Pre-Columbian

...

of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Clark. ■ FIGURE 11.18 Note the similarities between this face and the face of the Royal Woman in Figure 11.17. Is this a successful work of art? On what aesthetic qualities did you base your decision? Mayan relief (detail). Yaxchilan, Mexico. Tenochtitlán The Aztec settlement grew into the splendid city of Tenochtitlán on the site of the presentday Mexico City (Figure 11.19). Built on an island in the lake, it contained huge white palaces, temples, gardens, schools, arsenals, workshops, and a sophisticated system of irrigation canals and aqueducts. City streets and palace walls were scrubbed clean by thousands of slaves. Bridges carried the streets over a network of canals that crisscrossed the city. Raised highways led from the mainland toward a spacious temple complex at the city’s heart. The Aztecs were a warlike people driven to continuous combat by their religious beliefs. They believed that human sacrifices were necessary to keep the universe running smoothly. Against a backdrop of brilliantly painted architecture and sculpture, sacrifices of human hearts were made to ensure that the gods remained in good spirits. At the dedication of the great temple at Tenochtitlán, 20,000 captives were sacrificed. They were led up the steps of the high pyramid-temple to an altar where chiefs and priests waited to slit them open and remove their hearts. Aztec Sculpture Art was closely linked to these rituals. Statues to the gods were carved and placed in the temples atop stepped pyramids. There were even statues of priests and celebrants dressed in the skins of flayed victims who had been sacrificed. The sculpture shown in Figure 11.21, on page 260 depicts a man dressed in this way. The artist has shown stylized flay marks and the slash in the skin where the victim’s heart was removed. Aztec Picture Writing The Aztecs also used a system of picture writing. This writing was done on sheets of parchment that were joined and accordionfolded to form a book. This kind of painted book, later called a codex by the Europeans, was produced by the most highly respected artists in Aztec society (Figure 11.20). 258 Unit Four Art of Asia, the Americas, and Africa ■ FIGURE 11.19 The city of Tenochtitlán was developed into an agricultural center and marketplace. Explain how the Aztec population made the best use of the limited land when the city was created. The Aztec City of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City). Left: Tenochtitlán. Right: Cuzco (the Inca City). Etching, tinted by Franz Hogenberg (c. 1538–1590). Quetzalcóatl, the life god, is shown as a feathered serpent. The Aztecs believed that Quetzalcóatl was originally an old priest who set himself on fire in order to purify his people. He returned to life in the form of the planet Venus, promising to return from the east to redeem his people. 3 ➤ ➤ Tezcalipoca is dressed in the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim. Note that the hands dangling from the god’s upraised arms are actually part of the skin of the victim. 1 ➤ Tezcalipoca, the war god and god of the night winds, wears a necklace of seashells. 2 Chapter 11 The Native Arts of the Americas 259 his painting is from The Book of Days, a codex from which personal destinies were predicted. This codex reveals a taste for fantastic images created with clear, bright colors and flat shapes. There is no shading or modeling to suggest threedimensional forms. Heads are large and torsos and limbs short. These paintings were never meant to illustrate people or events associated with the real world. The figures, most with humanlike heads, torsos, and limbs, do not represent human beings. Their poses and gestures communicate ideas and combinations of ideas. These paintings serve as both writings and pictures. T Identifying Icons in AztecArt ■ FIGURE 11.20 Aztec. Painting of the gods Tezcalipoca and Quetzalcóatl. From Codex Borbonicus. Early 1500s. Bibliothèque du Palais Bourbon, Paris, France. When Cortés, a powerful conqueror from Spain, arrived in November of 1519, he received a friendly welcome from the Aztecs, who believed him to be their legendary redeemer, Quetzalcóatl. Cortés came from the east, just as Quetzalcóatl had promised he himself would. Cortes’ arrival heralded the beginning of the end for the Aztec Empire. Art in Peru: The Incas The Incas are the best known of all the ancient peoples who inhabited Peru. They were a small tribe who established their rule in the Valley of Cuzco, with the city of Cuzco as their capital. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of the Incas grew until their empire stretched from Quito in Ecuador to central Chile—a distance of more than 3,000 miles. The Incas demonstrated great organizational skill and managed to control their far-flung empire even though they had no written language. Their only method of calculating and keeping records was the use of knotted strings of different colors known as quipu. These were kept in a secure place at Cuzco. Inca Engineering and Communication Skillful engineers, the Inca joined all parts of their empire together with a network of roads and bridges. They also established an efficient system of relay runners who used these roads to carry messages to every corner of the empire. Runners were expected to wait for any royal dispatch and, when it arrived, to race with it to the next village, where another runner waited. This system was so efficient that when members of the royal family at Cuzco wanted fresh fish from the Pacific, runners carried it hundreds of miles through the Andes Mountains in two days. Running in short spurts at breakneck speed, a series of couriers could cover 250 miles a day—faster than the speed of messengers on horseback galloping over the famous roads of Rome. Inca Architecture The capital at Cuzco and other Inca cities featured solid structures of stone built on a large scale, some of which have survived to the present day. The durability of these buildings was due to the precision with which each block of stone was fit into place. It is believed that each of these blocks may have been placed in a sling of some kind and then swung against those that were to be placed below and beside it. Swinging continued until the surfaces were ground to a perfect fit. The buildings were not decorated with sculpture or relief carvings, but interior walls were often covered with fabric wall hangings decorated with geometric patterns. Machu Picchu ■ FIGURE 11.22 Machu Picchu (Figure 11.22) was an Inca city built to protect the people from attacks by hostile tribes living in the jungle to the east. 260 Unit Four Art of Asia, the Americas, and Africa ■ FIGURE 11.21 Notice that this figure’s garment is made from the skin of a flayed victim sacrificed to the gods. How does an understanding of Aztec religious beliefs help you understand this work? Aztec. Xipe Impersonator. 1450–1521. Volcanic stone, shell,

...