art history

Art of the Indigenous Americas is among the world’s oldest artistic traditions. While its roots lie in northern Asia, it developed independently between c. 10,000 B.C.E. and 1492 C.E., which marked the beginning of the European invasions. Regions and cultures are referred to as the Indigenous Americas to signal the priority of First Nations cultural traditions over those of the colonizing and migrant peoples that have progressively taken over the American continents for the last 500 years.

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...

TIME PERIOD: 3500 B.C.E. 1492 C.E. AND BEYOND CHAVIN 900-200 B.C.E COASTAL PERU MAYAN 300-900 C.E. BELIZE, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, YUCATAN ANASAZI 550-1400 C.E. AMERICAN SOUTHWEST MISSISSIPPIAN 800-1500 C.E. EASTERN UNITED STATES AZTEC 1400-1521 CENTRAL MEXICO INKA 1438-1532 PERU NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN 18TH CENTURY TO PRESENT NORTH AMERICA

Black-on-black ceramic vessel. Maria Martínez and Julian Martínez, Tewa, Puebloan, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. c. mid-20th century C.E. blackware ceramic To make the pottery stronger it had to be mixed with a temper made from sherds of broken pots that had been pounded into a powder or volcanic ash. When mixed with water, the elasticity of the clay and the strength of the temper could be formed into different shapes, including a rounded pot. Only the artist’s hands as the potting wheel was not used. Community job; many people worked on one sculpture; pioneered a style of applying a matte-black design over polished-black. rain clouds, bird feathers, rows of planted corn, and the flow of rivers. These designs are exaggerated due to the low rounded shapes of the pot, which are bulbous around the shoulder then narrow at the top.  The shape, color, and designs fit the contemporary Art Deco movement, which was popular between the two World Wars and emphasized...

Transformation mask. Kwakwaka’wakw, Northwest coast of Canada. Late 19th century C.E. Wood, paint, and string. Transformation masks, like those belonging to the Kwakwaka’wakw are worn during a potlatch, a ceremony where the host displayed his status, in part by giving away gifts to those in attendance.  During a potlatch, Kwakwaka’wakw dancers perform wearing the mask and costume. The masks conveyed social position (only those with a certain status could wear them) and also helped to portray a family’s genealogy by displaying (family) crest symbols. Kwakwaka’wakw bands are arranged into four clans (Killer Whale, Eagle, Raven, and Wolf clans).  The masks illustrated here display a variety of brightly colored surfaces filled with complex forms. Typical of the formline style is the use of an undulating, calligraphic line. carved of red cedar wood, an important and common material used for many Northwest Coast objects and buildings. Masks take months, sometimes year...

Painted elk hide. Attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody), Eastern Shoshone, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming. c. 1890–1900 C.E. Painted elk hide. Painting on animal hides is a longstanding tradition of the Great Basin and Great Plains people of the United States Painted on elk, deer, or buffalo hides using natural pigments like red ochre and chalk, and eventually paints and dyes obtained through trade.  Usually, artists decorated the hides with geometric or figural motifs. By the later nineteenth century certain hide artists began depicting subject matter that “affirmed native identity” and appealed to tourists. Many of these scenes celebrated battles and other biographical details. Hides represent his experiences during a period of immense change for the Shoshone people.  Many Shoshone traversed the geographic regions we now call the Great Plains and Plateau regions. With newly established trade markets and the influx of new materials, artists like Cotsiogo somet...

Bandolier bag. Lenape (Delaware tribe, Eastern Woodlands). c. 1850 C.E. Beadwork on leather. This is an object that invites close looking to fully appreciate the process by which colorful beads animate the bag, making a dazzling object and showcasing remarkable technical skill. Bandolier Bags are based on bags carried by European soldiers armed with rifles, who used the bags to store ammunition cartridges. While Bandolier Bags were made by different tribes and First Nations across the Great Lakes and Prairie regions, they differ in appearance. The stylistic differences are the result of personal preference as much contact with Europeans and Euro-Americans, goods acquired in trade, and travel. Bandolier Bags (like this one) are often large in size and decorated with a wide array of colorful beads and ribbons. They are worn as a cross-body bag, with a thick strap crossing a person’s chest to allow it to rest on the hip. These bags were especially popular in the late nineteent...

