Ancient West Mexico: Art of the Unknown Past
By Fred Camper
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Of the 262 ancient objects on view–there are also four modern works that show these cultures’ influence on 20th-century artists like Henry Moore and Diego Rivera–almost all are aesthetically superb, refined in form and detail in ways unfamiliar to most of us. Running concurrently is a show of some 60 objects from the same cultures at Douglas Dawson. Commercial galleries often piggyback on museum shows in the hope that collectors’ interest will be piqued. Not surprisingly, the best Art Institute work surpasses anything at Dawson, but the gallery’s display has one crucial advantage over the Art Institute’s: none of the work at Dawson is under glass. You can walk around the pieces, viewing them up close and from various angles; the gallery will also turn works that are against the wall around. Even better, a visitor who asks may be allowed to touch the pieces, and running one’s hands over these beautifully crafted objects is an experience not to be missed. Caressing the bulbous curves of a contortionist at Dawson–a man face up with a bowl-like opening in his belly–heightens one’s sense of a plentiful harvest.
Despite the many different styles and the often dynamic poses and powerful lines, much of the work has an underlying quietude not found in many other pre-Columbian cultures. These sculptures may refer to the seasons, the cycles of a human life, or a particular moment in one person’s life, but they are also permeated by silence, a sense of movement and time arrested: these living presences are monumentalized, preserved forever. A figure about to eat looks not at his food but up and away. A seated man holds a ball to his chest as if about to throw it, but his almost perfect symmetry and blank stare suggest the distilled essence of ball throwing. A seated chieftain at Dawson, similar to other figures at the Art Institute, is supremely calm, static, and symmetrical. He stares ahead with a look that seems an amalgam of all looking. His bulbous surfaces are gentle and powerful at once to the touch, his body an abstraction of all seated men. This 15-inch figure is as powerful and silent as a monument, permanently at rest.
At both venues even warriors poised with their darts are eternalized. They often look away from the direction of attack, suggesting a pose for posterity rather than an imminent stabbing. Sometimes these figures are festooned with patterns, geometrical designs on helmets, armor, and even faces. Research suggests a link between such patterns and contact with other cultures, perhaps through trading; in those cultures geometrical patterns were not mere designs but attempts to symbolically map the world. Here the patterns’ overall quality, their sense of continuing forever, also undercuts the particular moment.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): uncredited artwork.
