Unit 5: Indigenous Americas, 1000 BCE–1980 CE
Contextualization of Indigenous Americas Art
- Chavin: Their art created intricate stone carvings and pottery, often depicting their gods and animals.
- Mayan: They were known for their elaborate architecture, intricate carvings, and colorful murals.
- Anasazi: They created beautiful pottery and rock art, often depicting their daily lives and spiritual beliefs.
- Mississippian: They produced intricate copper and shell ornaments, as well as impressive earthen mounds.
- Aztec: They were skilled in metalworking, creating intricate gold and silver jewelry, as well as colorful featherwork.
- Incan: They were known for their impressive stonework, including the famous Machu Picchu.
- Native North American: Their art varied greatly depending on the tribe, but often included intricate beadwork, basketry, and carvings.
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Materials, Processes and Techniques in Indigenous American Art
Mesoamerica
- They used stone, clay, wood, feathers, shells, and precious metals such as gold and silver.
* Stones were used to create sculptures, buildings, and other structures. - Their processes include carving, casting, weaving, and painting.
* Carving: Used create sculptures and other objects out of stone, while casting was used to create metal objects.
* Weaving: Used to create textiles, which were often decorated with intricate designs.
* Painting: Used to decorate buildings, sculptures, and other objects, and often used bright colors and bold designs. - Techniques used in Mesoamerican art include relief sculpture, mosaic, and inlay.
* Relief sculpture: Involves carving a design into a flat surface, while mosaic involves creating a design out of small pieces of stone or other materials.
* Inlay: Involves setting small pieces of one material into another material to create a design.
Central Andes
- Pre-Columbian art used gold, silver, and copper to create intricate jewelry and ceremonial objects, and textiles were also important.
- During colonial times, European materials were introduced, leading to new painting techniques like the Cuzco School.
- Today, artists use a variety of materials and techniques, blending traditional and contemporary styles, experimenting with new materials, and exploring different art forms.
Native North America
- Natural materials like wood, stone, bone, and animal hides, as well as trade materials like glass beads, metals, and textiles are used.
- Art is created through carving, weaving, painting, and quilling.
- Basketry, pottery, and jewelry making are common techniques.
- These methods reflect cultural and spiritual beliefs and can tell stories, record history, or celebrate events.
- Traditional methods have adapted to modern materials and technologies.
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Indigenous Americas Artworks
➼ Chavín de Huántar
- Details
* 900–200 B.C.E.
* Stone
* Found in Northern Highlands, Peru - Function
* A religious capital.
* Temple, 60 meters tall, was adorned with a jaguar sculpture, a symbol of power.
* Hidden entrance to the temple led to stone corridors. - Relief sculpture
* Shows jaguars in shallow relief.
* Located on the ruins of a stairway at Chavín.
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➼ Lanzón Stone
- Details
* 900–200 B.C.E.
* Granite
* Found in Peru - Form
* Inside the old temple of Chavín is a mazelike system of hallways.
* Passageways have no natural light source; they are lit by candles and lamps.
* At the center, underground, is the Lanzón (Spanish for “blade”) Stone; blade shaped; may also represent a primitive plough; hence, the role of the god in ensuring a successful crop.
* Depicts a powerful figure that is part human (body) and part animal (claws, fangs); the god of the temple complex.
* Head of snakes and a face of a jaguar.
* Eyebrows terminate in snakes.
* Flat relief; designs in a curvilinear pattern.
* 15 feet tall. - Function
* Served as a cult figure.
* Center of pilgrimage; however, few had access to the Lanzón Stone.
* Modern scholars hypothesize that the stone acted as an oracle; hence a point of pilgrimage.
* New studies show the importance of acoustics in the underground chamber.
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➼ Nose Ornament
- Details
* hammered gold alloy
* Found in Cleveland Museum of Art - Form
* Worn by males and females under the nose.
* Held in place by the semicircular section at the top.
* Two snake heads on either end. - Function: Transforms the wearer into a supernatural being during ceremonies.
- Context
* Elite men and women wore the ornaments as emblems of their ties to the religion and eventually were buried with them.