 All-T’oqapu tunic. Inka. 1450–1540 C.E. Camelid ber and cotton. One of the engines that drove the empire was the exchange of high-status goods, which helped to secure the reciprocal but unequal economic and power relationships between the Inka and their subjects. Along with jewels, political feasts and gifts of finely-made textiles would also cement these unequal relationships. Textiles and their creation had been highly important in the Andes long before the Inka came to power in the mid-15th century.  Finely-made textiles from the best materials were objects of high status among nearly all Andean cultures, much more valuable than gold or gems. The All-T’oqapu Tunic is an example of the height of Andean textile fabrication and its centrality to Inka expressions of power. By the time of the Inka, an incredible number of variations on this basic technique had created all kinds of textile patterns and weaves.  Most Andean camelid-fiber textiles were made with t...

City of Machu Picchu. Central highlands, Peru. Inka. c. 1450–1540 C.E. Granite (architectural complex). It was built as a royal estate for the first Inka emperor, Pachacuti Inka Yupanqui, in the middle of the 15th century. It was intended as a place where the Inka emperor and his family could host feasts, perform religious ceremonies, and administer the affairs of empire, while also establishing a claim to land that would be owned by his lineage after his death. The site was chosen and situated for its relationship to the Andean landscape, including sight lines to other mountain peaks which have long been considered ancestral deities throughout the Andes. The site contains housing for elites, retainers, and maintenance staff; religious shrines, fountains, and terraces.  The site features architecture, from houses to terraces, built by carefully fitting individual stones against each other. Terraces were a common element of highland agriculture.  They increased the...

Maize cobs. Inka. c. 1440–1533 C.E. Sheet metal/repoussé, metal alloys. gold-silver alloy corncob sculpture. It mimics the appearance of a ripe ear of corn breaking through its husk, still on the stalk but ready to be harvested. Inka metalsmiths expertly combined silver and copper to mimic the internal and external components of actual corn. While many ancient Andean art traditions favored abstract and geometric forms, Inka visual expression often incorporated more naturalistic forms in small-scale metal objects.  After the Spaniards arrived in the Andes, the European invaders soon desired the gold and silver belonging to the Inka. After the defeat of Inka leadership in the 1530s, spaniards looted Inka objects in large quantities and sent many back to Spain. The Inka commonly deployed small-scale naturalistic metallic offerings, like the silver alloy corncobs, in ritual practices. 

Walls at Saqsa Waman (Sacsayhuaman) Qorikancha (Inka main temple) City of Cusco, including Qorikancha (Inka main temple), Santo Domingo (Spanish colonial convent), and Walls at Saqsa Waman (Sacsayhuaman). Central highlands, Peru. Inka. c. 1440 C.E; convent added 1550–1650 C.E. Andesite. City was an axis mundi—the center of existence—and a reflection of Inka power. The city was divided into two sections, hanan (upper or high) and hurin (lower), which paralleled the social organization of Inka society into upper and lower moieties (social divisions). Cusco was further divided into quarters that reflected the four divisions of the empire, and people from those sections inhabited their respective quarters of the city. Each individual stone was pecked with tools and fitted to the one next to it; Twelve-Sided stone in the walls of Hatun Rumiyoq Street. Some sides of each stone were made to curve outward slightly, others to be slightly concave, so that the stones slotted ...

