Famous Art History Paintings Dresses Related to Aztec Mythology
The Aztec civilisation, centred at the capital of Tenochtitlan, dominated most of Mesoamerica in the 15th-16th centuries. With military conquest and trade expansion, the art of the Aztecs also spread, helping the Aztec civilization reach a cultural and political hegemony over their subjects and creating for posterity a tangible record of the creative imagination and great talent of the artists from this last great Mesoamerican civilization.
Influences
Common threads run through the history of Mesoamerican culture and particularly in art. The Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Zapotec civilizations, among others, perpetuated an artistic tradition which displayed a love of monumental rock sculpture, imposing compages, highly decorated pottery, geometric stamps for fabric and body art, and breathtaking metalwork which were all used to correspond people, animals, plants, gods and features of religious anniversary, peculiarly those rites and deities connected to fertility and agriculture.
Aztec artists were also influenced by their contemporaries from neighbouring states, especially artists from Oaxaca (a number of whom permanently resided at Tenochtitlan) and the Huastec region of the Gulf Coast where there was a potent tradition of three-dimensional sculpture. These various influences and the Aztecs' own eclectic tastes and adoration of aboriginal art made their art one of the most varied of all ancient cultures anywhere. Sculptures of gruesome gods with abstruse imagery could come from the same workshop equally naturalistic works which depicted the beauty and grace of the animal and human being form.
Features of Aztec Art
Metalwork was a detail skill of the Aztecs. The great Renaissance artist Albrecht Drurer saw some of the artefacts brought back to Europe which caused him to say, '...I accept never seen in all my days that which and so rejoiced my heart, as these things. For I saw among them amazing creative objects, and I marvelled over the subtle ingenuity of the men in these afar lands'. Unfortunately, as with most other artefacts, these objects were melted down for currency, and and so very few examples survive of the Aztecs' fine metalworking skills in gilt and silver. Smaller items have been discovered, amongst them gold labrets (lip piercings), pendants, rings, earrings and necklaces in aureate representing everything from eagles to tortoise shells to gods, which are testimony to the skills in lost-wax casting and grid piece of work of the finest artisans or tolteca.
The Aztecs also employed art as a tool to reinforce their military & cultural dominance across Mesoamerica.
Aztec sculpture has been a better survivor, and its subject was very oft individuals from the extensive family of gods they worshipped. Carved in stone and wood these figures, sometimes monumental in size, were non idols containing the spirit of the god, as in Aztec religion the spirit of a particular deity was thought to reside in sacred bundles kept within shrines and temples. Nevertheless, it was thought necessary to 'feed' these sculptures with claret and precious objects, hence tales from the Spanish conquistadors of huge statues splattered with blood and encrusted with jewels and gold. Other large sculptures, more in the round, include the magnificent seated god Xochipilli and the various chacmools, reclining figures with a hollow carved in the breast which was used every bit a receptacle for the hearts of sacrificial victims. These, as with most other Aztec sculpture, would have once been painted using a wide range of bright colours.
Smaller-scale sculpture has been constitute at sites beyond Key Mexico. These ofttimes have the course of local deities and especially gods related to agronomics. The near mutual are upright female figures of a maize deity, typically with an impressive headdress, and the maize god Xipe Totec. Lacking the finesse of imperial-sponsored fine art, these sculptures and similar pottery figures ofttimes represent the more benevolent side of the Aztec gods.
Aztec Ceremonial Knife
Miniature work was also pop where subjects such as plants, insects, and shells were rendered in precious materials such equally carnelite, pearl, amethyst, rock crystal, obsidian, shell, and the most highly valued of all materials, the precious stone jade. One other fabric which was highly prized was exotic feathers, specially the green plumage of the quetzal bird. Feathers cut upwards into small pieces were used to create mosaic paintings, as ornament for the shields of Aztec warriors, costumes and fans, and in magnificent headdresses such every bit the one ascribed to Motecuhzoma 2 which is now in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna.
