Towards a More Systematic Approach to Analyzing Artistic Influences: A View from the Pacific Coast of Southeastern Mesoamerica

Summary

Artistic evidence of interactions is among the most salient and most debated in terms of the relationships that it represents between different polities and regions. Traditionally, the focus of analysis is on stylistic and iconographic influences and a discussion of retention of original meanings or evidences of disjunctions. Based on my research on the topic of Classic Period interactions from the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, I have come to the conclusion that our perspectives are much too narrow. In Mesoamerica, color, composition, medium, style, and iconography among other elements of art must be taken in consideration as well. Each of these components can be potentially leveraged to signify specific meanings and relationships in artistic form. In this paper, I would like to propose a more systematic approach to understanding interactions and their artistic manifestations using evidence from the Pacific Coast of Chiapas and Guatemala as a case study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20588