Aztec Art

Key Dates

• 1492 -> Christophe Colombe arrives in Caribbean

• 1519 -> Hernan Cortes and company land in Veracruz, Mexico

• 1521 -> Aztec capital Tenochtitlan falls to Spanish forces

Who Were the Aztecs?

• people of Aztlan (mythical homeland)

• referred to themselves as Mexica

• spoke Nahuatl

• capital Tenochtitlan built on Lake Texcoco

• dominant political power in Mexico at time of contact with Europe

• rulers of a vast empire, conquerors

• collected luxury tributes from subjects

  • feathers for adornments, came from a distance

  • gold, skilled metallurgists

  • jade most precious substance in Mesoamerica

  • turquoise, shell, etc.

Templo Mayor

• built in 7 successive phases

  • twin temples for 2 main deities

    • Tlaloc: rain deity, famed throughout Mesoamerica

    • Huitzilopochtli: patron deity of Mexica, sun deity

• Templo Mayor pyramid seen as symbolically Coatepec

  • sacrifice that founded Aztec society

    • human sacrifice practiced at a large scale

      type of political propaganda

      not widely representative of Aztec society

Deities

• Huitzilopochtli

  • Mother -> Coatlicue (Serpent Skirt)

  • Sister -> Coyolxauhqui (moon goddess)

  • sister and other siblings try to kill Huitzilopochtli, he kills them all atop Coatepec mountain

• Coatlicue represents war and sacrifice

  • numerous sculptures

  • also sculptures of ‘innumerable’ siblings

Cosmology and Calendar

• Cosmology in Mesoamerica

  • cyclical and reciprocal

  • complementary dualisms, necessary parts of a whole

  • death creates rebirth

• Aztec ‘Calendar’ Stone (Solar Stone)

  • symbology explains worldview

  • sun successively created and destroyed -> currently in the 5th sun

    • represented by earthquake symbol

Religious Art

• Ixiptla -> god-images, often precious stones incorporated

  • Moctezuma II ‘I would not have shown you my gods’

  • less the representation of a god than a manifestation of its presence

  • often kept concealed

    both most powerful and most vulnerable when made visible

• Religious structures and ixiptla destroyed by Spanish

  • idolatry -> not supposed to venerate images

    • ambiguous -> Catholics vs Protestants on visual culture

    • allowed certain visual practices to survive

Hybrid Visual Culture

• depiction of indigenous plants in Eden

• European-style print of St Gregory made of feathers

• altar made with wood, gold leaf, obsidian

  • obsidian linked with Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror)