Polychromy in Nahua 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.

Through the analysis of several examples of Nahua artistic expression, including the mural paintings of Tlaxcala, the Borgia Group codices, and a wood sculpture encrusted with mosaic, this paper aims to demonstrate that the societies of Late Postclassic central Mexico cultivated a strong interest in polychromy, perceptible in these artworks' sophisticated manipulation of coloring materials and chromatic ranges. I will pinpoint different strategies selected by the artists to create polychrome pieces, depending on the media and materials they handled, from the use of complex palettes in the codices to the harmonious accumulation of small areas of color to create chromatically saturated images in murals and mosaics. I will also attempt to outline the values and meanings conveyed by polychromy in Nahua aesthetics, based on what the artworks show as well as an exploration of Indigenous discourses on artistic practices and a comparison with the use of colors in poetic images.

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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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33331