Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture

C

2

Nazca

The Nazca of Peru's southern coastal region were roughly contemporary with the Moche. Like their Paracas predecessors, the Nazca produced little architecture and excelled at making textiles and pottery with colorful stylized designs that contrast sharply to the realism and restrained color of northern Peruvian ceramics. Nazca pottery is as exuberantly polychromed as it is boldly designed and drawn. Paracas incising was no longer used, and color was applied before (instead of after) firing. Although both the Moche and the Nazca made pots that combined modeled elements and drawings, the Moche preferred sculptural pottery, and the Nazca, painted.

Among the most enigmatic of all pre-Columbian remains are the Nazca lines. These are drawings in the earth of geometric shapes, animals, birds, and fish that can be fully recognized only from the air. Certainly ceremonial in use, the images recall those painted on Nazca pottery. They were made by removing dark upper-surface stones to reveal a lighter substratum.

C

3

Tiwanaku

Tiwanaku is a Bolivian site in the southern Central Andean highlands near Lake Titicaca. Although Tiwanaku was settled as early as about 200 bc, it was between about ad 200 and 600 that this urban complex became the center of another major Classic period civilization.

In Tiwanaku art and architecture the emphasis is on austerity, control, and permanence. Decorative motifs and religious imagery are rigidly stylized. Both buildings and sculpture are characterized by a monumental effect and monolithic appearance. The Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku is cut from a single stone and ornamented with finely executed relief decoration; only 3.7 m (12 ft) high, it appears more monumental because of its design. Scattered throughout the Tiwanaku area are pillarlike monolithic statues that reach heights of more than 6 m (more than 20 ft) and are decorated with low-relief detailing. The Tiwanaku culture was one of the few in the Central Andean Area committed to an extensive use of stone for architecture, sculpture, and ceremonial objects.

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C

4

Huari

The Huari (Wari) shared a religion and iconography with the Tiwanaku, but were socioeconomically separate. Between about 750 and 1000 the Huari Empire put an end to Peruvian regionalism, thereby preparing for the cultural unification of the Inca period.

Like the Moche, the Huari were a warrior society that appreciated fine artistry and design. Coastal Huari cultures (formerly referred to as Coastal Tiwanaku) produced textiles of the highest quality. Many of the patterns, especially for ponchos, were abstractions of motifs painted on Tiwanaku pottery. Although less refined than Tiwanaku ceramics, Huari pottery stressed solid construction, bold design, and a rich use of polychromy.

D

Post-Classic Period

The Inca were preeminent during the Post-Classic period, rivaled only by the Chimu.

D

1

Chimu

Northern Peru was dominated by the Chimu from about 1000 until 1470. Their imperial capital of Chan Chan was constructed of large walled adobe compounds reflecting those of earlier Huari settlements. The largest Andean urban site and a true city, Chan Chan consists of ten major quadrangles, each containing small pyramids, residences, markets, workshops, reservoirs, storehouses, gardens, and cemeteries. The buildings are decorated with geometrically patterned mosaics of adobe bricks or bas-reliefs, molded in clay plaster, of stylized animals, birds, and mythological figures.

Although Chan Chan was not fortified, the Chimu defended their empire by building fortresses on the frontiers. Paramonga, which defended the southern border, is considered a masterpiece of military engineering, as is the fortress of Saccasihuamán above Cuzco.

Chimu pottery was primarily mass-produced through the use of molds. Its characteristic black color was achieved through almost smothering the flame, drastically reducing the oxygen in the kiln, during firing. Decoration was usually molded relief, and the surface was polished after firing to give the pot a silverlike sheen.

Metalworkers also mass-produced objects by using molds. Compared with Chimu pottery, however, the metalwork is more distinctive in design and individual in artistic execution.

Textiles were made with the same quality and quantity as other Chimu arts. The featherwork was especially outstanding, and their feathered ponchos were among the most luxurious garments made in the Post-Classic period.

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