Turquoise was a particularly favoured material with Aztec artists, and the use of it in mosaic course to comprehend sculpture and masks has created some of the nearly hit imagery from Mesoamerica. A typical example is the decorated homo skull which represents the god Tezcatlipoca and which now resides in the British Museum, London. Another fine case is the mask of Xiuhtecuhtli, the god of burn, with sleepy-looking female parent-of-pearl eyes and a perfect set of white conch shell teeth. Finally, there is the magnificent double-headed snake pectoral, too now in the British Museum. With carved cedar wood completely covered in small-scale squares of turquoise and the red mouths and white teeth rendered in spondylus and conch shell respectively, the piece was probably once role of a ceremonial costume. The serpent was a potent image in Aztec art as the creature, able to shed its pare, represented regeneration and was also particularly associated with the god Quetzalcoatl.
Despite the absence of the potter's cycle, the Aztecs were as well skilled with ceramics as indicated past large hollow figures and several beautifully carved lidded-urns which were excavated past the side of the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan, probably used every bit receptacles for funeral ashes. Other examples of ceramic works are the moulded censers with tripod legs from Texcoco, spouted jugs, and elegant hourglass-shaped cups. These vessels are typically thin-walled, well proportioned, take a foam or red and black slip, and deport finely painted geometric designs in earlier designs and flora and fauna in later examples. The most highly-prized ceramics by the Aztecs themselves, and the type which Motecuhzoma himself used, were the ultra-sparse Cholula ware from Cholollan in the Valley of Puebla. Vessels could likewise be made from moulds or carved while the clay was still leather-hard. A fine case of these anthropomorphic vessels is the celebrated vase representing the head of the pelting god Tlaloc painted a bright blue, with goggle eyes and fearsome red fangs, at present in the National Museum of Anthropology in United mexican states City.
Tlaloc
Musical instruments were another important part of the Aztec artist's repertoire. These included ceramic flutes and wooden teponaztlis and huehuetls, respectively, long and upright ceremonial drums. They are richly busy with carvings, and one of the finest is the Malinalco drum which is covered in dancing jaguars and eagles who represent sacrificial victims as indicated past banners and speech scrolls of warfare and fire symbols.
Art as Propaganda
The Aztecs, as with their cultural predecessors, employed art as a tool to reinforce their military and cultural authorization. Imposing buildings, frescoes, sculpture and even manuscripts, especially at such key sites as Tenochtitlan, non only represented and even replicated the primal elements of Aztec religion, simply they also reminded field of study peoples of the wealth and power which permitted their construction and manufacture.
The supreme instance of this utilize of art as a conveyor of political and religious messages is the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan which was much more than a hugely impressive pyramid. Information technology was carefully designed in every detail to correspond the sacred snake mountain of the globe Coatepec, so important in Aztec religion and mythology. This mountain was the site where Coatlicue (the earth) gave nascency to her son Huitzilopochtli (the sun), who defeated the other gods (the stars) led by his sister Coyolxauhqui (the moon). A temple to Huitzilopochtli was built on top of the pyramid along with some other in award of the rain god Tlaloc. Farther associations with the myth are the serpent sculptures lining the base and the Great Coyolxauhqui Rock carved in c. 1473, besides found at the base of the pyramid and which represents in relief the dismembered body of the fallen goddess. The stone, along with other such sculptures as the Tizoc Stone, related this cosmic imagery to the contemporary defeat of local enemies. In the instance of the Coyolxauhqui Rock, the defeat of the Tlatelolca is existence referenced. Finally, the Templo Mayor was itself a repository of fine art equally, when its interior was explored, a vast hoard of sculpture and art objects were discovered entombed with the remains of the dead and these pieces are, in many cases, works that the Aztecs had themselves collected from more aboriginal cultures than their own.
Tizoc Stone
Temples extolling the Aztec view of the world were also constructed in conquered territories. The Aztecs usually left existing political and authoritative structures in place, but they did impose their own gods in a hierarchy in a higher place local deities, and this was largely done through compages and fine art, backed up with sacrificial ceremonies at these new sacred places, typically constructed on previous sacred sites and often in spectacular settings such as on mount peaks.
The Sun Rock was carved c. 1427 & shows a solar disk which presents the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology.
