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aztecs, toltecs, maya, olmec arts
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Ancient American Civilization
OLMEC
The Olmec were ancient Pre-Colombian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico,
flourished during the Formative (or Preclassic) period of Mesoamerican chronology, dating from 1200 B.C.E. to about 400 B.C.E., and are believed to have been the progenitor civilization of later Mesoamerican civilizations.
OLMEC civilization
Much of their culture remains and the Olmec are credited (at least speculatively) with many innovations in Mesoamerica, including writing, the calendar using zero, and the Mesoamerican ballgame prevalent in the region.
OLMEC civilization
Olmec artforms remain in works of both monumental statuary and small jade work.
Much Olmec art is highly stylized and uses an iconography reflective of a religious meaning. Some Olmec art, however, is surprisingly naturalistic, displaying an accuracy of depiction of human anatomy perhaps equaled in the pre-Columbian New World only by the best Maya Classic era art.
Arts
Common motifs include downturned mouths and slit-like slanting eyes, both of which are seen as representations of "were-jaguars.”
The Olmec used art to glorify rulers by making them
monuments of super natural creatures to portray them such as part human, part beast. It is believed that these monuments were annihilated after the death of the leader.
Arts
Artworks
1. The Wrestler
• an ancient basalt statuette
• one of the most important sculptures of the Olmec culture.
• has been praised not only for its realism and sense of energy, but also for its aesthetic qualities.
• fully three-dimensional
2. Colossal heads
The Olmec colossal heads are enormous heads, wearing helmets, that were sculpted out of rock.
They were carved from huge basalt boulders
Carving a single head has been estimated as taking 1,500 people, about three to four months of work.
Some examples of colossal heads:
a. Cabeza olmeca (Olmec Head); La Venta Park, Villahermosa. Tabasco. -Monument 1.
b. Monumental head from the Olmec civilization exhibited at the Museo Nacinal de Antropología e Historia, Mexico
hardstone carvings in jade of a face in a mask form. Curators and scholars refer to "Olmec-style" face masks as despite being Olmec in style
they have been recovered from sites of other cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial precinct of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), which would presumably have been about 2,000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting these were valued and collected as Roman antiquities were in Europe.
3. Jade face masks
- Olmec-style mask from Tabasco (Mexico). Muséées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels (Belgium)
Maya
a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems.
Initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state development during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), and continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish.
MAYA civilization
Maya art is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period (1500 B.C. to 250 A.D.), and grew greater during the Classic period (c. 200 to 900 AD), and went through a Postclassic phase until the upheavals of the sixteenth century destroyed courtly culture and put an end to a great artistic tradition.
Traditional art forms have mainly survived in weaving and the design of peasant houses.
Arts
Maya architecture is first of all the lay-out of the impressive houses, courtyards, and temples where the kings resided, characterised by the immense horizontal floors of the plazas located at various levels, and the broad and often steep stairs connecting these. Dam-like causeways spread from these 'ceremonial centers' to other nuclei of habitation.
A. Architecture
stone, wood, stucco, and jade. A common form of Maya sculpture was the stela.
The stelae almost always contain hieroglyphic texts, which have been critical to determining the significance and history of Maya sites.
Another major group of stone carvings consists of
stone lintels spanning doorways and relief panels set in the walls of buildings.
B. Sculpture
- A Maya carving depicting a blood sacrifice. Lintel from Yaxchilan showing 2 elites, one standing with a torch, the other drawing a rope through their tongue as a blood sacrifice.
Stucco sculpture adorned the facades of many buildings and was usually painted.
- Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a coating for walls and ceilings and for decoration.
Many stone carvings had jade inlays, and there were also ritual objects created from jade.
the death mask of K'inich Janaab' Pakal, ruler of Palenque. A life-size mask created for his corpse had "skin" made from jade and "eyes" made from mother-of-pearl and obsidian.
C. PaintingsThe Bonampak paintingsThe colourful Bonampak murals, dating from 790 B.C. and decorating the interior of a temple, show scenes of nobility, battle, and sacrifice.
A beautiful turquoise blue colour has survived through the centuries due to its unique chemical characteristics. This color, called Maya Blue (Azul Maya), is present in Bonampak, El Tajín Cacaxtla, Jaina, and even in some Colonial Convents.
Most of the decorated pottery (vases, bowls) once was 'social currency' among the Maya nobles, exchanged at feasts and ceremonial visits, and preserved as heirlooms; this is also the sort of ceramics which accompanied the dead aristocracy into the grave.
These precious objects were delicately painted, carved into relief, incised, or show the Teotihuacan fresco
Sculptural ceramic art includes incense burners, particularly from the kingdom of Palenque, and hand or mold-made figurines, sometimes used as ocarina's. The figurines are often of an amazing liveliness and realism.
D. Ceramics
Maya vase of the codex style, representing a lord of the underworld stripped of his clothes and headgear by the young Maize divinity, assisted by a midget and a hunchback. Terracotta, northern Petén (Guatemala), 7th-10th century.
Toltecs
an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca 800-1000 CE).
The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tollan (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization, indeed in the Nahuatl language the word "Toltec" came to take on the meaning "artisan".
Toltecs
Artworks:
An expressive orange-ware clay vessel in the Toltec style.
Toltec pyramid at Tula, Hidalgo
Stucco relief at Tula, Hidalgo depicting Coyotes, Jaguars and Eagles feasting on human hearts.
View of the Columns of the Burned Palace at Tula Hidalgo, the second Ballcourt is in the background
Depiction of an anthropomorphic bird-snake deity, probably Quetzalcoatl at the Temple of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli at Tula, Hidalgo
Aztecs
ethnic groups of central Mexico spoke the Nahuatl language
dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.
Aztec (Aztecatl) is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan", a mythological place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time, and later adopted as the word to define the Mexica people[1]. Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the location of Mexico City), situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mexica Tenochca or Colhua-Mexica. Sometimes the term also includes the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan's two principal allied city-states, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with the Mexica formed the Aztec Triple Alliance which has also become known as the "Aztec Empire".
Aztecs
they favored most sculptures
Designing clothes, mainly in the upper class was another form of art in the Aztec culture. Women usually made the clothing, and they decorated them with beads, flowers and precious metals. Gold was often used for decoration, and was abundant in the Aztec empire.
Among the craftsmanship valued by the Aztec Indians was art, music, poetry & tattoos.
Arts
Artworks:
The Aztec Pyramid at St. Cecilia Acatitlan, Mexico State.
Pendant-mask associated to the rituals of Aztec god Xipe Totec. Stone, Mexico Valley, 15th century–before 1521.
Large ceramic statue of an Aztec eagle warrior exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México
Aztec feather headdress attributed to Moctezuma II exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México
The Aztec "Calendar Stone". Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.
Aztec statue of Coatlicue, the earth goddess from the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
Two-headed turquoise serpent which was probably used as a chest ornament during ceremonial occasions. It is made of carved wood covered with turquioise, with red and white shell being used for the mouth and eyes. It was likely created in Mixtec areas under Aztec control between 1400 and 1521.
Turquoise mask. Mixtec-Aztec. 1400-1521.
