Textiles Studies

 

Date of this Version

2023

Document Type

Article

Citation

doi: 10.32873/unl.dc.zea.1407

Publicado en Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre, ed. C. Simmons Caldas y M. Valls i García (Lincoln, Nebraska: Zea Books, 2023). http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tihvsd

Comments

Copyright © 2023 Montserrat Camacho Ángeles

Abstract

Resumen: En los albores de nuestra cultura, aproximadamente hacia el 2500 a.C. surgió una civilización con grandes rostros, conformada por pueblos étnica y lingüísticamente diferentes pero unidos por una sola visión del mundo. Estos pueblos se desarrollaron en la región comprendida hoy por parte de México y América Central, caracterizados por algunos elementos culturales comunes, como el uso del calendario, el cultivo del maíz, los sacrificios humanos y un estilo artístico con rasgos únicos. Paul Kirchhoff denomina en 1943 a esta región como Mesoamérica y las culturas que en ella surgen estuvieron cimentadas fundamentalmente sobre tres bases: el sedentarismo, la agricultura y la alfarería. Se sabe que contaban con una compleja organización económica, política y religiosa; determinada de manera importante por su cosmovisión en donde las diferentes manifestaciones de las fuerzas de la naturaleza fueron convertidas en deidades, dando origen a una vasta y complejísima red de dioses y mitos.

Los seres humanos, el maíz y el calendario permean y determinan la consolidación de la cultura y el origen del poder. Las historias narradas en edificios, estelas, murales, cerámica y códices, son la transformación del conocimiento en materia (la idea en objeto). A través de la obra, el artista interpreta y materializa un mundo sobrenatural por medio de formas, volúmenes y color, para producir en el espectador una experiencia mística y tender un puente entre el hombre y su cosmovisión.

Abstract: At the down of our culture, by the year 2500 BC, a great civilization emerged, represented by large faces. It was made up of ethnically and linguistically different peoples, but at the same time united by a single worldview. Those peoples’ development took place in the region now known as Mexico and Central America. They were mainly characterized by some common cultural elements, such as the use of a calendar, the cultivation of maize, the practice of human sacrifices, as well as a unique artistic style. In 1943, Paul Kirchhoff named this region as Mesoamerica; and the civilizations which emerged there were based upon three main pillars: a sedentary way of living, the practice of agriculture, and pottery manufacturing. It is known that they had a complex economic, political and religious organization, as a result of their transcendental cosmic worldview, in which the different manifestations of natural forces were transformed into deities. This gave rise to a complex arrangement of gods, goddesses, and myths.

Thus, the human beings, the corn crops, and the use of a calendar were decisive in the consolidation of cultures and their source of power. The stories told by their buildings, steles, murals, pieces of pottery and codexes represent the transformation of their knowledge into matter – ideas turned into objects –, in which the artists interpreted their supernatural world so as to materialize it throughout the use of forms, volumes and colors. Those pieces of art even now make the spectator go through a mystic experience, and build a bridge between men and their own worldview.

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