* The Chavín religion is related to the appearance of the first large-scale precious metal objects; revolutionary new metallurgical process.
* Technical innovations express the “wholly other” nature of the religion.
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➼ Yaxchilán
- Details
* 725 CE
* limestone
* Found in Chiapas, Mexico - Function
* City set on a high terrace; plaza surrounded by important buildings.
* Flourished c. 300–800 C.E.
➼ Structure 40
- Details
* Overlooks the main plaza.
* Three doors lead to a central room decorated with stucco.
* Roof remains nearly intact, with a large roof comb (ornamented stone tops on roofs).
* Corbel arch interior. - Patronage: Built by ruler Bird Jaguar IV for his son, who dedicated it to him.
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➼ Lintel 25, Structure 23
- Details
* Overlooks the main plaza.
* Three doors lead to a central room decorated with stucco.
* Roof remains nearly intact, with a large roof comb (ornamented stone tops on roofs).
* Corbel arch interior. - Form and Content
* The lintel was originally set above the central doorway of Structure 23 as a part of a series of three lintels.
* Lady Xook (bottom right) invokes the Vision Serpent to commemorate her husband’s rise to the throne.
* The Vision Serpent has two heads: one has a warrior emerging from its mouth, and the other has Tlaloc, a war god.
* She holds a bowl with bloodletting ceremonial items: stinging spine and bloodstained paper; she runs a rope with thorns through her tongue.
* She burns paper on a dish as a gift to the netherworld.
* The depicted ritual was conducted to commemorate the accession of Shield Jaguar II to the throne. - Function
* Lintels intended to relay a message of the refoundation of the site—there was a long pause in the building’s history.
* Shield Jaguar’s building program throughout the city may have been an attempt to reinforce his lineage and his right to rule. - Context
* The building is dedicated to Lady Xook, Shield Jaguar II’s wife.
* The inscription is written as a mirror image—extremely unusual among Mayan glyphs; uncertain meaning, perhaps indicating she had a vision from the other side of existence and she was acting as an intercessor or shaman.
* The inscription names the protagonist as Shield Jaguar II.
* Bloodletting is central to the Mayan life. When a member of the royal family sheds his or her blood, a portal to the netherworld is opened and gods and spirits enter the world. - Theory: Some scholars suggest that the serpent on this lintel and elsewhere depicts an ancestral spirit or founder of the kingdom.
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➼ Structure 33
- Details
* Overlooks the main plaza.
* Three doors lead to a central room decorated with stucco.
* Roof remains nearly intact, with a large roof comb (ornamented stone tops on roofs).
* Corbel arch interior. - Form
* Restored temple structure.
* Remains of roof comb with perforations.
* Three central doorways lead to a large single room.
* Corbel arch interior.
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➼ Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings
- Details
* Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi)
* 450–1300 C.E.
* Sandstone
* Found in Montezuma County, Colorado - Form
* The top ledge houses supplies in a storage area; cool and dry area out of the way; accessible only by ladder.
* Each family received one room in the dwelling.
* Plaza placed in front of the abode structure; kivas face the plaza. - Function
* The pueblo was built into the sides of a cliff, housed about one hundred people.
* Clans moved together for mutual support and defense. - Context
* Farming done on the plateau above the pueblo; everything had to be imported into the structure; water seeped through the sandstone and collected in trenches near the rear of the structure.
* Low winter sun penetrated the pueblo; high summer sun did not enter the interior and therefore it stayed relatively cool.
* Inhabited for two hundred years; probably abandoned when the water source dried up.
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➼ Great Serpent Mound
- Details
* Mississippian (Eastern Woodlands)
* c. 1070 C.E.
* earthwork/effigy mound
* Found in Adams County, southern Ohio - Context
* Many mounds were enlarged and changed over the years, not built in one campaign.
* Effigy mounds popular in Mississippian culture.
* Associated with snakes and crop fertility.
* There are no burials associated with this mound, though there are burial sites nearby. - Theories
* Influenced by comets? Astrological phenomenon? Head pointed to summer solstice sunset?
* Theory that it could be a representation of Halley’s Comet in 1066.
* Rattlesnake as a symbol in Mississippian iconography; could this play a role in interpreting this mound?
