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Chapter 12 the AMERICAS, AFRICA and ASIA

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Chapter 12 the AMERICAS, AFRICA and ASIA Chapter 12 THE AMERICAS, AFRICA AND ASIA • Around 1500 European knowledge of the rest of the world expanded greatly. • Within thirty years the boundaries of Classical geography were shattered by the explorations of Christopher Columbus, followed by the first circumnavigation of the globe. • Near Eastern and Far Eastern art had been known since Roman times and motifs from Chinese and Islamic art had long been acclimatized in Europe. • But the art of the Americas was regarded in a very different light in that some were preserved as curiosities, yet most were destroyed. • Shortly before the end of the sixteenth century, the belief that Europe ‘was born to rule over Africa, Asia and America’ was fostered. Key Terms: Aztecs Mesoamerica oba Olmec Teotihuacan iwan Maya ooni Learning Objectives: • The differences in the use of head sculpture in Ife and Benin. • The similarities in the artwork of Mesoamerican cultures. • The different influences on Islamic art in India and in Spain. MESOAMERICA AND PERU • At the time of the Spanish invasion in 1519, the Aztecs ruled the area just north of modern Mexico City, south to Guatemala. • Their artistic style incorporated elements from earlier arts of the region which was occupied by groups of people who seem to have been nearly always at war with one another. • The Mesoamericans spoke a related language, used the same 260-day calendar, and had similar forms of governments which their religious beliefs were part of including blood- letting, the ball-game and sacrificial offerings of captives. Page 117 • The Mesoamerican cultures also shared techniques of building with stone, of carving with stone instruments, of modeling pottery, and of painting. Teotihuacan (fig. 12.1) • Around the first century AD, ceremonial center was developed east of present day Mexico City into a true city at a place the Aztecs would later call Teotihuacan, which means ‘where one becomes a god’. • The residential quarters were laid out on a grid system while the whole city was fixed astronomically to provide an earthly reflection of the heavenly bodies. • At the heart of an avenue were massive stepped platforms which were called ‘pyramids’ but actually resemble ziggurats in shape as well as in function. Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent (fig. 12.2) • At the southern end of the main avenue was a pyramid covered with elaborate carvings of plumed serpents and menacing heads which were enclosed in circles and squares. The Maya, Toltecs and Mixtecs • The Maya culture began somewhat earlier than Teotihuacan and reached the height of its development about the same time. • Their civilization, located on the Yucatan peninsula and in present day Belize and Guatemala, lasted a much longer time than that of Teotihuacan. • They developed a system of writing in symbols known as glyphs which have been deciphered to provide dates according to their calendar on which day 0 corresponds with August 13, 3114 BC. • The Maya believed that the gods created humans by a sacrificial act and therefore needed the reciprocal shedding of blood for their sustenance. • The two main rituals were the self-inflicted blood-letting performed by the rulers, human sacrifices of which the victims were the captives obtained through warfare. Stepped pyramid at Tikal (fig. 12.4) • Tikal, covering some 6 square miles, was one of the largest Maya city. • The buildings were arranged by astronomical observations. Page 118 • The courts for the ritual ball-games were built in all temple precincts and the rubber ball flying over the players’ head was to represent the sun. • From the beginning of the Maya ‘classical’ period they built with stone and a strong burnt lime cement and had also refined the corbelled arch technique. • The exterior of the temple was more important because all public rituals were performed in the open air. • This steep pyramid topped with a temple whose roof was called a roof comb and rises 230 feet with an unbroken flight of steps. Blood-Letting Rite (fig. 12.6) • This image is located on a lintel and shows King Shield Jaguar with the shrunken head of a sacrificial victim in his feathered crown. • The king is also shown holding a flaming torch over his principal wife as she kneels, pulling a cord knotted with thorns through her perforated tongue. Blood is seen dripping on to strips of paper that will be burnt and transmitted to the gods. • The figures are rigid in their poses and are set off by the hard-edged clarity of the composition. • This image was originally painted in bright colors of which only a trace remains. The Observatory, Chichén Itzá (fig. 12.8) • This structure is regarded as one of the most interesting in Mesoamerican architecture. • It