Before Cortés: Sculpture of Middle America. — New York, 1970

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foreword 7

Advisory Committee 9

Lenders to the Exhibition 11

Preface 13

Relative Chronology of Middle America 16

Color Illustrations 18

 

1 High Cultures of Middle America 37

2 The Beginnings of Sculpture 46

3 Olmec Leaders, Sculptors, and Lapidaries 71

4 Post-Olmec and Izapan Art 91

5 The Western Fringe 115

6 Urban Teotihuacán 143

7 Gulf Coast Sculpture in Clay and Stone 162

8 Zapotec Tombs and Offerings 188

9 The Maya Realm 204

10 The Wealth of the Indies 236

11 Toltec Imperial Art and its Heirs 267

12 The Aztecs: The Last Empire 293

 

Selected Reading List 319

Sources of Illustrations 321

 

---

 

 

 

Tte course of pre-Hispanic or, as it is frequently called, pre-Columbian art, has come full circle in our own twentieth century. It amazed the Spanish conquistadors four hundred fifty years ago, and, when first seen by European audiences, it evoked the spontaneous admiration and extravagant praise of such Renaissance figures as Dürer, Cellini, and Peter Martyr, an Italian cleric who wrote the first history of the New World. But all too soon it lapsed as art in Europe, to continue there merely as exotica in some princeling's Wunderkammer and still later in museums narrowly confined to ethnology and anthropology.

 

It is only in the United States that this art has been included in the collections of the most significant fine-arts museums and begun to be recognized by a few graduate schools of art and art history in our universities—a twentieth-century development of fairly limited acceptance. We at the Metropolitan are now proud to present it with other great art of the world.

 

Like the men of the Renaissance, the founding fathers of this Museum paid high tribute to the ancient art of the New World, which they felt was neither "savage" nor "barbarian," but showed "a cultivation of the love of beauty, measured by an independent standard which, however distinct from ours, nevertheless proves the presence of intellectual and art loving races of men." Some fine works were acquired and exhibited briefly, but the profound wisdom and farsightedness of the founding fathers were soon forgotten when most of these treasures were lent elsewhere (as anthropological or ethnographic material), and acquisition stopped. However, in the past two decades the pendulum has swung back, with international loan exhibitions from Colombia and Guatemala and the reciprocal loan agreement with Mexico, the great exhibition of masterpieces from The Museum of Primitive Art last year, the recent enrichment of our collections by important gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Cummings, Mrs. Harold L. Bache, and Mrs. Jacob Kaplan, and, of course, the truly notable agreement with the Honorable Nelson A. Rockefeller and The Museum of Primitive Art under which the superb collection of that museum will come to the Metropolitan in its entirety upon completion of the new wing to house it.

 

With the creation of a new Department of Primitive Art and the present exhibition we have not only come full circle but more than redeemed a pledge made in our Annual Report for 1883, wherein the President, John Taylor Johnston, stated: "The antiquities of our own continent should form a prominent feature in an American Museum, and we are charged with a special duty to make here a Museum of old American art for the study of American scholars as well as scholars from abroad."

 

Olivetti has made this great international exhibition possible by a generous grant just as it sponsored in 1968 The Great Age of Fresco. We are indeed grateful to this manufacturer of business machines whose corporate interests span the entire world centering in both Europe and the United States.

 

The present exhibition has been organized by the former Secretary of the Museum and first head of the new department, Dudley T. Easby, Jr., and his wife, Elizabeth Kennedy Easby, formerly Curator of Primitive Art at The Brooklyn Museum, assisted by John F. Scott and Curt Muser. Dr. Daniel F. Rubín de la Borbolla and J. Alfred Barrett, special representatives of the Metropolitan Museum in Mexico and Guatemala, also have been of the greatest assistance. Others who have contributed, both to the planning of the exhibition and the preparation of catalogue information, are the members of the Advisory Committee; their names appear elsewhere in this publication. To all of them and especially to the generous lenders to the exhibition, both here and abroad, we extend our warm thanks.