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➼ Templo Mayor (Main Temple)
- Details
* 1375–1520
* Stone
* Found in Tenochtitlán, Mexico City, Mexico - Form
* Pyramids built one atop the other so that the final form encases all previous pyramids; seven building campaigns.
* Pyramids have a step-like series of setbacks; not the smooth-surfaced pyramids seen in Egypt.
* Characterized by four huge flights of very vertical steps leading to temples placed on top. - Function
* Tenochtitlán was laid out on a grid; city seen as the center of the world.
* The temple structures on top of each pyramid were dedicated to and housed the images of the two important deities. - Context
* Two temples atop a pyramid, each with a separate staircase:
* North: dedicated to Tlaloc, god of rain, agriculture.
* South: dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, god of sun and war.
* At the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun rises between the two.
* Large braziers put on top where the sacred fires burned.
* Temple structures housed images of the deities.
* Temples begun in 1375; rebuilt six times; destroyed by the Spanish in 1520.
* The destruction of this temple and reuse of its stones by the Spanish asserted a political and spiritual dominance over the conquered civilization.
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➼ Coyolxauhqui “She of the Golden Bells”
- Details
* 1469
* volcanic stone
* Found in Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City - Form
* Circular relief sculpture.
* Once brilliantly painted.
* So called because of the bells she wears as earrings. - Context
* Coyolxauhqui and her many brothers plotted the death of her mother, Coatlicue, who became pregnant after tucking a ball of feathers down her bosom.
* When Coyolxauhqui chopped off Coatlicue’s head, a child, Huitzilopochtli, popped out of the severed body fully grown and dismembered Coyolxauhqui, who fell dead at the base of the shrine.
* This stone represents the dismembered moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui, who is placed at the base of the twin pyramids of Tenochtitlán.
* Aztecs sacrificed people and then threw their dismembered remains down the steps of the temple as Huitzilopochtli did to Coyolxauhqui.
* Aztecs similarly dismembered enemies and threw them down the stairs of the great pyramid to land on the sculpture of Coyolxauhqui.
* A relationship was established between the death and decapitation of Coyolxauhqui with the sacrifice of enemies at the top of Aztec pyramids.
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➼ Calendar Stone
- Form: Made of basalt.
- Context
* Aztecs felt they needed to feed the sun god human hearts and blood.
* A tongue in the center of the stone coming from the god’s mouth is a representation of a sacrificial flint knife used to slash open the victims.
* Circular shape reflects the cyclic nature of time.
* Two calendar systems, separate but intertwined.
* Calendars synced every fifty-two years in a time of danger, when the Aztecs felt a human sacrifice could ensure survival.
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➼ Olmec-style Mask
- Form: Made of jadeite.
- Context
* Found on the site; actually a much older work executed by the Olmecs.
* Olmec works have a characteristic frown on the face; pugnacious visage; baby face; a cleft in the center of the head carved from greenstone.
* Shows that the Aztecs collected and embraced artwork from other cultures, including early Mexican cultures such as the Olmec and Teotihuacán.
* Shows that the Aztecs had a wide-ranging merchant network that traded historical items.
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➼ Ruler’s Feather Headdress
- Details:
* 1428–1520
* feathers (quetzal and blue cotinga) and gold
* Found in Museum of Ethnology, Vienna - Form
* Made from 400 long green feathers, the tails of the sacred quetzal birds; male birds produce only two such feathers each.
* The number 400 symbolizes eternity. - Function
* Ceremonial headdress of a ruler.
* Part of an elaborate costume. - Context
* Only known Aztec feather headdress in the world.
* Feathers indicate trading across the Aztec Empire.
* Headdress possibly part of a collection of artifacts given by Motechuzoma (Montezuma) to Cortez for Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.
* Current dispute over ownership of the headdress; today it is housed in the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna, Austria.
➼ Maize cobs
- Details
* c. 1440–1533
* sheet metal/repoussé, metal alloys
* Found in Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Technique and Form
* Repoussé technique.
* Hollow metal object.
* Life-size. - Function
* May have been part of a garden in which full-sized metal sculptures of maize plants and other items were put in place alongside actual plants in the Qorinkancha garden.
