SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURES
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Chavin culture
• Large stone complexes which were decorated with detailed steles and stone
figures of human-animal hybrids
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Paracas (400 BCE-200 CE)
• Famous for its cotton weavings with designs unique to its people
• Used over 150 colors
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Nasca (200 BCE-600 CE)
• Named after Nasca River valley
• Heavily influenced by Paracas style
• Renowned for ceramic vessels with varying designs
• Known for their art on the Nasca plain
SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURES
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Moche (1 CE-700 CE)
• Famous for their clay sculptures and unique plat-bottomed, stirrup-spouted jars
• Influenced by Chaven prototypes
• Characterized by their odd designs
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Tiwanaku (100 CE-1000 CE)
• Known for its large ceremonial temple centers
• made by with different materials and carved with repeating patterns and designs
• Reliefs colorfully painted, might have been lined with precious materials (ex: gold,
turquoise)
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Wari (500CE-800 CE)
• Characterized by abstract art and designs
• Often painted or weaved in continuous patterns with slight variations
• Figures unrecognizable
MAYAN CULTURE
Mayan temples had rigid,
clean-cut edges and walls
rather than curved rounded
figures like in Greek temples.
Mayan temples were made to
honor powerful leaders as
well as respected gods.
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Ex: Temple I in Tikal,
Guatemala, was a massive
shrine dedicated to the ruler
Hasaw Chan K’awiil, who died
in 732 BCE
Right: Aerial view of the
Castillo, Maya, Chichén Itzá,
Mexico, ca 800-900
MAYAN CULTURE
Large steles in honor of great rulers
• ex: Stele D in Copan of the Honduras
• Less proportional
• Those of power covered in very elaborate clothing
• Mayan paintings
• very bright, defining colors in contrast to cooler backgrounds
• Humans depicted fairly realistically, powerful ones wore complex garments
• Gods and goddesses portrayed with detailed patterned robes and masks
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This was found at Teotihuacan, Mexico. It is pigments over clay and plaster. It
most likely depicts a goddess, since it is wearing a jade mask and a large
feathered headdress
NORTH AMERICAN CULTURES
•
Ancestral Puebloans, or Anasazi, emerged around 200 AD but it reached its peak
around 1000 AD
• Their culture and masterful building skills are revealed by ruins of pueblos (urban
settlements)
• A good example is the Cliff Palace in the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado.
Its location allowed for a warm winter and a cool summer
• Kivas are circular semi-subterranian structures. These were once roofed, and
people entered their home through a hole in the flat roof
• These people slowly evolved into the modern Puebloan people of Arizona, New
Mexico, Colorado, and Utah
NORTH AMERICAN CULTURES
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The Adena were the first great mound builders of north America
The Mississippian culture, which emerged around 80AD, surpassed them in size
and complexity of mounds
• The grandest was the Monk’s Mound, which is 100 feet tall and thought to have
at one point been an observatory, due to its alignment with the sun
• The Mississippians also constructed effigy mounds, or mounds built in the form
of animals or birds
CERAMIC TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN CULTURES
West Mexico
• Highly burnished red-orange
• Small-scale clay narrative scenes
• Jiana
• small-scale freestanding figures in the round
• Remarkably lifelike
• Wider range of human types of activities than on regular Mayan stele
• Painted with “Maya blue”-combination of clay and vegetable dye
• Nasca
• Vases usually have round bottoms, double spouts
• Subjects vary greatly
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CERAMIC TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN CULTURES
Moche
• Illustrated architecture, metallurgy, weaving, the brewing of chichi, sexual acts,
human deformities and diseases
• Predominantly flat-bottomed, stirrup-spouted jars
• Decorated with a bichrome-two colored slip
• Early ones made by hand, later made by molds
• Mimbres
• Renowned for its black-on-white painted bowls
• Range from lively an complex geometric patterns to abstract pictures of
humans, animals, and composite mythological beings
• Made out of coils of clay
• Mimbres potters may have been women
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ESKIMOAN AND EARLY NATIVE AMERICAN
WOODLANDS ARTISTS
• The Eskimoan people migrated to North
America by the Bering Strait.
•
They carved human and animal figures at a small scale. It reflects
their nomadic lifestyle.
OLMEC AND PRE-CLASSIC WEST MEXICO
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The Olmec culture has often been called the “mother culture” of Mesoameric
because many distinctive Mesoamerican religious, social and artistic traditions
can be traced to it.
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Most of the people were farmers who scattered in hinterland villages, which
provided the sustenance for the non-farming people, which constituted a
hereditary caste of rulers, priests, functionaries, and artisans, who lived in
precinct(area within walls) that served ceremonial, administrative, and residential
function.
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West Mexico(the west coast area of Mexico) is known for clay sculpture.
o
most of what’s known about them derived from grave robbers’ items
o
ceramic figures are usually red-orange
TEOTIHUACAN
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a city northeast of modern mexico city that is 9 miles squared and had pyramid
and cemetery
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construction adopted the patterns of alternation of sloping(talud) and
vertical(tablero) rubble layer
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murals abounded walls of building and streets, mostly depicted deities, ritual
activities, and procession of priests, warriors, and even animals.
o
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pigments on smooth lime-plaster surface coated with clay
murals had characteristics of human sacrifice essential to agricultural renewal
COMPARATIVE ART ANALYSIS
BRIDGE-SPOUTED
V E S S E L W I T H F LY I N G
FIGURES
ACHILLES AND AJAX
PLAYING A DISC G AME
COMPARATIVE ART ANALYSIS CONTINUED
BRIDGE-SPOUTED
V E S S E L W I T H F LY I N G
FIGURES
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Mostly warm color
Mostly focused on head
of figure
Mouth of jar is two spouts
Shape is round and
thicker at bottom
ACHILLES AND AJAX
PLAYING A DICE GAME
AMPHORA
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Has two handles
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Mouth is round opening on top
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Has a base
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More contrasted color, strong
emphasis on subject
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Adopted black –figure scheme
• Both used to contain liquid
• Both have subject matter on mythological creatures or entities
• In both, figures induce tension or un-naturalness onto the subject