 

 

---

 

 

 

Ancient Middle America was, in the words of the late Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican artist, archaeologist, and art historian, "the intellectual and artistic focus of Indian civilization ... the leading Indian cultural center of the hemisphere." It was here that the major arts of architecture, mural painting, and, especially, sculpture reached heights seldom equaled at any time or in any place.

 

To give a broad picture, sculpture from the West Indies, Columbus's first landfall, and from all of Central America as far south as Panama has been included in this exhibition, although, strictly speaking, the area of allied advanced Middle American cultures, referred to as Mesoamerica, is considered to extend only from central Mexico approximately to Nicaragua. Also, since even the smallest objects may display great virtuosity and have a monumental quality, gold and lapidary work, carving in wood, shell, and bone, and ceramic figures have been included. Notwithstanding the unstinted generosity of our many lenders, the exhibition is not an encyclopedia of all Middle American sculpture. The finest pieces in some styles, such as the stone sculptures of the Olmecs from Tabasco and Veracruz and those of the Huastecs from Tamaulipas and northern Veracruz, have had to be omitted for reasons beyond our control. Special mention must be made, however, of the great treasures lent by European museums: none of these has made the westward crossing of the Atlantic before, and many of them were not recovered during archaeological explorations but were above ground, in use, and sent to Europe at or shortly after the time of the Spanish Conquest in the sixteenth century.

 

Despite the diversity in art styles at different times and in different areas, the Mexican archaeologist Ignacio Bernal has suggested that one common thread runs through practically all Middle American cultures, beginning with the Olmec at San Lorenzo, Veracruz, in 1200 b.c., and extending down to the Spanish Conquest: "the feeling for order and exact proportion, the real mania for ritual" of a ceremonial society. This is perhaps an oversimplification, but still an acceptable rule of thumb. By later times art in the Valley of Mexico and other regions under Aztec domination was based largely on religion and a complicated cosmology.

 

For any real understanding or appreciation of an unfamiliar art, some knowledge of the cultural level of the people who produced it is helpful. (Trying to interpret the early art of the New World in the light of European traditions and prejudices can yield some pretty absurd results.) Every schoolboy knows that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice as part of their religion, but that, unfortunately, is about all that many persons know concerning them or the people of Middle America in general. The Aztecs, about whom we are best informed, did not appear on the scene in the Valley of Mexico until the fourteenth century and did not assume importance until about 1428, only a century before the Spanish Conquest, when the triple alliance of the city-states of Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico City), Texcoco, and Tlacopan was created, forming the nucleus of the Aztec empire. Lacking any cultural tradition of their own, the Aztecs appropriated one from their predecessors and added borrowings from regions they conquered. This eclecticism and our own greater knowledge of the Aztecs aid materially in placing much of Mesoamerican art in its cultural context.

 

By the time of the Conquest the gifted peoples of Middle America, especially the Maya, had been studying the heavens for centuries and had made such progress in astronomy that they were able to predict eclipses and the movements of Venus and other heavenly bodies. That and their mathematical genius enabled them to develop a highly accurate calendar; in their calculations they not only used position numeration but also had arrived at the concept of naught, or zero, long before Europe received it from India by way of the Arabs. Picture and hieroglyphic writing were used to record history, land titles, genealogies, astronomical data, tribute rolls, and rituals in screen-fold books made of buckskin or beaten bark paper. Nearly all of these important documents were tragically lost when the early Christian missionaries burned them as "works of the Devil."

 

The herbal medicine of the Aztecs, although having many overtones of magic, produced some efficacious remedies still in use, and their surgery—particularly in the treatment of sprains or dislocations, fractures, wounds, and abscesses—was surprisingly modern. Their personal hygiene and their cleanliness were years ahead of their time.

 

Cortés, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and other eyewitnesses at the time of the Conquest reported that Moctezuma's zoological garden was so extensive that over six hundred men were employed in caring for the animals, birds, and fish assembled from every corner of the realm. Long before the establishment of the first European botanical garden at Padua, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the rulers of Tenochtitlán and nearby Texcoco had huge botanical gardens in the accepted sense of being not only places of recreation with rare and beautiful plants but centers of research on medicinal plants.

