Tridimensionality, Multimediality, Polychromy, and Other Forms of Visual Complexity in Late Postclassic Mosaic Art

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Building on previous works that led to the definition of various stylistic families within the corpus of Late Postclassic central and southwestern Mexican mosaics, the paper explores the various formal and technological resources that each group of mosaics employed to attain specific forms of visual complexity. Tesserae shapes and dimensions, cabochons, and juxtaposition of materials with various colors and textures, as well as the use of codified motifs that functioned as iconographic property qualifiers, are among the diverse—and often alternative—practices that ancient lapidaries employed to create artworks whose surfaces could interact in a complex and meaningful way with light and, ultimately, with the observer’s gaze.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32616