* May have been used to ensure a successful harvest. - Context
* Maize was the principal food source in the Andes.
* Maize was celebrated by having sculptures fashioned out of sheet metal.
* Black maize was common in Peru; oxidized silver reflects that.
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➼ Qorikancha
- Details
* main temple, church, and convent of Santo Domingo
* c. 1440, convent added 1550–1650
* Andesite
* Found in Cusco, Peru - Form
* Ashlar masonry; carefully grooved and beveled edges of the stone fit together in a puzzle-like formation.
* Slight spacing among stones allows movement during earthquakes.
* Walls taper upward; examples of Inkan trapezoidal architecture.
* Temple displays Inkan use of interlocking stonework of great precision.
* Original exterior walls of the temple were decorated in gold to symbolize sunshine.
* Spanish chroniclers insist that the walls and floors of the temple were covered in gold. - Function
* Qorikancha: golden enclosure; once was the most important temple in the Inkan world.
* Once was an observatory for priests to chart the skies. - Context
* The location is important; placed at the convergence of the four main highways and connected to the four districts of the empire; the temple cemented the symbolic importance of religion, uniting the divergent cultural practices that were observed in the vast territory controlled by the Inkas.
* Remains of the Inkan Temple of the Sun form the base of the Santo Domingo convent built on top.
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➼ Walls at Saqsa Waman (Sacsayhuaman)
- Details
* c. 1440
* Sandstone
* Found in Peru - Form
* Ashlar masonry.
* Ramparts contain stones weighing up to seventy tons, brought from a quarry two miles away. - Context: Complex outside the city of Cusco, Peru, at the head of the puma-shaped plan of the city.
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➼ Machu Picchu
- Details
* 1450–1540
* Granite
* Found in Central Highlands, Peru - Form
* Buildings built of stone with perfectly carved rock rendered in precise shapes and grooved together; thatched roofs.
* Outward faces of the stones were smoothed and grooved.
* Two hundred buildings, mostly houses; some temples, palaces, and baths, and even an astronomical observatory; most in a basic trapezoidal shape.
* Entryways and windows are trapezoidal.
* People farmed on terraces. - Function
* Originally functioned as a royal retreat.
* The estate of fifteenth-century Inkan rulers.
* So remote that it was probably not used for administrative purposes in the Inkan world.
* Peaceful center: many bones were uncovered, but none of them indicate war-like behavior.
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➼ Observatory in Machu Picchu
- Details
* 1450–1540
* Granite
* Found in Peru - Form
* Ashlar masonry.
* Highest point at Machu Picchu. - Function
* Used to chart the sun’s movements; also known as the Temple of the Sun.
* Left window: sun shines through on the morning of the winter solstice.
* Right window: sun shines through on the morning of the summer solstice.
* Devoted to the sun god.
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➼ Intihuatana Stone in Machu Picchu
- Context
* Intihuatana means “hitching post of the sun”; aligns with the sun at the spring and the autumn equinoxes, when the sun stands directly over the pillar and thus creates no shadow.
* Inkan ceremonies held in concert with this event.
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➼ All-T’oqapu Tunic
- Details
* 1450–1540
* camelid fiber and cotton
* Found in Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. - Form
* Rectangular shape; a slit in the center is for the head; then the tunic is folded in half and the sides are sewn for the arms.
* The composition is composed of small rectangular shapes called t’oqapu.
* Individual t’oqapu may be symbolic of individuals, events, or places.
* This tunic contains a large number of t’oqapu. - Function
* Wearing such an elaborate garment indicates the status of the individual.
* May have been worn by an Inkan ruler. - Technique
* Woven on a backstrap loom.
* One end of the loom is tied to a tree or a post and the other end around the back of the weaver.
* The movement of the weaver can create alternating tensions in the fabric and achieve different results. - Context
* Exhibits Inkan preference for abstract designs, standardization of designs, and an expression of unity and order.
* Finest textiles made by women, a highly distinguished art form; this tunic has a hundred threads per square centimeter.