 

These rulers had developed a body of laws based, not unlike our own Common Law, on custom, and had courts of primary and appellate jurisdiction. Justice was stern, prompt, and impartial, without regard to the rank of the litigant. For example, even members of the ruling families who transgressed received the death penalty in cases of adultery or other capital offenses.

 

Incredible as it may seem, vast engineering projects, such as leveling off an entire mountaintop at Monte Albán to erect the great Zapotec ceremonial center there, were carried to completion without beasts of burden, wheeled vehicles, or metal tools. Over the centuries a few animals for food and plants were domesticated. The entire world is indebted to Middle America for corn, vanilla, avocados, chocolate, and tomatoes. In fact, our names for the last three are borrowed from the Aztec: ahuacatl (Spanish, aguacate), chocolatl, and tomatl. Even that boon to gumchewers, tzictli, or chicle, came—and still comes—from Middle America. (However, in ancient times to chew it in public was regarded as a sign of ill-breeding.)

 

Finally, enough has survived to show that the Aztecs had a true literature. Their poetic tongue, Náhuatl, is so rich in metaphors that the learned eighteenth-century Italian Lorenzo Boturini considered it to be "superior in elegance to Latin."

 

Even these few random glimpses of the cultural level of the peoples who produced the splendid works in this exhibition bear out the words of Covarrubias with which we began. Further confirmation of his assertion will appear in the chapters that follow.

 

On another ceremonial occasion the poet-king of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl (1402–1472), said: "We hope that when our friends return to their homes in distant lands they will keep in their mind's eye the image of our fair realm...." It is our hope that our Centennial visitors may "keep in their mind's eye" some of the glories of the great Middle American past that we are privileged to exhibit on this occasion.

 

 

---

 

 

 

  

 

 

   

Hunchback Vessel. Colima. 2nd century BCE–3rd century CE

 

 

Disk. Classic Veracruz artist(s). 600–900 CE The scrolls and interlaces that frame this stone plaque are characteristic of the art of Veracruz. Possibly a back support for a mirror, the plaque has a drilled hole (for suspension?) at its top edge. Such mirrors served as costume elements connoting the high rank or authority of the wearer. They perhaps served a ceremonial function as well. The image depicts the profile of a young man with a small bead beneath his nose that may refer to speech. A net cap with a prominent knot is over the hair, a large earflare with a tooth- or claw-shaped pendant adorns the ear, and a three-tiered beaded collar is around the neck. Along the jaw line, protruding out from his chin, there is a scroll resembling a beard, the extension of which pictorially balances the nose of the figure. The lively, free-flowing scrollwork at the edge of the plaque contrasts with the rigid geometric elements of the image. This combined with the slight incline of the figure and the asymmetry of the design imbue the carved surface with dynamism, creating a visually compelling composition.

 

 

   

Closed Yoke. Veracruz. 4th–7th century In Mesoamerican art, ballplayers are identified by the thick belt worn around the waist. Referred to as a yoke, the name is derived from the similarity of the shape to that of the equipment used to manage draft animals. Although a tradition of open-ended, elaborately carved stone yoke sculptures endured in parts of Mesoamerica for centuries, the earliest yokes are believed to be those of closed shape and smooth polished surface with no relief ornamentation. A flattened raised ridge surrounding the central opening of this yoke is its only surface elaboration. Later yokes are carved with imagery relating to sacrifice. Figures identified as earth monsters, for whom the sacrifices may have been intended, are among them. The shape of this yoke, with a void in the center, suggest a connection to the theme by its resemblance to a cave opening, as apertures in the earth were regarded as portals to the realm of the underworld.

 

 

Double Bat-Head Figure Pendant. Chiriqui. 11th–16th century The twin figures on this gold pendant wear identical headdresses, loincloths, and wide collar necklaces. Each holds a spear thrower and a paddle-shaped club. They have coffee-bean eyes, wide-open mouths with sharp beastlike fangs, and noses that are upswept in a leaf shape similar to the noses of Central American bats. The nose leaf is a sensing device which locates the bat's prey by reflecting the sounds it emits. Ancient Americans must have revered bats for this seemingly supernatural ability to see in the dark. In life and in death, gold adornment symbolized power and prestige in the tribal societies of Central America. Leaders wore cast or hammered gold images in the shape of naturalistic animals, composite beasts, and human-animal combinations. So important were these symbols of power and identity that leaders were buried surrounded by all their gold. Without written records, the meaning of these symbols cannot be precisely identified. Human/animal beings such as these twin figures could represent tribal culture heroes, mythical warriors, or markers of elite clan members.