is an observatory that encloses two concentric annular passages with high, corbelled vaults and an upper story reached by winding stairs. • From the center of the upper story are shafts that line up directly with the sun and stars. Chacmool from Chichén Itzá (fig. 12.9) • The statue, which may represent a deity, does not have a precedent in the art of the Maya. • The figure is a reduction of the human body into a geometric form resting on his elbows with his legs up and his hands in his lap. • In his hands is an offering tray but his head is turned away from the offering as if appearing indifferent. Page 119 Atlantean figures of Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl (fig. 12.10) • These columns are located on the summit of a temple and thought to have supported a wooden roof. • They represented warriors standing rigidly at attention, wearing butterfly pectorals and holding spear throwers in their hands. • The columns are identical. Each is composed of four drums, held together by dowels and originally painted in bright colors. Page from the Codex Zouche-Nuttall (fig. 12.11) • The Mixtecs became the dominant power in the second millennium AD in the south. • The finest examples of Mesoamerican manuscripts are Mixtec. They were painted on sheets of parchment and joined in long strips that could be folded into booklike form. • The figures are drawn in black outline and filled with bright colors and are shown frontally or in profile gesturing. • The manuscripts are concerned with rituals performed in accordance with the astronomical calendar. The Aztecs • Around 1370 the Aztecs settled on the island of Tenochtitlan in Lake Texcoco and were the last of a succession of northern tribes to infiltrate the Valley of Mexico. • Their palaces and gardens impressed the Europeans, yet the Aztecs’ practice of human sacrificing appalled the new arrivals. • As with previous cultures the Aztec paid close attention to astronomical events and their practice of sacrificing was tied to these events. • It is thought that the Aztecs sacrificed thousands of their own people with the rumor that the hearts of some 20,000 were torn out on a single occasion. Goddess Coatlicue (fig. 12.15) • In this statue the goddess is dehumanized, yet presented in a terrifying manner. • She is represented with two rattlesnake heads, serpent fangs at her elbows, a skull hanging from a necklace of human hands, hearts above her breasts, a skirt of entwined snakes, and her feet are feline claws. Page 120 The Incas • By about 1500 the Incas occupied the whole length of the Andes from modern Ecuador to Bolivia, Argentina and southern Chile. Portrait vessel (fig. 12.16) • The Incas’ most distinctive artistic products were the well- made pottery vessels with stirrup-shaped spouts. This type was particular to South America. • All of the vessels were probably made to be included in the tombs • This vessel is shaped like a human head, strongly characterized and very realistic. • The faces ponder, frown or sneer in high disdain. AFRICA • Unlike America, Africa was not cut off from Europe. • The Atlantic coast cities of West Africa were linked to the Mediterranean by trade routes across the Sahara. • Religion followed commerce and before 1100 Islam had spread as far as Mali. • The Portuguese mariners sailed down the Atlantic coast in 1471 and in 1498 rounded the Cape and up the east coast of Africa. • The Europeans were not able to gain more than coastal footholds until the late nineteenth century. • The history of Africa south of the Sahara is difficult to trace due in part to the lack of written records. • The artwork found at Ife is very different from European art and it is believed that the styles found in western Africa were indigenous. Head of a queen (fig. 12.22) • At Ife, an important religious and political center in present day Nigeria, a predominantly figurative style emerged. • The heads were very naturalistic, as is seen in this one of a queen. • The queen’s headdress is rendered in detail. • She is shown with a high brow and a sensitive mouth, which has a slight ridge at the outer edges. • Her upper eyelids overlap the lower ones at the corners. Page 121 Head of an ooni (fig. 12.23) • Several other heads are done in the same style as the queen’s, yet are individualized in such a manner to suggest that they were intended to be portraits. • The holes around the mouth were thought to hold a veil of beads during certain ceremonies. A queen mother, Benin (fig. 12.26) • The sculpted heads found at Benin are much more stylized than those of Ife. The oba of Benin in divine aspect (fig. 12.28) • The idea for these plaques may have come from European printed book illustrations. • The figures are frontally posed and scaled according to importance. • This plaque shows an oba displaying his power over two leopards.
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