Art of the Americas


TIME PERIOD: 3500 B.C.E-1492 C.E. 
  • Art is animal based and used in shamanistic rituals; art usually carved in stone; geography plays a major role; geographic diversity accounts for the differing materials used in each culture's art 
  • Archaeology, oral and written history form the basis of North American Research; weaving, wood, bone, hides, ceramic; traded with outsiders (beads, ribbons) 
  • Animal and geometric designs; respect for nature, religion, and elders
  • Some developed, technological, focused on anatomy and literature; others remained nomadic and limited in their activities as hunter-gatherers
  • Works found in burial grounds or in ruins of ancient cities
  • Artists were commoners; trained in apprenticeship programs; wide variety of materials; carved in obsidian, jade, copper, gold, turquoise, sandstone, granite, limestone, amethyst, etc. 
  • Skins of animals, feathers of birds
Chavin
  • coastal Peru 
  • Figural compostions; human and animal motifs 
  • symmetry; low relief, polished surfaces 
  • architects chose dramatic sites, sometimes on mountain tops 
  • lived near water sources, such as rivers 
Mayan 
  • Models w/ arching brow, protruding forehead and nose, facial types long and narrow, full lips
  • Figures dressed with costumes composed of feathers, jade, and jaguarskin 
  • Narrative art done in relief sculpture
  • Little attention to modelling 
  • Figures of gods stylised; hieratic poses; sculptures painted 
  • Main figure the chacmool 
  • Mayan pyramids set in wide plazas as centre of civic focus 
Anasazi 
  • Most famous for pueblos 
  • structures faced a well defined plaza that was the religious/social center of the complex 
Mississippian Art
  • Communities evolved in fertile areas 
  • Series of earthworks 
  • Impressive city-states 
Aztec Art 
  • gold jewellery 
  • jade and turquoise carvings 
  • violent ceremonies of blood-letting, human remains 
Inkan Art 
  • Impressive and well-designed cities in some of the most inaccessible/inhospitable places on earth. 
  • Chile to Colombia; organised system of roads unified the country; no written language; info from archaeological remains 
North American 
  • Wood in Pacific Northwest 
  • Plant fibers, wool in American Southwest 
  • Hides in areas population by bison/deer
  • Geometric designs on ceramics and utilitarian objects: Pueblo people
  • Adapted to the tourist industry as European settlers spread throughout NA Nations. 
Summary
  • Some nomadic, produced portable art
  • Others established great cities in which ceremonial centres were designed to enhance religious/secular concerns 
  • Used local material available
  • Built on the foundation of earlier cultures
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