcupine
quills, and black, red, green, yellow, and brown pigment,
2.44 * 2.65m. Peabody Museum of Anthropology, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• The painter trying to show the complete war so
he separated the war into 22 separate
episodes.
• Their leader appears with a pipe and an
elaborate eagle-feather headdress.
• To make the figures the painter pressed lines
into the figure and them added pigments.
• The robe would have been worn by a powerful
warrior whose deeds it commemorates.
1869
Life
on the Great Plains changed abruptly after 1869,
when Euro-Americans finished the transcontinental railway
linking the coasts of the United States and providing easy
access to Native American lands. By 1885 Euro-American
hunters had killed of the buffalo, and soon ranchers and
then farmers moved into the plains. The Euro-Americans
forcibly settled the out-numbered and out-gunned Native
Americans on reservations, land considered worthless until
the later discovery of oil there.