Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This session aims to explore polychromy, multimediality, and other forms of visual complexity in Mesoamerican art. A recent body of scholarship has demonstrated that the choice of certain materials and their subtle assemblage, as well as the manufacture of artworks with particularly complex formal features, convey values and meanings of crucial relevance for the societies that created them, while also providing fresh understanding of Indigenous concepts of artistic creation(s). Most of these studies fruitfully conjoin analysis of artifacts or artistic corpuses with the study of historical documents, especially those written in Indigenous languages, in order to provide an emic approach to Mesoamerican aesthetics. Building on these works thematically and methodologically, this session will discuss individual artworks and widespread artistic traditions that generate insights into artists’ approaches to cultivating visual complexity—encompassing the use of color, multiple materials, and strategies of design—in Mesoamerican art of different genres and historical periods, in order to better understand their purposes and meanings within specific cultural contexts. Broadening the discussion beyond the widespread focus in the existing scholarship on historical Nahua art, this panel will seek to broaden the discussion by including presentations that tackle other cultural traditions or that incorporate ethnographic approaches.