 

 

Double-Bat-Head Figure Pendant. Coclé (Parita). 12th–14th century Two mirrored beings form the central part of this gold-and-greenstone pendant, which would have been worn by a ruler in central Panama in the centuries before European arrival. The figures hold large paddle-like clubs or other objects in their outer, humanlike hands and adorn their cylindrical torsos with representations of beaded collars. The individuals feature identical zoomorphic heads or masks, the upturned noses of which recall tropical bats endemic to the Isthmus. The bulging eyes, double-spiraled ears, and toothed mouth add a mythological dimension to the beings’ faces. The goldworker cast the upper portion of the pendant in gold-copper alloy using the lost-wax process and then likely enriched the surface with depletion gilding before polishing. The lower portion of the being’s bodies is composed of carved and polished greenstone in the form of a curving, fang-shaped appendage. The shape recalls the large teeth of the sperm whale (Physeter microcephalus), which have been found sculpted in the round with similar zoomorphic imagery in this region of Panama. Greenstone was an important luxury material in ancient Mesoamerica and Central America, and many examples of fine greenstone regalia have been recovered from Panama. This pendant reportedly comes from a series of rich graves excavated in the early 1960s in the Pacific region around Parita Bay, Panama. The gold works associated with the Parita assemblage feature complex representations of single and double-figure pendants similar to this example. Such rich grave goods are known from scientific excavations at the nearby Sitio Conte and El Caño, where important political leaders were buried with gold pendants, plaques, greenstone-and-gold ear ornaments, and sacrificed attendants.

 

 

   

Feline-Head Pendant. Coclé (Macaracas) (?). 8th–12th century

 

 

Shark Pendant. Chiriqui. 11th–16th century

 

 

Frog Pendant. Chiriqui. 11th–16th century

 

 

Chahk (rain god). Maya artist(s). 800–1000 CE This grand sculpture portrays the Maya deity Chahk as an axe-wielding personification of rain, storms, and lightning. Clutching the handle of a large axe – symbolic of lightning – Chahk is shown as the Storm God with an open mouth and pronounced cheeks as if shouting or threatening. The two holes in the axe would have been filled with blades of stone, perhaps greenstone or obsidian. Scenes from a bench at the Temple of the Chacmool at Chichen Itza and a doorjamb at Kabah confirm that multiple axe blades were common in the northern Maya lowlands. Although the left hand of this sculpture is missing, it would have likely held a battle shield, as in many depictions of the warrior Chahk. Further adding to his menacing appearance, Chahk’s headdress seems to be the head of an animal, perhaps a feline or a serpent, with its two blunt teeth protruding above his eyes. This Chahk also wears a large belt and loincloth assemblage, similar to the padded waistbelts of ballplayers, and displays a pectoral decoration, indicated by finely chiseled knots. The knotted rope and large ear flares are typical of Chahk’s attire throughout the Classic period (ca. 250-900 CE). Carved from a solid piece of limestone, the statue is one of many representations of the warlike Chahk in the Maya Lowlands during the Late and Terminal Classic periods. Its scale and stiff stature are consistent with architectural façade sculpture. Elements of this statue’s style, such as the sandals with lashings, also occur in architectural sculpture at Kabah, indicating this Chahk was originally from the Puuc hills of Yucatan and Campeche (such as Sayil). It likely formed part of a royal court building, fixing its imposing gaze on all who entered.

 

---

 

 

Download link (pdf, yandexdisk; 75.5 MB)

 

 

The electronic version of this edition is published only for scientific, educational or cultural purposes under the terms of fair use. Any commercial use is prohibited. If you have any claims about copyright, please send a letter to [email protected].