Robert Goldwater Library blog

'Radiance From the Rain Forest' in NYTimes

Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art
A wall hanging from the seventh or eighth century, made of cotton and macaw feathers. It was created by the Wari, a people of Peru’s southern highlands.

via NYTimes: Art Review:

'Radiance From the Rain Forest'
Objects From a Long-Vanished Peru, Parading All Their Magnificent Plumage
By KAREN ROSENBERG
Published: July 5, 2008

As Darwin wrote, brightly colored feathers give certain species of birds an evolutionary advantage. Ancient Peruvians adapted such plumage for their own purposes, adorning ritual objects and personal accessories with startling yellows, reds, greens and blues.

“Radiance From the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of the few New York museum exhibitions ever to focus on this little-known art form. Organized by a senior research associate, Heidi King, it supplements the Met’s rarely displayed holdings of featherwork with examples borrowed from public and private collections, including those of the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. It’s the kind of specialized yet accessible show that only the Met can pull off.

According to Ms. King, ancient Peruvians had no written language, and the symbolism is therefore somewhat arcane. Contemporary viewers can nonetheless appreciate the way feathers conveyed wealth, status and sheer animal magnetism.

Most of the works on view were made between the 7th and 16th centuries, before the Spanish conquest of Peru. They were objects for the elite, fashioned with feathers that were carried across the Andes from the Amazonian rain forests. The plumes themselves were considered luxury goods on a par with precious metals, shells and gemstones.

Well-preserved examples of featherwork are rare, because feathers are easily damaged and, like other organic materials, decompose. Among the most vivid works in the exhibition are two hangings with a simple abstract design of blue and yellow macaw feathers arranged in quadrants; they have retained their color and texture because they were stored in rolls within large ceramic urns. Made by the Wari people of Peru’s southern highlands, they are among the oldest works in the exhibition, dating from the seventh or eighth century, but they have a remarkably modern feel.

Macaws and other parrots supplied most of the plumage, but that of other species — Muscovy ducks, flamingos, egrets and the petite paradise tanager — was also prized. Some colors were produced artificially in a process known as tapirage. Birds with, say, green and blue feathers were plucked and then rubbed with frog secretions; the feathers would then grow back in an unnatural yellow-orange hue.

The Peruvians used several methods to attach feathers to a cotton or leather backing. To cover a large area, as with the Wari hangings, they often layered strings of feathers in horizontal rows. For smaller objects, individual feathers were glued on with a kind of mosaic technique.

On the large end of the scale are several richly patterned tabards, or open-sided tunics. The most spectacular of these has a blue semicircle, echoing the shape of a bird with extended wings, on a yellow background. On the smaller scale is a set of ear ornaments carved from wood and adorned with an intricate circular pattern of feathery wisps. Both examples date from the reign of the Chimu kings, who ruled the northern coast of Peru from the 13th century until the Spanish conquest in the 1500s.

The Chimu kings and other Peruvian royals favored luxurious accessories, including several different styles of headdress. Among the examples on view are conical helmets, a crown with flat plates in the front and rear, and a gladiatorlike tuft attached to waist-length earflaps.

Arguably the most beautiful object is a headdress from the late Moche or Wari periods (the 8th to the 10th century), patterned with curlicues, trapezoids and broad stripes of blue, chartreuse, red and black.

Not all Peruvian featherwork was intended for personal decoration. Peoples including the Nasca and the Inca used small feathered figures in rituals and as burial offerings. In a miniature family grouping, made by the Nasca in the first to third centuries, the figures have tiny parrot feathers tied to their wigs of braided human hair.

Other examples of ritual featherwork include a bag holding coca leaves made by Inca craftsmen within a century or so before the conquest. The covering of red and yellow parrot feathers remains intact, as do the bag’s medicinal contents.