Ruler’s feather headdress (probably of Motecuhzoma II). Mexica (Aztec). 1428–1520 C.E. Feathers (quetzal and cotinga) and gold. replica; original taken by Hernan Cortes; quetzal tail feathers; bird from Central America, tribute items; sent to capital; part of an entire costume; part of ritual, celebrations; transformative; Aztec; gold ornaments; turquoise/green feathers; feather workers highly regarded; after conquest, art doesn't die out: subject changes, usually Christian iconography; two cultures intertwine; hybrid art form; 

Templo Mayor (Main Temple). Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City, Mexico). Mexica (Aztec). 1375–1520 C.E. Stone (temple); volcanic stone (The Coyolxauhqui Stone); jadeite (Olmec-style mask); basalt (Calendar Stone). Destroyed by the Spaniards Aztec temple devoted to two main deities: Huitzilopochtli (God of War/Sun) and Tlaloc (Rain/Agriculture) Center, surrounded by many other temples; modern Mexico city is consists of complicated layers of colonial and pre-colonial history  Located in the sacred precinct at the heart of the city, the Templo Mayor was positioned at the center of the Mexica capital and thus the entire empire. The capital was also divided into four main quadrants, with the Templo Mayor at the center. This design reflects the Mexica cosmos, which was believed to be composed of four parts structured around the navel of the universe, or the axis mundi. Two grand staircases accessed twin temples, which were dedicated to the deities Tlaloc and Huitzilopocht...

  Great Serpent Mound . Adams County, southern Ohio. Mississippian (Eastern Woodlands). c. 1070 C.E. Earthwork/effigy mound. The Great Serpent Mound in rural, southwestern Ohio is the largest serpent effigy in the world. Numerous mounds were made by the ancient Native American cultures that flourished along the fertile valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers a thousand years ago, though many were destroyed as farms spread across this region during the modern era. The Great Serpent Mound measures approximately 1,300 feet in length and ranges from one to three feet in height. Was erected by settled peoples who cultivated maize, beans and squash and who maintained a stratified society with an organized labor force, but left no written records.  Many native cultures in both North and Central America attributed supernatural powers to snakes or reptiles and included them in their spiritual practices. The head of the serpent aligns with the summ...

Yaxchilán. Chiapas, Mexico. Maya. 725 C.E. Limestone (architectural complex). Yaxchilán is located on the south bank of the Usumacinta River, in Chiapas, Mexico. It was a significant Maya center during the Classic period (250-900 C.E.) Many of the exteriors had elaborate decorations, but it is the carved stone lintels above their doorways which are the focus.  Many of the exteriors had elaborate decorations, but it is the carved stone lintels above their doorways.  Bloodletting was a common practice in Maya life from the Late Preclassic period (400 B.C.E.- 250 C.E.) onwards, and an essential part of rulership and of all public rituals.

Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. Montezuma County, Colorado. Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi). 450–1300 C.E. Sandstone Beginning after 1000-1100 CE, they built more than 600 structures into the cliff faces of the Four Corners region of the United States: the southwestern corner of Colorado, northwestern corner of New Mexico, northeastern corner of Arizona, and southeastern corner of Utah. These structures were mostly residential but some were used for storage and ritual. The most famous residential sites date to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the Ancestral Puebloans accessed these dwellings with retractable ladders.  We often see traces of the people who constructed these buildings, such as handprints or fingerprints in many of the mortar and plaster walls.  The cliff dwellings are certainly among the best preserved buildings from this time. To build these structures, people used stone and mud mortar, along with wooden beams adapted to the natural clefts in the ...

Chavín de Huántar. Northern highlands, Peru. Chavín. 900–200 B.C.E. Stone (architectural complex); granite (Lanzón and sculpture); hammered gold alloy (jewellery). Chavín de Huántar is an archaeological and cultural site in the Andean highlands of Peru. with motifs and stylistic elements traveling to the southern highlands and to the coast. The location of Chavín played a role; the temple built there became an important pilgrimage site that drew people and their offerings from far and wide.  It is also located near the confluence of the Huachesca and Mosna Rivers, a natural phenomenon of two joining into one that may have been seen as a spiritually powerful phenomenon. Over the course of 700 years, the site drew  many worshipers to its temple who helped in spreading the artistic style of Chavín throughout highland and coastal Peru by transporting ceramics, textiles, and other portable objects back to their homes. The interior of the temple was riddl...