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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finding ancient America, December 21, 2001
By A Customer
The Art Institute of Chicago celebrated the fifth centennial anniversary of the discovery and settling of the Americas by an exhibition on Amerindian art and culture. Items came from collections and museums in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Richard F Townsend has edited a gorgeously illustrated, smoothly organized and thoroughly researched book of contributions by hard-working, knowledgeable, and well-traveled scholars. What particularly impressed me in THE ANCIENT AMERICAS: ART FROM SACRED LANDSCAPES was how the ancient cultures left behind such lasting evidence for us of all their many achievements, which they had reached while respecting their surroundings as sacred: my sculptress mother used to say, and my artist sister still says, that ancient art, particularly in the Americas and in Indonesia, was especially moving in how it showed the flow of life back and forth between nature and people, with all seen as spiritually created. In fact, I like the way that the editor begins writing about symbols in landscape with an old New Mexican Indian in Taos simply asking psychologist Carl Jung, "Do you not think that all life comes from the mountain?" For my own answers, I found Evon Z Vogt's discussion on the keeping of Maya tradition in Zinacantan something that I could relate to, what with his explanations of sacred geography in the cross shrines marking the mountain homes of the old gods, who meet together over what is happening with their descendants and expect offerings of black chickens, cane liquor, copal incense, and white candles. Also, I found Beatriz de la Fuente's writing on Olmec art fascinating: artists carved some of their huge sculptures according to the golden mean system of proportion popular among the great Mediterranean cultures; this proportion shows up in everything, from human beings to microscopic life. So carving this ratio into colossi and jade figures put the universe into each sculpture. And Johan Reinhard's explaining the Nazca lines mixed his own exquisite photographs, which also grace other sections, with a compelling text: the Nazca culture left distinct, high-quality ceramics and textiles behind in southern coastal Peru, where they also built large pyramids and an intricate system of underground canals that might be unique in the Americas. What the culture has most recently been known for are the great figures and lines carved into the desert, but first and best viewed in the twentieth century from the air. Dr Reinhard suggests that this was all part of a fertility/mountain/water cult, what with most of the motifs being birds, cultivated plants, fish, mammals and reptiles; what with rituals from long ago still being carried out today for rain offerings in the mountains, seen as the source of water for people living in a very dry climate; and what with weather gods believed to leave their mountain homes by taking shape as birds or mythological flying felines, therefore needing big reminders on the ground over which they were flying to make sure that they would send plenty of water for growing crops and keeping the culture going. So this book is an excellent, one-of-a-kind read that leaves readers ready for whichever of the cultures they are most interested in reading more specifically about: although currently out of print, it is well worth the effort to track down any available copies.
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