Although the works in “Radiance” had social and religious currency in pre-Columbian Peru, their appeal transcends cultures. As the Rev. Bernabé Cobo, a Spanish missionary, noted in a chronicle of Peruvian customs, “The gloss, splendor and sheen of this feather cloth is of such exceptional beauty that it must be seen to be appreciated.”

“Radiance From the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru” continues through Sept. 1 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

Heidi King: Peruvian featherwork show

Radiance from the Rainforest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, By Heidi King. Tribal Art, no. 48 (spring 2008), p. 64-67.

Available in print in the Goldwater Library (A W97 No. 48 (Spring 2008)) or Online via WilsonWeb.

Crown
Chimú 14th–15th century
Fiber, hide, reeds, copper, feathers; H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Jane Costello Goldberg, from the Collection of Arnold I. Goldberg, 1986 (1987.394.655)

Four Maya sites featured on new web site

Originally spotted on ARLiSNAP:

An visually exciting and comprehensive web site on four Maya archaeological sites has just been posted by Charles Rhyne, professor emeritus of art history, and his colleagues at Reed College. [Kudos to Prof. Rhyne, who was my academic advisor at Reed.]

Architecture, Restoration and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil and Labná "includes over 1000 photographs ... taken on site, with descriptive captions, including architectural and sculptural details, paint remains, and interior spaces, not previously published. In addition, there are over 250 19th century drawings, prints and photographs and another 300 by early 20th century scholars, many previously unpublished, showing the appearance of these four cities before the extensive restoration campaigns of the twentieth century." While the site was produced by Reed College primarily for the use of its faculty and students, the site will certainly be of interest to a wider audience of specialists and non-specialists alike.

Of particular note to the library research-minded are the extensive scans culled from published works including Waldeck's Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dan la province d'Yucatan (1838), the several works by Stephens and Catherwood from the 1840s, as well as Charnay's Cités et Ruines Américaines (1862-63) and Anciennes  Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885), photographs by Le Plongeon, and Seler's monograph on the ruins at Uxmal.

An extensive bibliography is included, sorted into four separate pdf files by subject, author, title and date.

Nineteenth-century views of Mexico City

Reblogged in part from BibliOdyssey, 3/30/2008:

Mexico and Environs ['Mexico y sus Alrededores']

The album of chromolithographs, 'México y sus Alrededores' (Mexico and Environs), is online at NYPL. [A copy of the original is held by the Thomas J. Watson Library here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.] The principal lithographer/artist for the project was Casimiro Castro, one of Mexico's foremost landscape artists in the nineteenth century. The forty illustrations were originally published in 1855-1856 [available at Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (click 'leer'), which includes the text]. The version at NYPL was published in 1869.

Speaking of NYPL, check out the newly designed Digital Gallery, announced as a 'soft launch' last week.

Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru

Miniature Tabard
Chimú(?); 10th–16th century
Private collection

Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru
February 26, 2008–September 1, 2008
Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas—The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, 1st floor
 
View images from this exhibition.

In the Andean regions of ancient South America, the brilliantly colored feathers of Amazonian birds were a luxury that was much treasured and long used. From the third millennium B.C. onward, feathers served various ceremonial and secular purposes throughout pre-conquest Peruvian history. Radiant blues, yellows, reds, and greens embellished high-status apparel and accessories such as ear ornaments, pectorals, fans, headdresses, miniature ritual offerings, and large-scale hangings. Examples of them, drawn from public and private collections and the Museum’s own holdings, are on view.

Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru

The gloss, splendor, and sheen of this feather cloth is of such exceptional beauty that it must be seen to be appreciated,” wrote Europeans who arrived in Peru in the early sixteenth century. Astounded by the grandeur and fine quality of the textiles worn by Inka nobility, they particularly admired the luxurious cloth covered with plush, brilliantly colored feathers of birds from the Amazonian rain forest. In Precolumbian Peru, feathers were highly valued for their magnificent colors, silken texture, and perhaps also for their symbolism. Known in ritual contexts as early as the third millennium b.c., feathers served various ceremonial and secular purposes among Andean peoples throughout preconquest history. On the Pacific south coast in the early first millennium a.d., the Nasca peoples buried feathered garments and precious cloth figurines only a few inches tall, which were dressed in miniature clothes embellished with feather tufts, as offerings. In the seventh and eighth centuries the Wari people of the southern highlands covered impressive numbers of large panels with radiant macaw feathers, perhaps for display on festive occasions or as offerings. Farther north in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Chimú royalty rode in feather-decorated litters and wore feathered tabards and luxurious accessories in iridescent blues, yellows, reds, and greens. The conquering Inka are said to have “paved” the streets in their imperial city, Cusco, with colored and feathered cloth on the occasion of royal weddings.

Ancient Peruvian featherwork has not been extensively studied. As these fragile objects only rarely survive burial in good condition, the full repertoire may never be known. “Radiance from the Rain Forest” is the first exhibition at an American art museum to focus exclusively on the subject. On view are about seventy works, graciously lent by museums and private collections, illustrating the wide range of items embellished with this luxury material—garments, crowns, personal ornaments, accessories, and ritual objects. Additional impressive feathered textiles from the Museum’s permanent collection may be seen in the adjacent South American gallery.

The exhibition was made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Featherworking in Ancient Peru

Featherworking was a widespread and ancient tradition in Peru in Precolumbian times. Considered a luxury material by peoples along the Pacific coast and in the Andean mountains, feathers were used in rituals as well as to embellish festive and ceremonial garments and ornaments of persons of high rank. Particularly sought after were the brilliantly colored feathers of rain-forest birds that inhabit the eastern slopes of the Andes and the vast Amazonian basin. Examination of feathered pieces in museum collections has shown that the feathers from less than 2 percent of all bird species in the region were used. The most common were macaws—blue and yellow, scarlet, and red and green—and parrots, followed by Muscovy Ducks, curassows, flamingos, and egrets. Smaller birds included various types of cotingas, honeycreepers, and tanagers, especially the spectacular Paradise Tanager of five different colors. Birds of the coastal and highland regions of Peru—seabirds such as pelicans and cormorants and birds of prey, including hawks, eagles, and condors—are generally muted in color, and their feathers were seldom used decoratively. The dazzling feathers employed in the manufacture of plush feathered cloth had to be carried westward from the rain forest across the Andes to the coast, where the finished products were made. Spanish conquerors reported that during early-sixteenth-century Inka times, large quantities of plucked feathers as well as birds, both dead and alive, were brought to the coast. Parrots, macaws, and Muscovy Ducks—all easily tamed—are also thought to have been kept as pets.

Right: Headdress Chimú 15th–16th century Collection Michael and Judy Steinhardt, New York >

The highly specialized craft of featherworking used different techniques to surface garments and objects with feathers. Textiles covered with feathers were usually made by sewing strings of feathers—mostly the small body feathers or larger wing feathers of birds—to the fabric. Other smaller objects such as crowns or headbands of leather or ear ornaments of light wood were decorated with mosaics of tiny feathers—often of the Paradise Tanager—glued to the surface. Some featherworking techniques are explained here, and feathers are identified primarily by sight. The ancient context of feathered textiles is only rarely known, leaving iconography, style, and technology to determine approximate dates and cultural attribution. In recent years, however, archaeological investigations and technological studies have shown that most surviving feather pieces were made during the last five hundred years prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in Peru or during the early colonial period in the sixteenth century.

Contextualizing the Colonial Conquest of the Americas

Reblogged from the NY Times, 3/5/2008:

Exhibition Review
Two New Shows Cast Light and Darkness on Early Cultures in the Americas
by Edward Rothstein

So an attitude of promotional banality clouds the considerable virtues of [the Field Museum] show, which is rich in example and description, if not in analysis; this is a problem shared by many exhibitions about native peoples. The Field even boasts that it brought in indigenous descendants to advise and approve — something that has become perversely obligatory for museums, even if it is a little like consulting today’s residents of Tuscany when mounting an exhibition about ancient Rome.