Aztec imagery which spread across the empire includes many lesser-known deities than Huitzilopochtli and there are a surprising number of examples of nature and agronomical gods. Possibly the most famous are the reliefs of the water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue on the Malinche Loma near ancient Tula. These and other works of Aztec fine art were well-nigh often fabricated past local artists and may have been commissioned past authorities representing the state or by private colonists from the Aztec heartland. Architectural fine art, stone carvings of gods, animals and shields, and other art objects have been establish across the empire from Puebla to Veracruz and especially around cities, hills, springs, and caves. Further, these works are normally unique, suggesting the absence of whatever organised workshops.
Masterpieces
The large round Stone of Tizoc (carved c. 1485 from basalt) is a masterful mix of cosmic mythology and real-world politics. It was originally used as a surface on which to perform human sacrifice and as these victims were unremarkably defeated warriors it is entirely appropriate that the reliefs around the edge of the stone depict the Aztec ruler Tizoc attacking warriors from the Matlatzinca, an area conquered by Tizoc in the late 15th century CE. The defeated are also portrayed as Chichimecs i.east. landless barbarians, whilst the victors wear the noble dress of the revered aboriginal Toltec. The upper surface of the rock, 2.67 m in diameter, depicts an viii-pointed dominicus-disk. The Stone of Tizoc now resides in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico Urban center.
Coatlicue
The massive basalt statue of Coatlicue (carved in the final one-half-century of Aztec rule) is widely considered ane of the finest examples of Aztec sculpture. The goddess is presented in terrifying form with ii snakeheads, clawed anxiety and hands, a necklace of dismembered hands and human hearts with a skull pendant, and wearing a skirt of writhing snakes. Perhaps one of a group of four and representing the revelation of female power and terror, the 3.v k loftier statue leans slightly forrard so that the overall dramatic consequence of the piece is so emotive that it is understandable why the statue was actually re-buried several times following its original digging in 1790. The statue of Coatlicue now resides in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
The Sun Stone, also known equally the Aztec Calendar Stone (despite the fact that information technology is not a functioning calendar), must be the almost recognisable art object produced past any of the great civilizations of Mesoamerica. Discovered in the 18th century nigh the cathedral of Mexico City, the stone was carved c. 1427 and shows a solar disk which presents the v sequent worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The basalt rock is 3.78 m in diameter, most a metre thick and was in one case function of the Templo Mayor complex of Tenochtitlan. At the centre of the stone is a representation of either the lord's day god Tonatiuh (the 24-hour interval Dominicus) or Yohualtonatiuh (the Night Sun) or the primordial earth monster Tlaltecuhtli, in the latter example representing the final destruction of the world when the 5th dominicus fell to earth. Around the key face at four points are the other four suns which successively replaced each other after the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca struggled for control of the cosmos until the era of the 5th sun was reached. On either side of the cardinal face are two jaguar heads or paws, each clutching a eye, representing the terrestrial realm. The ii heads at the bottom centre represent burn down serpents, and their bodies run effectually the perimeter of the stone with each ending in a tail. The four cardinal and the inter-fundamental directions are also indicated with larger and lesser points respectively.
Aztec Sun Rock
As one last example of the wealth of Aztec fine art which has survived the best subversive efforts of their conquerors, there is the life-sized hawkeye warrior from Tenochtitlan. The figure, seemingly virtually to accept flight, is in terra cotta and was fabricated in four carve up pieces. This Eagle Knight wears a helmet representing the bird of prey, has wings and fifty-fifty clawed anxiety. Remains of stucco suggest that the figure was one time covered in real feathers for an fifty-fifty more than life-similar effect. Originally, it would have stood with a partner, either side of a doorway.
Conclusion
Following the fall of the Aztec Empire the production of indigenous art went into decline. However, some designs of the Aztec civilisation lived on in the work of local artists employed by Augustinian friars to decorate their new churches during the 16th century. Manuscripts and plumage paintings besides continued to be produced, but it was not until the tardily 18th century that an interest in Precolumbian fine art and history would atomic number 82 to a more systematic investigation of only what lay under the foundations of modern Mexican cities. Slowly, an ever-growing number of Aztec artefacts accept revealed, in case there had e'er been whatever doubt, proof-positive bear witness that the Aztecs were amongst the most ambitious, creative, and eclectic artists that Mesoamerica had e'er produced.
This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.
Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/Aztec_Art/
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