Unseen Art : Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica

Brittenham, Claudia

University of Texas Press（2023/01発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 184 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781477325964
• DDC分類 970.01

Full Description

In Unseen Art, Claudia Brittenham unravels one of the most puzzling phenomena in Mesoamerican art history: why many of the objects that we view in museums today were once so difficult to see. She examines the importance that ancient Mesoamerican people assigned to the process of making and enlivening the things we now call art, as well as Mesoamerican understandings of sight as an especially godlike and elite power, in order to trace a gradual evolution in the uses of secrecy and concealment, from a communal practice that fostered social memory to a tool of imperial power.

Addressing some of the most charismatic of all Mesoamerican sculptures, such as Olmec buried offerings, Maya lintels, and carvings on the undersides of Aztec sculptures, Brittenham shows that the creation of unseen art has important implications both for understanding status in ancient Mesoamerica and for analyzing art in the present. Spanning nearly three thousand years of the Indigenous art of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize, Unseen Art connects the dots between vision, power, and inequality, providing a critical perspective on our own way of looking.

Contents

List of Tables and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Seeing and Knowing
Chapter 1. Making: Building Community at La Venta
Chapter 2. Vision: Seeing Maya Lintels
Chapter 3. Power: Carving the Undersides of Aztec Sculpture
Conclusion. The Language of Zuyua
Notes
Bibliography
Index