Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T01:36:42.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Strategies of Organization in Teotihuacan Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Esther Pasztory
Esther Pasztory
Affiliation:
Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It was not so long ago, even in my own work, that Teotihuacan art was explained in terms of Aztec meaning (Pasztory 1973). Yet its unique composite character, combined seemingly endlessly from a limited set of signs, was also apparent quite early; and the basic cluster of imagery was defined by many, including Hasso von Winning (1987) and Laurette Séjourné (1956). Their aim was to group the signs around deities or at least into motif clusters. A major division everyone has tried to make is between fertility and war imagery. That notion, too, is Aztec derived, with the twin temple dedicated at Tenochititlan to Tlaloc, the rain god, and to Huitzilopochtli, the war god. We have hung on to this distinction as an intellectual life-belt even though even a cursory study can show that water and war imagery are often intermixed. In a short but provocative article, Kubler (1967) suggested a structural and linguistic reading of Teotihuacan art focusing on images that stand as nouns (main figures) and others as adjectives or adverbs (borders, costumes, etc.). In a long study full of excellent observation, Langley (1986) analyzed the signs and their clustering in the most sophisticated manner so far. The only shortcoming of his study is his search for writing at Teotihuacan and an unwillingness to accept it for what it is: a nonnarrative system of art.

Type
Special Section: Imagery and Notation at Teotihuacan
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Fall 1991 , pp. 247 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Kubler, George 1967 The Iconography of the Art of Teotihuacan. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, no. 4. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Langley, James C. 1986 Symbolic Notation of Teotihuacan. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 313. Oxford.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur G. 1973 The Mural Painting of Teotihuacan. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1988 A Reinterpretation of Teotihuacan and Its Mural Painting Tradition. In Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan, edited by Berrin, Kathleen, pp. 45–77. The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and the University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1990 El poder militar como realidad y retórica en Teotihuacán. In La época clássica: Nuevos hallazgos, nuevas ideas, edited by de Méndez, Amalia Cardos, pp. 181–204. Institute Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1991a Abstraction and Utopian Vision at Teotihuacan. In Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, edited by Berlo, J.C.. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, in press.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1991b The Natural World as Civic Metaphor. In Nuevo Mundo, an exhibition catalogue. Art Institute of Chicago, in press.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1991c Still Invisible: The Problem of the Aesthetics of Abstraction for Pre-Columbian Art and Its Implications for Other Cultures. RES, in press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Séjourné, Laurette 1956 Burning Water: Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico. Grove Press, New York.Google Scholar
Winning, Hasso von 1987 La iconografia de Teotihuacán: Los dioses y los signos. 2 vols. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.Google Scholar