"The
Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire" is a show of modest size
but outsize impact. Not only is the subject unexpected and intriguing,
but the loans that have been secured are phenomenal. It's the most
impressive show the Getty Villa has organized since reopening four
years ago.
The
first gallery introduces Spain's conquest of Mexico. A second gallery
charts an array of Aztec deities. The third room considers imperial
power. In each section, a few European objects are also included.
Here's
the premise: Spain's adventure abroad coincided with the Renaissance,
which elevated Europe's Greco-Roman history to a position of prominence.
In the European mind, circa 1520, the Aztec empire resonated with
the ancient Roman empire. What better place to ponder the connection
than the Getty Villa, with its European antiquities housed in a
Roman-style building?
To
do so effectively required getting major loans -- and the Getty
got them. Extraordinary objects have been borrowed from Mexico City's
two preeminent Aztec collections: the National Museum of Anthropology
and the Templo Mayor Museum. (In part the exhibition celebrates
the bicentennial of Mexican independence.) And a remarkable Mexican
document from the Michelangelo-designed Laurentian Library in Florence,
Italy, returns to the Americas for the first time since it was drawn
and painted 400 years ago.
That
work is Volume 1 of a three-volume manuscript produced under the
direction of Bernardino de Sahagún, a Spanish-born Franciscan
friar who came to Mexico to evangelize for the Catholic Church.
Conquistador Hernán Cortés, who defeated the rich
and powerful Aztec civilization, had a particular exchange in mind:
Spain would take Mexico's deep deposits of gold and silver and in
return would bring the ostensibly greater prize of Christianity
to its people.
Fair
or not, the trade worked well for Charles V, the Spanish king who
also reigned as Holy Roman Emperor.
Sahagún's
manuscript, compiled a half-century after Cortés' slaughter
of the Aztecs, records their primary gods and goddesses in both
Spanish and Nahuatl, the native tongue, as well as in simple, watercolor
line-drawings. Each figure, almost childlike in its simplicity,
is shown in profile wearing appropriate dress, often carrying a
shield and holding an attribute -- a sheaf of wheat, for example,
or a thunderbolt-style scepter.
Most
important, many are identified with their equivalent gods and goddesses
in the Roman pantheon, such as Juno (matrimony), Ceres (agriculture)
and Venus (love). The Aztecs were as superstitious as the Romans,
which may or may not be a mindset common to empires. And the evangelist
Sahagún of course took liberties. Consider Tlaculteutl, the
supposed Aztec version of Venus, who was actually associated with
a concept of sexual sin.
But
the manuscript had a job to do, and respectful accuracy in describing
the folkways of perceived barbarians was not it. Cultural assimilation
was. The fudging of identity in slight misrepresentations of Aztec
theology corresponds to the cartoon-like nature of the drawings.
They abandon realistic illusion and refinement for the congenial
malleability of generalization.
The
Florentine Codex is a trove of fascinating information, but the
book can be displayed to show only two pages at a time. So engrossing
context is also provided through lots of relevant engravings, maps,
calendars and other documents from the Getty Research Institute,
plus a dramatic 10-panel folding screen painted by an unidentified
Baroque artist. The screen chronicles -- and in many respects fabricates
-- an extravagant panoramic history of Cortés' conquest.
The
show's primary visual highlights are its Aztec sculptures. Some
are modest in size, including a small cylindrical vessel of speckled-gray
alabaster at the entry.
Just
over 6 inches high, it features the Lord of Death carved in high
relief. The skull-like head and body are frontal, its arms held
up and against the vessel as if it were being carried on the deity's
back. The carving, marked by simplified forms and bilateral symmetry,
is direct and polished. Ornate detail is kept to a minimum; where
it does appear -- on the fan-like headdress and other adornment
-- the relief is shallow. The result is visual solidity, which makes
the small vessel feel monumental.
Monumentality
is essential to an art of empire, given the need to be imposing
in the face of diverse crowds. Unsurprisingly it is a trait shared
by Aztec and Roman sculpture.
An
astonishing, life-size terra cotta and stucco figure of a skeletal
demon leans forward, his liver suspended from his rib cage like
an exotic orchid hanging from a tree. A massive, decapitated greenstone
head of a sacrificed goddess is embellished with low-relief bells
and sea shells, which celebrate her role in Aztec society's founding
mythology. A bulky clay water vessel adorned with the mask of the
rain god, Tlaloc, is painted almost entirely blue, interrupted only
by bands of earthen red and unadorned terra cotta, as befits his
life-giving role.
A
lavishly embellished stone figure of a flower prince, seated cross-legged
on a base, appears caught in a moment of chanting. His head is tossed
back, the mouth of his mask open and right arm raised. Despite this
extraordinary animation, the figure is entirely confined within
a vertical shaft of space established by the rectangular base. Powerful,
sturdy and meant to be viewed face to face, this chanting prince
sings an eternal song.
The
frontality of much of this sculpture is downright confrontational.
The Aztec empire was an alliance of three city-states that held
its coalition together for about a century, until Cortés.
Confrontational art works for a civilization that, like Rome's,
ruled its vast territory through a mix of warring aggression and
compulsory tributes.
It
faces you down, as if in a dare.
The
Getty show, conceived under former director Michael Brand and beautifully
organized by Getty curator Claire L. Lyons and UCLA art historian
John Pohl, is admirably restrained in drawing connections between
the empires. Occasionally direct, the comparisons are more often
implied.
In
the last room, a bronze eagle from Imperial Rome (in the Getty Villa's
collection) stands with wings spread and one leg raised, almost
like a bird-effigy of a conquering general. It couldn't be more
different, aesthetically speaking, from the low, heavy, massive
stone-carving of an eagle nearby, used in Aztec ritual as a receptacle
for the incineration of a captured enemy's heart.
However
dissimilar, both sculptures tell you that you're in the presence
of an imposing power. They also say that you'd better be paying
attention.
--
Christopher Knight
"The
Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire," Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific
Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, (310) 440-7300, through July 5.
Admission: Free, tickets required. Parking: $15. www.getty.edu/visit
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