➼ Bandolier Bag
- Details
* From Lenape (Delaware tribe, Eastern Woodlands)
* c. 1850
* beadwork on leather
* Found in Museum of the American Indian - Form
* The bandolier bag has a large, heavily beaded pouch with a slit on top.
* The bag was held at hip level with strap across the chest.
* The bag was constructed of trade cloth: cotton, wool, velvet, or leather. - Function
* It was made for men and women; objects of prestige.
* They were made by women.
* Functional and beautiful; acted also as a status symbol as part of an elaborate garb.
* Bandolier bags are still made and worn today. - Context
* Beadwork not done in the Americas before European contact.
* Beads and silk ribbons were imported from Europe.
* The bags contain both Native American and European motifs.
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➼ Transformation Mask
- Details
* From Kwakwaha’wakw, Northwest Coast of Canada
* late 19th century
* wood, paint, and string
* Found in Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, France - Form: The mask has a birdlike exterior face; when opened, it reveals a second human face on the interior.
- Function
* The masks were worn by native people of the Pacific. Northwest, centered on Vancouver Island.
* They were worn over the head as part of a complete body costume. - Context
* During a ritual performance, the wearer opens and closes the transformation mask using strings.
* At the moment of transformation, the performer turns his back to the audience to conceal the action and heighten the mystery.
* Opening the mask reveals the face of an ancestor; there is an ancestral element to the ceremony.
* Although these masks could be used at a potlatch, most often they were used in winter initiation rites ceremonies.
* The ceremony is accompanied by drumming and takes place in a “big house.”
* Masks are highly prized and often inherited.
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➼ Hide Painting of the Sun Dance
- Details
* Attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody)
* Painted elk hide, Eastern Shoshone, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming,
* c. 1890–1900,
* Found in Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York - Content
* Depicts traditional aspects of the Plains people’s culture that were nostalgic rather than practical: bison hunted with bow and arrow—nomadic hunting gone; bison nearly extinct.
* Hide paintings mark past events.
* Bison considered to be gifts from the Creator.
* Horses, in common use around 1750, liberated the Plains people.
* Teepee: made of hide stretched over poles:
* Exterior poles reach the spirit world or sky.
* Fire represents the heart.
* The doorway faces east to greet the new day.
* The sun dance was conducted around a bison head, and was outlawed by the U.S. government; viewed as a threat to order.
* The sun dance involved men dancing, singing, preparing for the feast, drumming, and constructing a lodge. They honored the Creator deity for the bounty of the land.
* The warrior’s deeds were celebrated on the hide. - Function
* Worn as a robe over the shoulders of the warrior.
* Perhaps a wall hanging. - Context
* Depicts biographical details; personal accomplishments; heroism; battles.
* Men painted hides to narrate an event.
* Eventually, painted hides were made for European and American markets; tourist trade.
* Used paint and dyes obtained through trade.
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➼ Black-on-black Ceramic Vessel
- Details
* By Maria Martínez and Julian Martínez
* From Tewa, Puebloan, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, mid-20th century
* blackware ceramic
* Found in Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.. - Form
* Black-on-black vessel.
* Highly polished surface.
* Contrasting shiny black and matte black finishes.
* Exceptional symmetry; walls of even thickness; surfaces free of imperfections. - Function
* Comes from the thousand-year-old tradition of pottery making in the Southwest.
* Maria Martínez preferred making pots using a new technique that rendered a vessel lightweight, less hard, and not watertight, as traditional pots were; this kind of vessel reflected the market shift away from utilitarian vessels to decorative objects. - Technique
* Used a mixture of clay and volcanic ash.
* The surface was scraped to a smooth finish with a gourd tool and then polished with a stone.
* Julian Martínez painted designs with a liquid clay that yielded a matte finish in contrast with the high shine of the pot itself. - Context
* At the time of production, pueblos were in decline; modern life was replacing traditional life.
* Artists’ work sparked a revival of pueblo techniques.
* Maria Martínez, the potter, developed and invented new shapes beyond the traditional pueblo forms.
* Julian Martínez, the painter of the pots, revived the use of ancient mythic figures and designs on the pots.
* Reflects an influence of Art Deco designs popular at the time.
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