Rothstein compares the temporary exhibition “Exploring the Early Americas” at the Library of Congress and the permanent installation “The Ancient Americas” at the Field Museum in Chicago. The article includes a slideshow.

Above: Moche sculptures at the Field Museum. Photo: Joshua Lott for the New York Times

Yale and Machu Picchu: the never-ending story

Eliane Karp-Toledo, former first lady of Peru and currently a visiting lecturer at Stanford University, contributes an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times. In it she questions Yale University's commitment to the 'memorandum of understanding' signed by the government of Peru and the university to repatriate archaeological objects from Machu Picchu collected by Hiram Bingham III (Yale '98) and housed at Yale. Her objection hinges on Yale's request to retain some artifacts for 99 years for research purposes.

Karp-Toledo's objection to the memorandum has been previously noted, in Yale Daily News, as early as last September.

• You can read a nice running commentary on the negotiations here.
• Read our previous post (Aug. 2007) on the agreement.

Mish-Mask

A still from Yinka Shonibare’s “Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball)” (2004) {See Slide Show}

via NYTimes:

Art Review | 'Mask'
Face Time: Masks, Animal to Video
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: January 11, 2008

The mask is one of the most basic and recognizable of all forms, and for good reason. One way early humans made sense of the universe was to personify its forces, and the most visible form of personification was the face. Masks have long been central to religious rituals, serving as tools of transformation and bridges to the spirit world. They have figured in ceremonies intended to ensure fertility and raise the dead, make crops grow and rain fall, kill enemies, ward off evil and cure sickness. They have been used by soldiers and celebrators of Lent, astronauts and action heroes, hockey players and fencers, firefighters and welders.

The ubiquity of the mask, regardless of time, place or purpose, is the impetus behind “Mask,” a sprawling show at the James Cohan Gallery in Chelsea. Subtitled “an exhibition of historic masks and contemporary works curated in collaboration with Joseph G. Gerena Fine Art,” this gathering of more than 40 masks and hoods, and more than 30 works in sculpture, video and photography, is a mishmash of cultures and functions in which old and older tend to dominate. This can mean an American firefighter’s goofy-looking smoke hood from around 1900; a carved and painted wood exorcism mask from 19th-century Sri Lanka; or a terra-cotta jaguar/man mask from Ecuador (700-300 B.C).

These and about 40 other masks from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, premodern Europe, turn-of-the-century America and several parts of Asia do most of the showstopping here. All were provided by Mr. Gerena, a private dealer who seems to have an excellent eye and, along with Mr. Cohan and his staff, has orchestrated an installation full of interesting cross-references and juxtapositions.

The show is also commendable for not being loaded with the gallery’s artists; only 4 of the 32 contemporary works here are from Team Cohan. This includes the opening salvo, a riveting video by Yinka Shonibare that may be one of the best things he has ever done. It shows a highly stylized masked ball in which the guests wear 18th-century garments made from Mr. Shonibare’s distinctive Euro-African fabrics, which is not new for him. But in this case he has used a combination of sound and movement to strip a minuetlike dance down to a tribal, almost animalistic ritual while still leaving its mannered veneer intact.

Beside the door to the video gallery there is an Oddfellows hoodwink from early-20th-century America. A small, neat variation on the masks seen in Mr. Shonibare’s video, it combines a leather eye mask and eyeglasses. It looks like something Amelia Earhart might have worn, except that the eyeglass lenses have little hinged covers that were raised and lowered as the Freemasons’ initiation rites progressed.

In the main gallery there is a lively interchange among historic masks from different cultures, with intermittent input from contemporary works. First, a row of seven masks confounds expectations. An 18th- to 19th-century skull mask from the Tibetan Sherdukpen people of northern India seems made to order for a Mexican Day of the Dead festival, while what looks like an African monkey mask is actually from Nepal.

