THE ANCIENT AMERICAS: ART FROM SACRED LANDSCAPES
Among the many masterpieces on view at the Art Institute’s exhibit of pre-Columbian art, “The Ancient Americas,” four are particularly potent examples of this art’s “cosmic,” outward-reaching aspects. At the center of a gold sun mask (Ecuador, La Tolita) is a moderately stern face; from three sides of the face shoot out golden zigzag snakelike rays, each much longer than the face is wide; at the end of each intact ray (a few are broken) is a human face. While the central mask-face stares directly at the viewer, entering, even violating, his space, the rays capture even more attention: each leads the eye outward, beyond the boundaries of the piece and in a slightly different direction, pointing to all the surrounding space except that directly below–which was perhaps not thought of as being in the realm of the sun. But the rays’ jagged paths deny the eye a simple journey to some invisible beyond; instead the viewer feels the entire space charged with a powerful vibrating energy.
These cultures had a worldview that, insofar as it can be reconstructed from their art and other evidence, is very different from the complex and compartmentalized philosophies common to industrialized societies. Humans, animals, plants, earth, water, and sky were all elements of a continuum of being. Thus not only did humans wear animal masks, but beings were often depicted as part human, part animal. A wonderful Peruvian ceramic Nazca vessel depicts a composite fish, feline, and human figure. A ceramic vessel in the shape of a seven-peaked mountain (Peru, Moche) is painted with priestly figures, and at each of the seven peaks are snail shells (it seems that land snails were ritually hunted in the surrounding mountains). Vessels in the form of roots and fruits and a large stone sculpture of a conch shell–far larger than actual size–further testify to the importance these cultures gave other living things.
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Indeed, as several scholars in the exhibit’s fascinating, superbly illustrated catalog point out, in many of these civilizations the capital city stood for the whole cosmos, affirming for its people their special, chosen nature. Within some of these cities a central area (and often at the center of that area a main temple) also stood for, via its architecture and orientation to the land, the world. Many of the abstract patterns in this art resemble the often rectilinear plats of the ancient cities. More generally, the patterns frequently are so rich and complex as to suggest they were meant–and can certainly be seen today–as representations of a whole world. In the superb ceramic Plate of the Sun (Guatemala, Peten, Tikal), the sun’s orb is split in half by a rectangle of complex abstract patterns, perhaps suggestive of an overhead view of a sacred temple.
Even harsher are those works that directly confront the viewer. Often a terrible stare seems to violate the viewer’s autonomy. A ceramic fire-god effigy censer (Guatemala, Maya, Peten, Tikal) has eyes all the more terrible because they’re invisible–covered by petals. The figure offers the viewer a severed human head. The god’s open mouth displays four teeth, small heads are carved elsewhere on the body (again, power gained through incorporation of others), and the crotch is covered by an even fiercer face, mouth open wide.
This exhibit is the Art Institute’s way of celebrating the encounter, 500 years ago, between Columbus and the New World. And it seems to be a far more appropriate celebration than several other attempts. The National Gallery’s “Circa 1492” exhibit contained acres of great art but combined works from China, Japan, Europe, Korea, and the New World; it lacked focus and ultimately seemed an ironically fitting “booty of the world” show. Here, Chicago curator Richard Townsend selected only certain Amerindian cultures, making it possible to explore each in some depth. And in fact the art of each culture is quite distinct, as visitors to the exhibit will quickly see; but in this review I’ve chosen to focus on similarities.
Similarly, while the catalog does a fine job of describing the integration of art, culture, architecture, and landscape in all of these societies, and while the exhibit does include some superb large photographs of key sacred sites, it would be easy for the casual visitor to miss the point of the exhibition’s subtitle–“Art From Sacred Landscapes”–entirely. Perhaps a less bland introductory slide show would help, one that offered more specific information on the relationships between the objects and their cultures, and between the architecture and the land. Anyone who’s been to any of these sacred sites can testify to the utter inadequacy of even the best photography or most lucid text in conveying the integrated relationship of buidings and landscape: mention of that inevitable inadequacy would have been, at the very least, appropriate.