The show emphasizes these transcultural twists and turns. [read on...]

Upcoming Public Programs at The Museum

Illustrated Talks and Performances

Arts and Dances of Oceania and Native North America: Illustrated Talks and Performances will be held Saturday, January 12 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. The program will begin with lectures by Eric Kjellgren, Evelyn A.J. Hall and John A. Friede Associate Curator, Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, and Amy Silva, Museum Educator. The lectures will be followed by traditional dance performances from Oceanic and Native North American cultures.

No reservations are required. The event takes place in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.

Related links:

• Discover the New Galleries for Oceanic Art, which opened on November 14.
• Browse collection highlights from the Museum's Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
• Learn about the new publication on Oceanic Art.

Image: Female Figure. Ha'apai Islands, Tonga, early 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.1470).

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Multicultural Winter Benefit: An Evening of Many Cultures

Thursday, January 24: 7:00–10:00 p.m.
Festive or Traditional Attire

The Multicultural Audience Development Initiative celebrates its 10th anniversary with a gala event. Join us for a reception, live music, and an international supper in the Temple of Dendur, along with viewings of several Met galleries and the special exhibition, Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary.

Purchase Benefit tickets to this event online. For more information please call 212-650-2525 or email audience.development@metmuseum.org.

Your ticket to an unforgettable evening helps support essential programs for the benefit of all our audiences. If you are unable to attend, please consider making an online donation toward the Museum's Multicultural Audience Development Initiative. Any gift amount is greatly appreciated.

Image: Sculptural Element from a Reliquary Ensemble: Seated Female (The Pahouin or Black Venus). Fang peoples, Betsi group; Gabon, 19th century. Musée Dapper, Paris 2891. Ex colls.: Georges de Miré, Paris; Louis Carré, Paris, 1935; Sir Jacob Epstein, London; The Carlo Monzino Collection, Lugano.

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New Met Podcast Episode: Ananse the Spider

The first of four new storytelling audio programs focusing on legends, myths, and other stories related to works in the Museum is now available. The first episode, Ananse the Spider, produced for younger audiences ages 7 to 12, features an African folktale and is inspired by a linguist staff (oykeame) in the Museum's collection. Narrated by actor Ronnie Washington.

The Met Podcast also features exclusive audio commentary on our world-renowned special exhibitions, as well as curatorial insights into individual masterpieces, artists' discussions of their work, and explorations of a wide variety of art-related topics.

Subscribe to receive new episodes automatically or access an archive of past ones. For more information, see Met Podcast.

Image: Linguist Staff (Oykeame), 19th–20th century, Ghana; Akan, Asante. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bryce Holcombe Collection of African Decorative Art, Bequest of Bryce Holcombe, 1984 (1986.475a–c).

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Archaeology in Mexico (article alert)

An Aztec stone slab found at Templo Mayor in Mexico City depicts Tlaltecuhtli, god of the earth, as a squatting clawed figure that drinks blood. AP (Source:    Anthropology and Archaeology)

The Practice of Archaeology in Mexico: Institutional Obligations and Scientific Results
Edited by Nelly M. Robles García

SAA Archaeological Record, vol. 7, no. 5 (November 2007), pp. 9-43. (Note: The most recent issues of this title are not freely available electronically.)

CONTENTS:

• The Practice of Archaeology in Mexico: Institutional Obligations and Scientific Results
• Good Colleagues, Good Neighbors
• Law and the Practice of Archaeology in Mexico
• The State Control on Archaeology in Mexico
• The Archaeological Registry in Mexico
• Salvage and Rescue Archaeology in Mexico
• Management and Conservation of Archaeological Sites
• The Relevance of Ethics in the Archaeology of Mexico as Pertaining to its Northern Neighbors
• Archaeological Curatorship and Material Analysis at INAH
• Directing Archaeological Projects in Mexico: Experiences over Three Decades